Windows 7 32bit HP Envy 14 Review - ComputerShoppe

Trend Micro 32-Bit Editors'
Rating



The laser-etched pattern to the lid is trendy and assists maintain the Envy 14 from hunting too much like a MacBook Pro clone—though the light-up HP logo isn’t precisely an original idea.

The Envy 14’s keyboard is exceptional, with well-spaced keys and at ease important action.

The correct aspect capabilities combo USB/eSATA, HDMI, mini-DisplayPort, Ethernet, and strength connectors, along with a lock slot.

The left side sports the slot-loading DVD push, a pair of USB ports, a combo headphone/microphone jack, plus a separate headphone jack.

The backlit keyboard is helpful for nocturnal typing.
HP Envy 14 10 Stylish; stellar audio; fantastic keyboard; exceptional overall performance No Blu-ray drive alternative; extra-cost dongle necessary to output to VGA projectors The Envy 14 delivers top-notch overall performance, styling that can produce a MacBook Professional fan jealous, exceptional multimedia, and an great keyboard—all at a affordable cost.
Price (at time of evaluation): $1,289.99 (direct, as tested)
Important Specs Processor: 2.66GHz Intel Core i5-450M 2.40GHz (Turbo Improve)
Memory: 4GB RAM
Storage: 500GB hard drive
Optical Drive: 8x slot-loading dual-layer DVD writer
Screen: 14.5 inches (1,600x900 native resolution)
Graphics: Integrated Intel High definition graphics and ATI Mobility Radeon Hd 5650 (1GB, switchable)
Pounds: 5.2 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): one.11x14.01x9.33 inches
one.11x14.01x9.33 inches: Windows 7 House Top quality (64-bit)
HP Envy 14 Assessment Reviewed by: Denny Atkin
Evaluation Date: August 2010
When we reviewed HP’s first-generation Envy 15 previous year, we ended up impressed with its chic, quality building and excellent functionality but disappointed with its lack of an inner optical generate and its poor battery existence. HP’s latest entry inside the line, the Envy 14, addresses those grievances head on,Windows 7 32bit, sustaining the outstanding efficiency and durable style of the unique, although packing an optical drive and much-improved battery life in one with the most trendy and comfy Windows notebooks we’ve examined so far.
There’s no denying the MacBook Professional must have motivated the Envy 14’s layout crew. Its laser-etched, aluminum lid with light-up emblem, black-framed glossy LCD, backlit Chiclet keyboard resting in a sculpted depression, rounded edges, and buttonless touch pad are all extremely reminiscent of Apple’s high-end notebooks. It is not a slavish duplicate, even so. The largely aluminum situation isn’t of unibody construction—the bottom is black plastic—and in this most current revision HP gave up on trying to cram every one of the ports onto 1 facet and instead included some connectors lacking on previously Envy versions. Total, the design is tasteful, sophisticated, and sensible, and it feels really sound and sturdy. Measuring 1.11x14.01x9.33 inches and weighing in at five.2 kilos, it’s a bit scaled-down compared to Envy fifteen (however it's the same excess weight), regardless of the addition of the optical drive and beefier battery.
The 14.5-inch LED-backlit display is very crisp and vivid. Though the stock Envy ships which has a one,366x768-pixel screen, our design was equipped with all the roomy optional Radiance Infinity HD+ one,600x900 screen. The text is smallish on the higher-res display, but it is sharp ample that even modest fonts are simple to read. The show includes a vast coloration gamut, and we could see a vibrance and richness in digital pictures and DVD playback that’s not typical of the notebook at this price level. Actually, watching DVDs utilizing the slot-loading 8x DVD author had us wishing HP presented a Blu-ray generate choice for the Envy 14. Unfortunately, you are going to have to select the much greater Envy 17 if you want hi-def capacity. Also, even though the display seems to be fantastic, as with most glossy screens, it shows reflections inside the glass; we’d enjoy to see HP provide a matte choice.
The Envy 14’s Beats audio program is similarly impressive and it is a single region exactly where the Envy obviously outdoes the MacBook Pro. HP isolated the audio parts on the motherboard to prevent the interference that may result in static on some PCs, and additionally, it extra an amplifier and DSP to increase and enhance the audio. The outcomes around the built-in speakers are really good—volume and clarity are far higher than regular for the dual-speaker notebook. Plug the Envy 14 into external speakers or perhaps a very good set of headphones, although, and you are going to discover the audio is practically nothing brief of astounding. Even on low-cost earbuds, the audio clarity and punch of our tunes was drastically much better than we’d expect from a notebook. Pressing Fn-B to toggle off the Beats enhancements shows the method is including significant depth and further bass towards the audio.
The exceptional Chiclet keyboard has outstanding response, great spacing among keys, and it is very at ease to form on. The keyboard now includes a backlight, which can be toggled utilizing a purpose important. The perform keys double as media controls; you hit Fn in blend with them to enter an actual F1-F12 crucial press.


