HP Envy 17: HP's MacBook Pro Killer?
by Dustin Sklavos on December 16, 2010 12:30 AM ESTConclusion: Not a Killer, But a Great Alternative
As we mentioned before, HP's Envy line of notebooks are often touted in the comments on our reviews as being alternatives to Apple's MacBook Pro series. In reviewing the Envy 17 at least, we find that's not entirely a fair comparison. Apple's notebooks seem designed more for students and visual arts professionals than for the average user, and the fact that HP equips the Envy with a modestly powerful Mobility Radeon HD 5850 should be evidence enough that they're gunning for another market entirely. That market, however, will probably be very happy with the Envy 17.
While our favorite gaming notebook remains the ASUS G73Jh/G73Jw, the ASUS notebook doesn't quite share the Envy 17's style. Dealing in strictly hardware, the ASUS is going to overpower the Envy 17, and that's due largely to the comparatively anemic Mobility Radeon HD 5850. The Mobility 5800s weren't a great line to begin with, incremental at best over the previous generation (although lest I be accused of an NVIDIA bias, I'm keen to point out that NVIDIA's GTX 480M was almost a bigger disappointment than the 5870), but the lower clocks on the Envy 17's 5850 start to impact playability on the unit's native 1080p resolution.
That 1080p resolution is, by the way, an upgrade you will want to shell out for, no question. The screen really is excellent, and if you need any further excuse to drop the $100 on the upgrade, note that HP advertises the default 1600x900 screen as having a 42% color gamut. That's downright awful and ranks easily among the worst of the screens we have to test. At the same time, the sweet screen is backed by the healthy Beats audio speaker system. Jarred swore by the speakers in the Dell XPS 15, and I'm keen to get our XPS 17 sample in here to really compare the two. While I didn't hear the subwoofer doing a whole lot of work, this is still a healthy jump over the normally dire notebook speakers we're used to and if audio quality is important to you, this would be one place where the Envy 17 absolutely trumps the bass-heavy and mushy sounding ASUS.
At the end of the day, the price is right on the Envy 17 and you get what you pay for. I'm not a big fan of the keyboard layout and touchpad, but neither of these are deal-breakers, and in exchange you do get a fairly fast multimedia machine. Battery life sucks, but that pretty much comes with the territory when you're dealing with notebooks like these. I'm not as completely blown away by the Envy 17 as some of our readers appear to be, but it's definitely a fine notebook and if the stealth fighter-inspired ASUS G73 doesn't do anything for you, it's worth taking a look at. Of course, the smaller Envy 14 is arguably the more interesting option, and Vivek will be looking at that in the near future, so stay tuned....
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vant - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
I guess hp forgot people use their laptops on the go. 2 hours is pathetic.heymrdj - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
The "Desktop Replacement" laptop isn't as much as battery power on the go, but more the fact you have an entire desktop computer with 3/4 the power capable of being moved anywhere. I have my high end desktop with it's 4 drive raid 0 array, graphics card, X6 1055T, and I love it. I really do. But I miss my HP 9550T. When I could bring it up on my 1,000 mile trips with no lugging, grunting, or damages. I could came anywhere at decent FPS with the 8800GTM. Sure I could only get about 45min of gaming battery life, and about 2 hours of idle internet (9 cell), but it was great having that power around. People that don't need mobile power just can't understand how well these notebooks fit. That and whimpy people complain about carrying 10lbs of laptop/accessories all the time. Never understood that, the difference between my Mini 210 and my 9550t are negligible to me. The Envy 17 is lighter than my old 9550t is, and it's nice, lets me carry a spare battery with the weight I saved.seapeople - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
Woot! Someone else who actually understands that laptops don't just magically become unmovable desk objects once they get over 14". We must be two of the largest and strongest people on the internet. You know, the type of person who doesn't need to carry a 5lb bag of apples in from the car in two trips, or ask for help when opening a bottle of Pepsi. We are real life strong men, able to carry multiple pounds of laptop and laptop accessories AT THE SAME TIME. Good gaming brother.Spazweasel - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
Yeah. Overused. Can we synergize our paradigms and action our alliances now?In any event, it's not a "MacBook Killer" if it doesn't run OS/X. For all the talk about being able to run Windows on a MacBook, very few people actually do. At my workplace, for instance, we have about 600 engineers (networking hardware and software); we all get laptops. We get a choice of various HP and Thinkpads, or MacBook Pros. It's about half-and-half as to what people select (I took a T400, as I use some Windows-only software). I've yet to see anyone running anything other than OS/X on their MacBooks except in an occasional VM. It's not just the hardware which people buy MacBooks for, it's the combination of hardware and software (which yields things like the near-doubling of battery life... 2 hours? Seriously, HP?).
