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I currently own 5 laptops. They range from small netbooks and tablet PC's to a 17" HP Entertainment laptop. As a contractor I used the 17" for all my meetings and it served its purpose well. The problem is I wanted something smaller, and a longer lasting battery.
I had looked at the envy 15 but it runs hot even while idle. I just did not like the heat on my palms as I typed. After much research the envy 13 seemed to meet all my requirements. ITs a very portable laptop and even with the slice (extra battery) attached its thinner and lighter than all my other laptops.
Even when playing graphic intensive games it does not break a sweat. As for the battery/s I'm getting about 11 hours of constant use with Bluetooth on and wifi off. With wifi and Bluetooth on and streaming movies I get about 7 hours of constant use.
The laptop is small so the IO ports are at a minimum. It only has two USB ports so I purchased a Microsoft Bluetooth mouse and it works perfect. The included external DVD drive gets its power from the USB and also acts as a USB hub supplying 2 ports.
There does not seem to be any user accessible panels on the laptop so you can't change the hard drive of update the memory. Even though the laptop has only 3GB installed it does have windows 7 64-bit installed and can handle up to 5GB. But currently I see no way to upgrade.
One thing I noticed is that the laptop has an accelometer installed so it can detect movement. When on the battery it will park the hard drives if you pick up the laptop. This is indicated by a small orange LED that turns on in place of the normal white hard drive LED.
The speakers are probably the weakest point on the laptop. They just don't have any output for most movies so you will have to use earphones or purchase a external speaker set. I got a pair of those tiny USB powered HP speakers and they have plenty of volume and are small enough to keep in my laptop bag.
As will all laptops there is quite a lot of bloteware installed. It took me three solid days to get rid of all the crap but now the machine runs at between 0-2% CPU usage when idle.
Would I purchase the laptop again? The answer is definitely YES.
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I really expected more from HP. I read great reviews about this laptop, and most of them were right on the money: A good attempt to a different breed of PCs but falling short on key points.I was close to send it back but i kept it at the end mainly because of the size and weight and also because i needed a sturdy laptop. These are the key points that prevented the HP Envy from being a magnificent machine and a true contender against Apple:
Battery life not even close to 5 hours nor 16 with the additional battery: HP really oversold the battery capacity here. Expect to get 2 hours at the most when using wifi. With the extra battery you probably could get 5 to 6 hours but that's it. And then the weight goes from 3.8 pounds to 5.3 so, not so light to get more juice. My wife owns a MacbookPro that she uses for 5 to 6 continuous hours with no sweat and definitely less strain on her arm.
Trackpad: The worst ever. I thought that because of the product age (about 6 7 months now) they had come up with a better driver for it. Nope. It still stinks. Clicks are limited to a tiny area in the trackpad. Why did HP make such a big trackpad with no buttons (a la Mac) but limit the area where you can click? Doesn't make any sense to me at all.
Price: If you are conscious about money and need to save some money look elsewhere, this is not worth the money you pay. Again, I kept it only because the magnesium casing was important to me but you probably can find something similar from Asus or Dell where you can save some dough.
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Hp envy 13 1030nr reviewPurchased the envy 13 back in February. I've been very pleased. I travel extensively and use my computer constantly. I run zillions of apps at once so I'm always after a laptop that is small, yet has plenty of power.
You certainly do not get the battery life that HP suggests with the machine. I get 2-3 hours with the small battery and 5-7 total with the added battery slice. The plus side is that machine comes with the battery slice. On my last Sony laptop I paid $200 for an extra battery. I do run the machine most of the time on full power setting because I need the extra power to run all of my apps.
The machine runs cool and has been a joy to use. It is definitely classy and fairly powerful. I upgraded the machine to 5gb ram myself. The extra 2gb give the machine a little more zip, but I wouldn't consider it a deal breaker. Do NOT attempt this yourself unless you are a laptop tech, it involved taking the computer completely apart.
My last laptop was a Sony Z series, which was amazing and more powerful than this machine. However, I'm enjoying the class and slightly smaller size of the envy.
Here are some thoughts:
Wifi signal very strong
Bluetooth signal not as strong as my Sony Z.
Glossy screen very bright, but I prefer glossy screens that don't reflect as much.
Sound great (I did have to turn up one hidden sound volume setting)
The mouse pad took me an entire month to get used to. It is by far the worst part of the computer. However, now that I am used to it, I really like it. I love the fact that I can use a finger swipe to enlarge a web page or photo. I can open an email and quickly enlarge the text with mouse pad.
I love having the hdmi port and also purchased the hdmi to vga adapter from hp. The computer came with a usb to Ethernet adapter. I also upgraded to Windows 7 Professional because of the included XP virtual software so that I can run some older apps that don't work in 7 64bit. The virtual XP works great on the envy.
Even though it is not as powerful as my Sony Z series, I'm really glad I purchased the Envy. The classy look, bright screen, smaller size, included second battery, and decent amount of power make it a great choice.
Honest reviews on HP ENVY 13-1030NR 13.3-Inch Magnesium Alloy Laptop (Windows 7 Home
My new job allowed me to purchase my own laptop with a $1400 budget....yeah, not a bad start. So I shopped around looking for something as far away from the Lenovo business look I am used to. I am not a Mac person at all but I had to be fair and check out the MacBook and MacBook Pro. All seemed to be the same in price and similar in specs but our company didn't support Mac (yet) and they offered a free download of Microsoft Office Business 2007 and lots of other PC based software. If I went Mac I would have to come out of pocket for this software and probably more. Couple hundred bucks, right?So I looked around at Acer, MSI, Dell and ended up spotting this lil beauty. So far, so good. I will say the only disappointing feature is the battery life "claim". I get around 2 1/2 3 1/2 hrs of battery without the slice battery just on the 4cell. With the slice battery I would say it added another 3-6 hrs in various types of use. So it's not bad especially with the slice option but it is no where near the 10+ hrs it claims on the HP site. The design is sleek and sexy. I really like the monolithic style screen and have used the webcam to chat with my kids when I travel. The keypad is great but the trackpad does take some getting used to. For me, this isn't a huge issue since I use a retractable mouse at home, at the office and when I travel.
It came with Win 7 64 bit and Core Duo processor is really fast. I never intended to run heavy apps on this but use regularly use Google Chrome, MS Outlook, Lotus Notes and MediaMonkey at the same time and they all run very smoothly. The laptop isn't too loud or noisy but I added an application to make sure it stays quiet and cool.
On a side note, there is only HDMI out so I recently ordered the HDMI to VGA adapter from HP for when I have to present but have yet to test it out.
All in all, I am pretty stoked about my HP Envy 13. As I said in the title, not too shabby of a laptop.
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I bought two of these for employees at work. I prefer the basic Apple models, which I have, for $1000, and it performs much better, better battery, and integrated disc drive. This model has a separate disc drive, which is not as good, and today the hard drive crashed. Of course it's two months after warranty. I have to have Windows applications due to working with Medicare, but my Apple is much much better, and costs less. Didn't want to add Windows to an Apple, that seems like an oxymoron to me...?
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