The large touch pad supports a variety of multi-touch gestures for scrolling, zooming, and rotating images; in addition, it adds new three-finger press and flick options for quick-launching applications and navigating Web pages. The lower third from the pad integrates the mouse buttons; just press down the left or proper sides to make selections.
The before Envy fifteen had a limited number of ports because HP crammed all of the ports along one particular facet. By spreading them out on both sides, the selection is considerably far better around the Envy 14. The number of USB two.0 ports has been upped from two to three, one of which doubles as an eSATA port. You are going to also uncover HDMI and mini-DisplayPort outputs, a Gigabit Ethernet connector, an SD/MMC slot, and both a headphone jack and a headphone-out/microphone-in combo jack. Wireless support includes Bluetooth and dual-band (two.4 and 5.8GHz) 801.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. There’s also a extremely good High definition webcam, which includes auto face-detection, great low-light performance, along with a built-in microphone. The one thing you might miss should you use your notebook for presentations is a VGA monitor output. Should you use VGA projectors, you’ll want to purchase an HDMI-to-VGA adapter cable, available being a $50 choice from HP, or for a lot less elsewhere. (Even Apple only charges $29 for a single.)


This notebook is just as ######y on the inside as the outside. It’s powered by a 2.4GHz Core i5-450M processor (supporting up to 2.66GHz in Turbo Improve mode), backed by 4GB of DDR3 RAM, with 6GB and 8GB configurations available. It includes an ATI Mobility Radeon High definition 5650 graphics processor with 1GB of DDR3 video memory for games and other demanding 3D applications; the notebook can automatically revert on the slower stock Intel Hd graphics developed into the motherboard chipset to save battery existence. (This is known as switchable graphics,Windows 7 Home Basic, but as far as implementation is concerned, this may be the least intuitive. Other switchable graphics options use a hardware switch or do so automatically.) There is a speedy 500GB, seven,200-rpm tough drive for storage, in addition to the aforementioned slot-loading 8x DVD burner. (The inclusion with the optical generate means the second inner push choice found on the Envy 15 is lacking here.)


There’s a single extra difference in the hardware, compared with all the Envy 15, which bears mentioning: While the Envy 15 would toast your lap with intensive use,Microsoft Office 2010 Product Key, the Envy 14 remains cool on the outside even when gaming and editing videos. The fan, which is nearly silent at idle, does get noticeably audible when the laptop is working challenging, but in addition, it does its job effectively and keeps the Envy 14 from heating up.
The Envy 14 turned in impressive outcomes on our benchmark tests. It did well on our PCMark Vantage benchmark test, which measures total method functionality with productivity programs. Its score of 6,185 to the 64-bit version from the test beat its Core i7-powered Envy 15 predecessor’s score of five,243 and was also considerably faster than five,734 scored by the Toshiba Satellite M645, a similar 14-inch, Core i5 consumer notebook that sells for $1,049.
The Envy 14’s Core i5 CPU also turned in excellent numbers on our media-centric tests. It completed our Windows Media Encoder test,Microsoft Office Standard 2010, which measures the speed of converting a video file to a new format, in 3 minutes and 59 seconds, nearly tying (by 1 second, give or take) the Core i7-powered Envy fifteen and the Toshiba M645. It did even greater on our iTunes conversion test, converting 11 songs from MP3 to AAC format in 3 minutes, 11 seconds, compared to 3:49 for the Envy 15, and 3:15 for the Toshiba M645.
On our Cinebench test, which taxes all the available cores of the CPU, the Envy 14 held it own, slightly beating out the category regular for other 64-bit notebooks, which has a score of 8,159 but this time, falling behind its closest competitors, which managed 8,348 (Toshiba M645) and 9,896 (HP Envy 15). The regular 64-bit score is 6,810, showing that the Envy 14 has the mettle to multitask and deliver on CPU-intensive chores, even though it’s not best-in-class.