wintermute000 - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
With that battery life?!?! not even close.Also WTF is it with manufacturers giving us 1500USD+ laptops WITHOUT SSDs. You spend that much money (enough to build a fire breathing gaming/graphics workstation from hell), you're gonna want it to fly, and SSD is the single most important component for that. I'd wager that SSD + i5 gives better real world performance for most people than i7 + conventional HD.
Not going to even touch the OSX vs Windows flamewars, I have my opinions and thats what wil guide my decisions. Suffice to say that the overall package/industrial design is not going to come close to the tight integration the macbook pro people pay for. Little things like magsafe power connectors, button to show power gauge, etc.
I guess if you want windows this is a good buy, but if you want a 17" gaming capable hi end laptop personally I'd rather get something cheaper from MSI or ASUS and use the savings to upgrade to an SSD.
JarredWalton - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
Note the question mark, and it's not us saying Envy is an MBP "killer" - it's plenty of other folks out there. I'd say the Envy 14 has a better shot, since it at least has switchable graphics, but as the conclusion states:"As we mentioned before, HP's Envy line of notebooks are often touted in the comments on our reviews as being alternatives to Apple's MacBook Pro series. In reviewing the Envy 17 at least, we find that's not entirely a fair comparison."
The reason it's not fair is two-fold: first, MBP is geared far more towards battery life, and second, the Envy 17 at least (with quad-core CPU) is quite a bit more powerful in multi-threaded tasks than any MBP. So, the answer to the question mark in the title is that it's not an MBP killer--or really even an alternative--outside of having a similar aesthetic.
Luke2.0 - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
It is a GOOD tagline IMO:1. Eye-catcher (Controversy). Throw in some reference to Apple products and there: more readers, more comments, more "fire". =/
2. Well, the "?" is the safety belt.
Btw, I can't reach the conclusion page now!?
Gotta wait it fixed...
heymrdj - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
You seem to think that we're at that age where these things are affordable, we're not at that time yet. It's like people wanting to buy a full 15" good performing, long battery life basic laptop from walmart for 300$, but they also want it to last 3+ years. We're not there yet, they still cost more than that. A good gaming laptop with heavy build (like the envy's) and real ssd (like a OCZ, Crucial, or Corsair Sandforce drive) is going to cost into at least the 1900 range. The SSD alone (say 120GB main drive) is going to cost at least 170$ from their distribs I'd imagine, compared to the 30-50$ they can get the mechanical HD's. There's a reason REAL gaming/workstation laptops like the HP Elitebooks and the high Sager/Clevo models START at 2400.Dan Wiggins - Sunday, December 19, 2010 - link
Rather than a speedy but constrained SSD, I prefer to have 500 GB of storage with me. Do programs launch as fast, does the OS boot as quickly? No - but I can get a lot more done since I have a lot more with me. I don't boot/shut down a dozen times a day, typically once or twice for extended periods.Of course, I do some serious CAD work for a living, where a single model can be 2 GB; having a tiny 128 GB of SSD simply doesn't cut it - between the OS and the programs I need for work, I'd be able to keep a dozen models around, tops.
Having 8 GB of RAM helps me out a lot more than an SSD...
Don't confuse your list of desires as the list of desires for everyone. That's the beauty of the non-Apple ecosystem - choice. You can have SSDs or HDDs or easily switch between the two. You can even get laptops with dual drives, so you can use your speedy SSD for the OS and HDD for massive storage.
plewis00 - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link
I can't get to the conclusion page - it keeps returning me to page 1 whether I click the next button on the page before, use the drop-down menu or change the URL to a '7'. Any ideas or is this just me?