Which HP Laptop?

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chrispycrunch

Gawd
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Messages
632
I just saw this lookalike mbp:
http://www.futureshop.ca/EN-CA/product/id/10140112.aspx
intel i3, 2.13ghz
4gb memory
intel HD gpu

Another option is the HP 5610s for around the same price. It uses the older C2D cpu.
p7370 @2ghz
4gb, 15.6" lcd
radeon 4330

Which one should I get, or should I stay away from HP? Dell's specs are similar.
My must-have list is:
1. good keyboard
2. nice screen
3. good quality/durability
4. HDMI for 720 or 1080 playback
 
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Personally, I can't stand HP. I have had numerous problems with their support, and with products not working about 1 month (or less) after buying them new. I think they are a close second to Apple, in terms of proprietary bulls**t they want to add on your system. Also, their driver support on their sister company Compaq is terrible.

The good things I can say about HP. They do make some nice looking products, and their styling is usually pretty nive, and timely. They do seem to have some of the nicer looking screens out there.

For my money, I would look at Asus, Lenovo, MSI, Toshiba, Acer, and about 20 other companies, before ever buying an HP/Compaq. The only reason my lappy is a Compaq, is that I got it free, and fixed it myself.

There are far more informed readers here. I have very little experience with lappies. I would check the support forums of any manufacturer, before actuallt buying. See what others complain about.
 
Thanks for the feedback. Top on my list is of course build quality and reliability and support.
eWeek magazine had a survey and HP was one of the worst in terms of reliability. Asus, Sony, and Toshiba (amazingly)... and Dell (4th) were high up there.
 
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They all have terrible tech support, I've had a laptop from pretty much every company except acer and toshiba because those are the 2 we see constantly in our tech dept.
 
dell's xps tech support is also good, they have a dedicated line for xps users. I can't verify the warranty quality of HP, but dell's XPS extended warranty is also top notch
 
I have an HP DV7 and can say nothing but good things about it.

You'll notice the G62 is close in design to the Envy, had I not wanted dedicated graphics I would have looked at the G62.

If gaming performance is not important to you my vote goes for the G62, the i3 is a fair bit faster than the P7350
 
iceredwing said:
dell's xps tech support is also good, they have a dedicated line for xps users. I can't verify the warranty quality of HP, but dell's XPS extended warranty is also top notch
Click to expand...

When I had my XPS M170, XPS support was awful, it was just normal Dell customer support. It's been a couple years and hopefully it has changed for the better.
 
I would never consider any HP laptop outside of their EliteBook business line (previously HP Compaq business line, same thing). The EliteBooks are amazing machines. The consumer series are poorly built, flexy pieces of crap.

EliteBooks off corporate lease with 2+ years of warranty remaining are up on Ebay at reasonable prices pretty regularly. New prices tend to be pretty damn high.
 
I own and love my DM4T

cannot comment on tech support as I have never needed it (which is a good thing)

I am eyeing the G62t for my wife as it is nice looking and completely scalable for performance and price


options for a i3, i5 or i7 with intel on die HD IGP or discrete from nvidia

pack the G62T with a i7 and a Nvidia GPU and a SSD and it is a complete desktop replacement... @12,00 +SSD

pack it with a i3 and intel IGP and a large HDD and it is a nice travel notebook with HD video playback ability. @$800

I love the design and I am waiting on some reviews on build quality prior to buying
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s.../psg/notebooks/Everyday_computing/G62t_series
 
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yeah, sure I see that.... but I have no beef with the envy line looking like a macbook

I like apples hardware, just do not want to pay 2x more for it... or run OSX
 
The Envy 15 can play any graphics intensive PC game in Full HD resolution with incredible speed. Imagine being able to INSTANTLY Alt+Tab between a memory intensive 3D game, a large file in Photoshop and a flash intensive web page, back and forth with absolutely no lag on the screen - with the Envy 15 you can do this, especially if you order the SSD option and 16GB RAM option.

However, many people have experienced severe "black screen" and freezing issues with the ATI Radeon HD5830 and HD4830 - see below:

Bottom line - if you can wait until HP resolves the problem with (1) "black screen" crashing / freezing and (2) low 4k read speed for the SSD, I would recommend the HP Envy over any other laptop out there.

Also, I would highly recommend waiting until April 13, as it has been reported that Apple will refresh the MacBook Pro line on April 13. If they do, I would check the new MacBook Pro specs as well.

HP Envy 15 Pros:
(1) Incredibly fast when working with memory/graphics intensive applications; editing large files in Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.
(2) Looks fantastic - slim, gorgeous FullHD glossy screen
(3) Reasonable battery life when using optional slice battery
(4) Currently one of the fastest USB 3.0 laptops available anywhere

HP Envy 15 Cons:
(1) Freezes up or crashes to black screen approximately 10-15 times per day. Many other buyers experienced the same exact issue.
(2) 4k read speed for the SSD is 10x slower than it should be (slower than the 4k write speed!)
(3) extremely expensive
(4) Annoying placement of special function keys to the left of the keyboard.

