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I agonized for weeks before finally purchasing this laptop. In the end I decided what I really needed was a desktop replacement. A powerful, capable machine that could replace my aging tower and still be a laptop. In that I was not disappointed.
The good
This machine is quick! Video plays flawlessly, I am able to convert movies from one format to another averaging 10 minutes per 1.5 hour movie. My old tower would take 2 hours.
The screen is bright and clear. The keyboard lights up nicely and the sound is pretty darned good. Build quality is good, no flex to it even if you're Mr. Universe and manage to heft it by a single corner.
I like the fast wireless built in to the laptop and its easy to switch between wireless connections.
The so so
This notebook does heat up and grows uncomfortably warm on the legs if you are lounging around with it. The fan is on most of the time and you can hear it humming away although I wouldn't call it annoying.
Windows 8 takes some getting used to. The touch pad is only partially effective at gesture recognition and will leave you disappointed half the time. I guess I don't really get the purpose of the live tiles.. I have reverted to using the desktop mode almost exclusively. I probably won't bother with the hassle of downgrading to windows 7.
The bad
I really, really dislike the battery pack that came with this machine. In order to fit more oomph into it, there is a 1-inch tall ridge that runs for most of its length, functioning as a bit of a kickstand for the laptop so its tilted a bit towards you. While this is fine when its on a table, try putting it on your lap and that ridge quickly digs in and becomes uncomfortable. I am forced to keep my legs well apart so I catch the edges where the bottom is still flat which is also uncomfortable.
I also experienced a weird power pop up that kept coming up every 15 seconds warning me about my power supply. In the end I had to find the utility responsible and delete it from the HD before this warning would go away.
Fnally, perhaps due to some software I have on the laptop, perhaps due to something else, when I display and file open/save dialog, the machine frequently pauses for 10-15 seconds during which time the dialog is frozen. Very annoying for something this fast to be doing this so frequently.
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I consider this is a nice buy. It has all you want from a high performance laptop for a reasonable price compared for a Macbook Pro or something else.At the first time i was wondering if this machine has softbuttons to have quick access to volume, wifi, bluetooth and others, I searched over the internet with no luck. So I had to wait to receive the laptop and finding this out by myself. For my surprise I found the F keys has this option as primary option and if you want to use the keys as F's you have to press Alt+F* as a very nice found.
The laptop is very quiet, materials are good considering I hate black laptops with easy finger printing. For 16mb you have to challenge yourself and the computer to use that much of memory. I bought this one to edit photos in Lightroom and Photoshop, while I listen music and stream movies. I can consider I have all these services run with no issues. So happy for that.
Windows 8? no issues found at this moment.
Best Deals for HP ENVY DV7-7212nr Quad Edition mSSD Windows 8 Notebook PC; 16GB
Everything I expected and more--fast, beautiful screen, good keyboard (love backlighting) and generally good feel. Can't ask for more. Can't even suggest improvement.Honest reviews on HP ENVY DV7-7212nr Quad Edition mSSD Windows 8 Notebook PC; 16GB
If you are seeking for a laptop to play computer games or enjoying movies and music. This DV7-7212nr will match your need very well.The only reason may let you hesitate to buy this laptop is not easy to find a 17.3 laptop bag & backpack (I returned three backpack because this machine is a monster!!! Most of laptop backpack can't hold it.Fortunately swissgear IBEX 17 and targus citygear 17 will fit this monster.)
I will add more details later and I'm glad to talk with you if you want to know more about this amazing laptop.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for HP ENVY DV7-7212nr Quad Edition mSSD Windows 8 Notebook PC; 16GB
When I was about to purchase this Laptop, I did what everybody does, and read reviews like crazy. I was very impressed with the specs but other customer reviews had me in doubt.I decided to go with my knowledge of the specs and purchase the laptop regardless of issues stated by others.
Firstly I just want to touch on some of the issues that other 'reviewers' posted along with their lower star rating... These claims made by others created hesitations in my mind but was never experienced after my purchase.
(1) Fan Noise:
The fan comes on pushing the slightly warm air out of the left side vents of the laptop.
The noise that someone mentioned simply cannot be heard. Rather a very light, gentle humming.
Feeling the light movement of air from these vents is comforting to me, know that heat is escaping.
In some other laptops, you can't feel air movement anywhere around the pc making you wonder about the internal cooling.
This laptop is very efficient in keeping the powerful i7 processor cool on its own without the need for a cooling pad.
The fan is effective and efficient; just ensure that with time, you try to keep the vents clear from dust. This will ensure that the heat is escaping efficiently.
If dust or any other material/substances are blocking the vents the heat will not escape and the fan will increase in speed. This increase in speed will obviously cause the fan to sound louder since it will be working harder to get the heat out.
