Windows 7 Enterprise Key HP Envy 14 Review - Compu

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The laser-etched pattern on the lid is stylish and aids preserve the Envy 14 from looking too much like a MacBook Pro clone—though the light-up HP logo isn’t just an first thought.

The Envy 14’s keyboard is fantastic, with well-spaced keys and comfortable crucial action.

The correct facet functions combo USB/eSATA, HDMI, mini-DisplayPort, Ethernet, and energy connectors, together with a lock slot.

The left aspect sports the slot-loading DVD generate,Microsoft Office Professional Plus, a pair of USB ports, a combo headphone/microphone jack, and a individual headphone jack.

The backlit keyboard is helpful for nocturnal typing.
HP Envy 14 10 Stylish; stellar audio; fantastic keyboard; outstanding overall performance No Blu-ray drive selection; extra-cost dongle needed to output to VGA projectors The Envy 14 delivers top-notch performance, styling that may create a MacBook Professional fan jealous, excellent multimedia, and an amazing keyboard—all at a acceptable value.
Price (at time of evaluation): $1,289.99 (direct, as examined)
Crucial Specs Processor: 2.66GHz Intel Core i5-450M two.40GHz (Turbo Boost)
Memory: 4GB RAM
Storage: 500GB challenging drive
Optical Generate: 8x slot-loading dual-layer DVD writer
Screen: 14.five inches (1,600x900 native resolution)
Graphics: Integrated Intel Hd graphics and ATI Mobility Radeon High definition 5650 (1GB, switchable)
Bodyweight: 5.2 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1.11x14.01x9.33 inches
1.11x14.01x9.33 inches: Windows seven Home Top quality (64-bit)
HP Envy 14 Critique Reviewed by: Denny Atkin
Critique Date: August 2010
When we reviewed HP’s first-generation Envy 15 final 12 months, we were impressed with its chic, good quality development and outstanding performance but disappointed with its lack of an internal optical generate and its poor battery daily life. HP’s latest entry within the line, the Envy 14, addresses individuals complaints head on, keeping the exceptional performance and sturdy design and style of the original, whilst packing an optical generate and much-improved battery lifestyle in one from the most trendy and cozy Windows notebooks we’ve tested to date.
There’s no denying the MacBook Pro should have inspired the Envy 14’s layout crew. Its laser-etched, aluminum lid with light-up emblem, black-framed glossy LCD, backlit Chiclet keyboard resting inside a sculpted depression, rounded edges, and buttonless touch pad are all really reminiscent of Apple’s high-end notebooks. It’s not a slavish copy, nonetheless. The primarily aluminum situation is not of unibody construction—the bottom is black plastic—and during this latest revision HP gave up on wanting to cram all of the ports onto one particular aspect and instead integrated some connectors lacking on earlier Envy designs. Total, the design and style is tasteful, sophisticated, and practical, and it feels very strong and sturdy. Measuring one.11x14.01x9.33 inches and weighing in at 5.2 lbs, it’s slightly smaller as opposed to Envy 15 (however it is the exact same bodyweight), even with the addition from the optical drive and beefier battery.
The 14.5-inch LED-backlit display is very crisp and vibrant. Even though the stock Envy ships which has a 1,366x768-pixel display screen, our model was equipped together with the roomy optional Radiance Infinity HD+ one,600x900 show. The text is smallish to the higher-res screen, but it’s sharp sufficient that even small fonts are easy to study. The display has a vast colour gamut, and we could see a vibrance and richness in digital pictures and DVD playback that’s not normal of the notebook at this price position. In fact, observing DVDs employing the slot-loading 8x DVD author had us wishing HP offered a Blu-ray generate selection for that Envy 14. Sadly, you are going to need to go for the much larger Envy 17 if you need hi-def ability. Also, while the display seems to be amazing, as with most glossy screens, it demonstrates reflections in the glass; we’d love to determine HP offer a matte option.
The Envy 14’s Beats audio technique is similarly impressive and is also one area where the Envy plainly outdoes the MacBook Professional. HP isolated the audio parts on the motherboard to stop the interference that will outcome in static on some PCs, and additionally, it additional an amplifier and DSP to boost and enrich the audio. The outcomes on the built-in speakers are incredibly good—volume and clarity are far previously mentioned common for the dual-speaker notebook. Plug the Envy 14 into external speakers or even a excellent set of headphones, although, and you are going to find the audio is nothing quick of astounding. Even on low-cost earbuds, the audio clarity and punch of our tunes was considerably far better than we’d expect from a notebook. Pressing Fn-B to toggle off the Beats enhancements demonstrates that the program is including considerable depth and additional bass for the audio.
The excellent Chiclet keyboard has superb response, great spacing in between keys, and is also very cozy to kind on. The keyboard now features a backlight, which can be toggled utilizing a operate essential. The operate keys double as media controls; you hit Fn in mix with them to enter an real F1-F12 important press.