I purchased an Envy 15 about 1 month ago with the following specs:

i7-820QM processor
320GB Dual SSD (Raid0)
16GB RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon HD5830
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

The complete price including tax for this customized model was well over $4,000. On the very first bootup on the day I received the model in the mail from HP shopping, I went through the process of setting up windows and then the system froze up. The screen became filled with a colorful static effect with moving black horizontal lines.

On restart, the windows error reporting was as follows:

"You received this message because hardware or software on your computer caused Windows to shut down unexpectedly and restart. This is a serious problem, commonly referred to as a stop error or blue screen. If you have received this error more than once, we recommend that you do the following: Back up your files to avoid data loss in case of a complete hardware failure. Contact the original manufacturer of your computer to determine the specific component which is failing. Although we know the problem is caused by a hardware component, the error report does not contain enough information to tell us the specific component. It is likely that the problem is being caused by one of the following computer components: Random access memory (RAM) System board Central Processing Unit (CPU) Power supply"

I called HP Envy tech support and they put me in touch with the customer support rep who sent me a shipping label to return the laptop and get a refund. She offered me a $170 discount in the event I decided to keep it, so I thought I would continue using the model and see if it was perhaps a one-time problem on setting up windows for the first time.

Over the course of 2 weeks, I experienced black screen crash or freezing (with repeating loop of 1 frame of corresponding audio) approximately 10-15 times per day. The only way to get out of that screen was by hard reset.

I also noticed when running the crystalmark benchmark my 4k read speed was 10x lower than it should have been - in fact, the 4k read speed for the SSD Raid0 was slower than the 4k write speed!

CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008
--------------------------------
Sequential Read : 469.045 MB/s
Sequential Write : 155.626 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 253.068 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 133.743 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 10.294 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 55.438 MB/s
Test Size : 100 MB Date : 2010/03/10 1:54:01

I eventually returned my unit for complete refund; however, as it was the most lightning fast experience I have ever had (during the times when it did not freeze or crash on me) working on very large photoshop and illustrator files, I plan to order the exact same model once they correct the graphics card and 4k read speed issues. As lightning fast as this machine already is, I would imagine it must be even faster if they fix the 4k read speed problem.

From a bit of research, it appears many people with other brands of laptops have experienced exactly the same "black screen" issue with similar ATI Radeon graphics cards that we are having with the 4830 and the 5830 used in the Envy 15, leading me to wonder whether many of these ATI graphics cards are simply defective. I'm surprised that HP did not test them more rigorously before choosing to implement them in the Envy 15. I am eager to order another HP Envy 15, but do I need to wait until HP refreshes the line with an entirely different graphics card? Is anyone who has ordered the Envy 15 NOT experiencing this black screen issue? I wonder the percentage of users who are experiencing black screen issues with the Envy 15. Is it limited to those who have custom orders? Are people who bought the "quick-ship" models also experiencing this?


Here are several links to postings regarding the "black screen" issue with the ATI Radeon HD5830, HD4850 and HD4830 in various brands of computer:

http://h20435.www2.hp.com/t5/HP-Envy-Not…

http://h20435.www2.hp.com/t5/HP-Envy-Not…

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthre…

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.c…

http://radeoncrash.blogspot.com/2009/07/…

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.c…

http://forums.legitreviews.com/about2044…

http://forums.techarena.in/monitor-video…

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread…

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/254855…

On an aesthetic level, this model is fantastic. Very slim, even when using the optional 9-cell slice battery. Others have complained about the heat issue but when I used a Zalman NC1000 notebook cooler, I had no problems whatsoever with overheating, in fact the underside of the laptop was cool to the touch.

The only gripe I had about the design was the plethora of special function keys on the left side of the keyboard. I kept accidentally opening the Print menu or web page, email, etc., when playing a video game or working in Photoshop. I had a great deal of difficulty to attempt to disable those keys and even with using the keyboard layout menus in control panel, I was not able to disable them. I was tempted to purchase special software for customizing keyboard layout for the sole purpose of disabling those annoying and poorly located special function keys.

The touchpad was slightly less sensitive and slightly more difficult to use compared to the MacBook Pro. Hopefully this will be resolved with driver or BIOS update.

When using the 9cell slice battery I had about 4 hours of battery life, which is not great, but much better than my previous laptop. For long international flights I would recommend taking along 2 fully charged slice batteries.

Again the graphics performance was amazing except for those 10-15 times per day that the graphics card crashed or froze up. Other than that it was lightning fast. As of today, the only solution I am aware of for the graphics problem is replacing the graphics card. I don't know if replacing the SSD with a third party dual SSD Raid0 will improve the 4k read speed.
 
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