(2) Heating:
Like I said before, the fan effective and efficiently remove the unwanted heat and keep the body of the laptop cool.
So far I never experienced any overheating of the laptop, used on a bed, used on a sofa, used on a table, used on my lap.
Once the vents are clear and not blocked by anything, the laptop will cool itself down effectively.
(3) 1 inch Ridge underneath laptop:
Other basic laptop designs have a base that lies flat onto whatever surface it is placed on.
Surprisingly enough these laptop designers put vents here (on the underneath) for heat to escape, but since the base of the laptop is pressed flat onto the surface it is placed on, then the heat gets trapped inside and you are then required to buy a 'cooling pad' to push cool air in these otherwise blocked vents.
But with this HP ENVY, the battery is designed is such a way that it has a ridge on the underneath.
This 'ridge' keeps the base tilted off the surface that it is placed on allowing air to pass freely keeping the system cool.
The underside of this laptop has a Beats Audio Subwoofer. Since the 'ridge' keeps the rear of the laptop up, the bass sound from the subwoofer is echoed effectively of the surface that the laptop is place on. This creates a cleaner, clearer sound as compared to other flat based laptops.
The tilt also positions the keyboard at a comfortable angle for your typing use and gives a clear view of the keyboard while it rests on a flat surface.
Since this ridge is only on the battery, it is not designed 'end to end' on the laptop. Rather it is positioned to the middle-back of the underneath, creating a comfortable space for both of your legs to hold up the laptop while you sit and use it.
Therefore the 'ridge' in no way creates and un-comfortable experience while being used on your lap.
Since the position of ridge forces you to position you legs to the both sides to hold up the laptop, the under vents are kept clear keeping the system and your legs cool.
The design also keeps the subwoofer vents clear, maintaining the free flow of the bass sound from the subwoofer.
(4) Weight:
This laptop has specs that will give alot of desktop systems some real competition, with that in mind, making a powerful laptop like this mobile is very impressive.
In other words, the system is thin and relatively light when considering the features, power, speed and various capabilities.
(5) LED Backlit:
The Keyboard is Full LED Backlit and is switched on/off by a key on the keyboard.
It has a beautiful pure white glow around each key along with the individual numbers and letters being lit.
A key for the caps, muting and switching the wifi on and off also has a LED light on it to indicate on/off position.
(6) Finger Print Scanner:
So far I've had no issues with this feature as the scanner reads my finger with one pass.
I assume that if issues are present, it may be a manufacture problem.
(7) Heavy Gaming:
Although the Laptop has impressive specs, don't give it a bad rating because you can't run one of your high graphic games that can't even play on your desktop.
For persons looking for a gaming pc, my advice is to try getting a six core with a 3.5GHz and up processor on a desktop tower.
This laptop handled games with medium graphics very smoothly without ever freezing, overheating or requiring reboot.
(8) Windows 8:
Giving any PC a bad rating due to your experience with Windows 8 is very unfair and unfortunate.
To all the persons unsure about Windows 8, give it a try. No one could have been more sceptical that me about it, but after familiarizing myself a bit, I realized that it wasn't much different to Windows 7.
The usual desktop screen that would appear after booting, is now a screen with tiles that act like shortcuts to different apps and folders.
These 'live' tiles (shortcuts) can be modified to the user's liking, for example more shortcuts/apps can be 'pinned' to this screen just as shortcuts were 'pinned' to Windows 7 Task Bar.
You can even revert to the more common desktop screen via one of the tiles.
Since the Windows 8 requires fewer resources to operate, the graphics can be set to max to show all the 'fluid' display graphics on any pc without taking away from other app performance, so on this laptop it runs effortlessly.
It just requires some getting used to it does have some bugs and some aspects can be improved but so far I have no major issues with it.
(9) Wifi and Wireless Connections:
As expected, the wifi reception range is very impressive.
I am now picking up signals from neighbours that I never saw coming up with my old pc.
The wireless connections are made fast and effortless by this laptop, contrary to what others are saying in previous reviews.
After I am connected, I stay connected without any drops or interruptions, maintaining high signal strength.
(10) Shipping:
The shipping was very fast and was maintained in excellent packaging.
Laptop came in original HP Box in mint condition. I even got it with a 'Prime' offer, so fast shipping was free.
The above ten points I made were to clear up some bad reviews that was mentioned by others who might influence you to purchase something else and lose out on this monster machine.
I wanted to post this since they, some of the other reviewers, almost convinced me not to buy it.
But I took a chance based on the specs and decided to check everything out myself.
I wanted to confirm if the statements made by these (few) people, represented actual product flaws or just unfortunate manufacture defects.
