HP's design school of thought in relation to the Envy line of laptops is always to access liberally from Apple's Macbook line, adding many of its very own essence. The Envy 17 is no exemption. Under a 8 pounds without worrying about power brick, the Envy 17 is barely plumper than an inch and includes strong media playback functionality--including Blu-ray movies.
The general appearance of the most recent Envy 17 hews towards moderate nature in the products, with muted grays and light, lumpy swirl information involved. The product packaging is in basic terms in addition, and a lot of the paperwork ships upon an included 2GB SD card.
At some time, I fired up the HP Support Assistant. My earlier experiences with HP's campaigns to speed up assistance are already not as much as stellar, but these times, it found a BIOS update, many drivers along with HP software updates; mounted them; and restarted cleanly. The complete process was more simple and a lot more trouble-free than Microsoft's Windows Update scheme.
It's worth speaking about the audio for just a moment. Most laptop speaker setups are, just put, horrible. The Envy 17's speakers truly appear pretty reasonable. While sounds were simply a touch nasal, the complete tonal balance proved effortless around the ears. Music sounded very good, as did motion pictures. Overall, it's really the the second best audio I've heard over a laptop. If perhaps I have any grievances, it's with the issue of bass (and that is understandable a laptop) as well as the relative not enough volume with everything else cranked up.
The complete feel of the key pad is fairly wonderful, with great tactile feedback. Its layout is usually good, too, though I'm not really happy regarding the compromises HP constructed with the arrow keys and also the general not enough dedicated media keys--something somewhat odd in the laptop giving such rich media playback offerings. The trackpad felt slightly to the twitchy side.
Functionality in desktop programs appears only regular in the unit in this class, which includes a WorldBench score of 86. Games worked out quite very well. As well as the laptop delivered almost 27 fps inside strenuous Just Cause 2 "Concrete Jungle" benchmark test. You will most probably ought to dial down graphics options a degree, nevertheless, you should see reasonably effective frame rates while trying to keep excellent image quality.
One worry about the Envy 17 that's well worth talking over is high temperature. The cooling fan grew to be substantially deafening when game standards were run, as well as area (of the keyboard) became rather warm in places. It wasn't too hot to the touch, but clearly loads of heat is something that is generated in a very limited space and requires to go anywhere. That is the problem with developing a high-efficiency system in to a small package.
Overall, the Envy 17 looks for being a classy, relatively stream-lined laptop for digital photography addicts, audio lovers, video aficionados, and avid gamers. Make absolutely certain you retain it cool!
Author Resource:
Michael Webb is a freelance technology writer at TechRavings.info , which is technology blog and social media blog focused on updates from all realms of web technology and social networks.
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