The ATI Mobility Radeon High definition 5650 chip offers quite great 3D performance. Its score of 5,967 on our 3DMark 06 benchmark at native resolution isn’t best-in-class, but it’s double the regular for other thin-and-lights examined this year, and it is plenty fast to play modern games like Starcraft II smoothly and having a good level of detail. On our Company of Heroes DirectX 9 test, the Envy 14 managed a smooth 50fps at native resolution; that dropped to a still-playable 27.1fps in DirectX ten mode.
The Envy 14 lasted an impressive 3 hours and 17 minutes on our DVD rundown test, a considerable improvement over the Envy 15’s embarrassingly short 1:04 result. This is a tad short of the category common (3:26) but still greater than the Toshiba M645. Although writing this review, browsing the Web, and listening to Pandora, we managed just over 4.five hours on a single charge. This is due to its ability to shut off its ATI Radeon GPU on battery. Unfortunatley, you will should go into the Control Panel to manually re-enable the GPU when running on battery. Unlike the MacBook Professional it pays tribute to, the Envy 14 features a removable battery. You can purchase an further eight-cell inner battery for $75 when configuring the Envy 14, or choose the $200 six-Cell Slim Fit Extended Existence Battery, which clips onto the bottom from the notebook and works in conjunction together with the built-in battery.
On the software front, the Envy 14 includes Envy IOS (Instant-On Solution), a preboot environment based on Splashtop technology that gives you quick access to a Web browser, Skype, and other basic functions without needing to launch into Windows. Once you do boot the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Property Top quality, you're presented using a cool-looking (if somewhat dark) re-skinned version of the operating system. The incorporated HP MediaSmart utilities are actually worth a look, with sleek, easy-to-use modules that include a music player, photo manager, Web video viewer, basic video editor/DVD player, and Webcam controller. Bundled applications include Corel PaintShop Photo Professional X3, Corel VideoStudio Professional X3, Microsoft Works, plus a 60-day trial version of Norton Internet Security 2010. There’s also a preinstalled copy of Microsoft Office 2010. It’s not a demo version. Rather, you can purchase or enter a product important to utilize the full product, or choose the free, advertising-supported Office Starter 2010, which includes stripped-down versions of Word 2010 and Excel 2010. You likely won’t use or appreciate all these applications, but aside from the 60-day trial,Office Pro 2007, we wouldn’t ding them as bloatware.
HP offers some decent—though not astounding—support. You get a one-year hardware warranty on the Envy 14, complete with a dedicated toll-free 24/7 Envy support line, free shipping both ways on repairs, and online chat support.
With its stylish and sturdy design, exemplary efficiency, and stellar audio, HP earned an Editors' Choice for that before Envy 15 regardless of is pitiful battery life and optional exterior optical generate. With all the Envy 14 directly addressing those complaints, HP has definitely struck gold. The Envy 14 has seems, durability, overall performance, and very good battery life. It is really cozy to use, and it is reasonably priced to get a laptop in its class. With its super-sharp and colorful display screen, great illuminated keyboard, and superb audio playback, it’s hard to think of significantly that HP could do greater here.
Cost (at time of review): $1,289.99 (direct, as examined)

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