I am in no way discrediting persons with genuine issues; I am just saying that their issues may me of some manufacture defect and not a product defect. Some people though tend to exaggerate minor personal dislikes and give poor ratings.
I'm providing a review based on actual experience compared to many other laptops that I had encountered in the past.
(11) The Body and Structure:
I must say that this pc in no way feels cheap. It is made of a metal frame with solid structure.
The keys feel soft and comfortable, pressed effortlessly.
The touch pad is large and positioned away from hands while typing.
I did find that the right and left click buttons on the touch pad are a bit 'clicky' and could have been designed like the keyboard buttons.
I especially like the feature of: Wifi, Sound, LED Backlit, Screen Brightness etc, all being controlled without the pressing of a function (fn) key. Just press the assigned key and the changes can be made.
The overall design is strong durable and well thought out, providing comfort of use, flow for heat and sound, etc. Even the HP logo on the top face of the laptop lights up, just as the apple in Macs light up.
(12) The Speakers and Sound:
There are five Beats Audio Speakers including the Beats Audio Subwoofer on the underneath.
The sound is truly immersive! You wouldn't believe that it is coming from a laptop.
There are two speakers on the monitor facing you, two speakers facing upward just above the keyboard, and the subwoofer below.
Tested it with the Blu-ray Transformers2 disc and I was blown away.
It's unlike any other laptop sound. You just have to experience it!
(13) The Upgrade to 16GB RAM:
When the RAM is upgraded to 16 GB, the Intel Rapid Start Technology is disabled.
I will go into a bit of explanation of this to help others understand what took place and the benefits.
There are two types of these 'Technologies' on this system:
(1) Intel Rapid Start Technology
(2) Intel Rapid Storage Technology (cache acceleration)
* What is Intel Rapid Start Technology?
Intel Rapid Start Technology is basically a feature that allows the PC to resume from `sleep mode' faster than usual.
* What causes the Upgrade of the RAM to affect the Intel Rapid Start Technology?
The laptop has 32GB of SSD (Solid State Disk).
8GB (from the 32GB) is used as a hibernation partition for fast resume via Intel Rapid START Technology.
The remainder of the SSD, about 22GB as displayed by Windows, is used as a cache to accelerate the 750 GB hard drive via Intel Rapid STORAGE technology (also called Intel Smart Response Technology).
NOTE: the 32BG is displayed as 30GB, just as the 750GB hard disk is displayed as 699GB, nothing new here.
Intel Rapid Start requires the hibernation partition (the 8GB) to be equal to or larger than the total amount of RAM installed. Since there was an upgrade to 16 GB of RAM, Intel Rapid Start will no longer work.
From the 32 GB SSD, Intel Rapid STORAGE Technology requires a minimum of 18.6 GB. Therefore the 8GB on from the SSD cannot be increased to the 16GB (equal to the RAM) for the Intel Rapid Start Technology to be enabled, because there will be less than the 18.6 GB that is required for the Intel Rapid Storage Technology to work.
Hence the reason why the Rapid Start Technology is disabled, but the Intel Rapid Storage Technology is still functional as normal.
If you want to have 16 GB of RAM and both Intel Rapid START and Rapid STORAGE technologies working, you'd need to replace the 32 GB SSD with something larger, like a 64 GB SSD for example. But this would require some detailed research before interfering inside there.
COMPUTER UPGRADE KING was the seller that I bought my HP ENVY with the 16 GB upgrade and the Intel Rapid Start Technology disabled.
I personally tested the system performance with this Intel Rapid Start Technology disabled, (that is; resuming the pc from sleep mode), and it resumed very fast regardless.
To me the upgrade to the 16GB of RAM from the original 8GB is a very big improvement in overall performance, hence the reason why I refer to this machine as a beast.
The benefits of upgrading the RAM to 16GB outweigh the benefits of the Intel Rapid Start Technology, since the computer resumes fast (from sleep) without it anyway.
I still got the 1 year warranty from HP for the original parts of the laptop, and COMPUTER UPGRADE KING gave me three (3) years warranty on their upgraded parts.
(14) Seller : COMPUTER UPGRADE KING Customer Service
The customer service was excellent!
I posted many inquiries to them and they did not hesitate to give full explanation and answers to my questions with fast response.
The delivery was free and on time with secure packaging.
Conclusion:
the only major hesitation that existed in my mind was the fact the RAM was upgraded, causing something to be disabled.
But the benefits of faster overall performance outweighed the Intel Rapid Start Technology.
And with the full warranty provided by 'Computer Upgrade King' for their upgrade and parts, it is well worth it!
My Laptop is now the "ENVY" of all who knows about it...
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