Best HP Envy 4-1043CL Core i5-3317U Dual-Core 1.7GHz 6GB 32GB SSD Deals

Customer Ratings:

My Dell M1330 of five years, and 3 hard drives later finally gave up the ghost. It was, in general, a solid performer. I recently acquired the HP Envy 4-1043CL. For the money, it is nothing short of spectacular. Rich with features like the lightning fast i5 processor, 500GB hard drive, 32GB SSD, all make this a pretty seamless package.

As for reviewers complaining about the monitor, it reminds me of the guys that review cars that do not understand why a car goes up on two wheels in a 130mph turn Get over it for 99% of the users, this screen is an upgrade over almost anything you might be replacing, and by the way, it too is spectacular. I considered a MacBook Air, with a great screen, great cosmetics, all of the Apple quirks, but at almost a third of the price, it is really hard to not like the package HP has put together Oh, and did I mention that it is light? (3.88 lbs.)

Windows 8 is a bit of a learning curve, but getting used to it is easy.

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I really wanted to like this machine.

But the screen was a dealbreaker for me. I had read that the screen was mediocre, and figured that that was fine with me -a high end screen wasn't that important to me. But "mediocre" doesn't really begin to describe the problem with the screen. It's washed out to the point of distraction and eye strain. Colors look odd, blacks aren't black, and whites are covered in a bluish haze. I tried color calibration and even a combination of settings found in these comments -but they don't really solve the problem. This is, as some reviewers point out, a viewing angle problem; the screen rises to the level of mediocre -barely passable -when you look at it from just the right, very narrow angle. But that angle is so narrow that it's impossible to maintain, because the slightest movement will put you out of it. So again, while I wouldn't put a high end screen high up on my list of priorities, this screen I find to be so bad that I can't ignore it.

Then there's the trackpad. It's not very responsive. Scrolling is terrible. This is something you can might learn to tolerate. If it weren't for the screen, I'd probably have thought seriously about just living with it.

Because otherwise, it's a very fast and very nice looking computer. It's a little heavy, but that's a worthwhile trade off for the price (you can find these refurbished with 6gb of ram for $599). But before you buy one, I recommend walking into a computer store and testing one and thinking long and hard about whether you can live with the display and trackpad. These are items that the average reviews make sound like minor irritations and drawbacks. And that may be true for some. But for many others, they'll make the machine unusable.

Best Deals for HP Envy 4-1043CL Core i5-3317U Dual-Core 1.7GHz 6GB 32GB SSD

Mousepad will sometimes freeze, requiring a reboot. Annoying. But the size and weight is nice and it is sufficient for bumming around the interwebs and small work tasks.

Honest reviews on HP Envy 4-1043CL Core i5-3317U Dual-Core 1.7GHz 6GB 32GB SSD

Pro: fast boot-up, thanks to the 32gig SSD that runs the OS; 7200rpm HHD; back-lit keyboard; it's light and thin; and has several 3.0usb ports and a 2.0 always-on port for charging stuff when the PC is powered down.

Con: the screen just isn't that impressive--dull comes to mind. It's fine for day-to-day work but not so great for play.