The large touch pad supports a variety of multi-touch gestures for scrolling, zooming, and rotating images; furthermore, it adds new three-finger press and flick options for quick-launching applications and navigating Web pages. The lower third of 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 the ports along a single side. By spreading them out on both sides, the selection is much greater 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 discover HDMI and mini-DisplayPort outputs, a Gigabit Ethernet connector, an SD/MMC slot, and both a headphone jack along with a headphone-out/microphone-in combo jack. Wireless support includes Bluetooth and dual-band (2.4 and 5.8GHz) 801.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. There’s also a really great Hd webcam, which includes auto face-detection, excellent low-light performance, as well as a built-in microphone. The one particular thing you might miss in case you use your notebook for presentations is a VGA monitor output. If you use VGA projectors, you’ll want to purchase an HDMI-to-VGA adapter cable,Buy Microsoft Office 2010, available as a $50 option from HP, or for much less elsewhere. (Even Apple only charges $29 for one particular.)


This notebook is just as ######y within the inside as the outside. It is powered by a 2.4GHz Core i5-450M processor (supporting up to 2.66GHz in Turbo Enhance mode), backed by 4GB of DDR3 RAM, with 6GB and 8GB configurations available. It includes an ATI Mobility Radeon Hd 5650 graphics processor with 1GB of DDR3 video memory for games and other demanding 3D applications; the notebook can automatically revert to the slower stock Intel High definition graphics constructed into the motherboard chipset to save battery lifestyle. (This is known as switchable graphics, 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 challenging drive for storage, together with the aforementioned slot-loading 8x DVD burner. (The inclusion of the optical push means the second inner generate option found on the Envy fifteen is lacking here.)


There’s 1 additional difference within the hardware, compared with all the Envy 15, which bears mentioning: Although the Envy 15 would toast your lap with intensive use, the Envy 14 remains cool around 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 hard, but it also does its job well and keeps the Envy 14 from heating up.
The Envy 14 turned in remarkable outcomes on our benchmark tests. It did properly on our PCMark Vantage benchmark test, which measures total technique functionality with productivity programs. Its score of 6,185 to the 64-bit version from the test beat its Core i7-powered Envy fifteen predecessor’s score of 5,243 and was also substantially 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 very good numbers on our media-centric tests. It completed our Windows Media Encoder test, 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 15 and the Toshiba M645. It did even better 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 fifteen, and 3:15 for the Toshiba M645.
On our Cinebench test, which taxes every one of the available cores of a CPU, the Envy 14 held it own, somewhat beating out the category average for other 64-bit notebooks, having 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 common 64-bit score is 6,810, showing that the Envy 14 has the mettle to multitask and deliver on CPU-intensive chores, even even though it is not best-in-class.


The ATI Mobility Radeon Hd 5650 chip offers very very good 3D overall performance. Its score of 5,967 on our 3DMark 06 benchmark at native resolution is not best-in-class, but it’s double the common for other thin-and-lights examined this year, and it’s plenty fast to play modern games like Starcraft II smoothly and which has a excellent 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 10 mode.
The Envy 14 lasted an impressive 3 hours and 17 minutes on our DVD rundown test, a important improvement over the Envy 15’s embarrassingly short one:04 end result. This is a tad quick with the category common (3:26) but still better compared to Toshiba M645. Whilst writing this evaluation, 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’ll have to go into the Control Panel to manually re-enable the GPU when running on battery. Unlike the MacBook Pro it pays tribute to, the Envy 14 includes a removable battery. You can purchase an further eight-cell internal battery for $75 when configuring the Envy 14, or opt for the $200 six-Cell Slim Fit Extended Existence Battery, which clips onto the bottom from the notebook and works in conjunction with all 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 seven Home Premium, you're presented with a cool-looking (if somewhat dark) re-skinned version in the operating technique. The included HP MediaSmart utilities are actually worth a look, with sleek, easy-to-use modules that include a music player,Microsoft Office 2010 Key, photo manager, Web video viewer,Windows 7 Enterprise Key, basic video editor/DVD player, and Webcam controller. Bundled applications include Corel PaintShop Photo Professional X3, Corel VideoStudio Pro X3, Microsoft Works, along with a 60-day trial version of Norton Internet Security 2010. There is 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, 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,Office 2007 Enterprise Key HP CEO to Cisco Your loss, our gain - Video - Techno, and online chat support.
With its fashionable and sturdy layout, exemplary overall performance, and stellar audio, HP earned an Editors' Choice for your previously Envy fifteen in spite of is pitiful battery existence and optional external optical generate. With the Envy 14 directly addressing those grievances, HP has definitely struck gold. The Envy 14 has seems to be, durability, overall performance, and excellent battery daily life. It’s really at ease to use, and it’s reasonably priced to get a laptop in its class. With its super-sharp and colorful display screen, fantastic illuminated keyboard, and outstanding audio playback,Buy Office Professional Plus 2010, it is hard to think of a lot that HP could do better here.
Cost (at time of evaluation): $1,289.99 (immediate, as examined)

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