HP Envy reliability?

[seeratlas]

The mfg of my 1st Gen Envy 15 is listed as a chinese company I've never heard of, so don't be too quick to equate the "quality" of one HP model with any other. From all appearances the 15 appears to use quality components, and at least the one I have, appears to have been well assembled. Another thing, having waded thru the huge Envy threads on this board and read post after post about all these problems, things not working, burning your hands, your lap, blue screens, dim display, off color camera, defective trackpad, all manner of problems, frankly, I'm at a loss to explain it. This unit, WORKS PERFECTLY. From the time I turned it on, was the fastest OS installation I've EVER experienced, took a matter of minutes, rebooted and everything came up. Does the cursor on the track pad jump around? Well, if you read the manual, it tells you to use one finger/thumb at a time. If you use one to steer and one to click, it thinks you're using two and trying to gesture...if you use one, it works perfectly. Same thing with the screen, people say dim display? well not mine, crank up the brightness and its almost painfully bright.. Also, the HD screen is spectacular. It is fully configurable as to color and temp and is easily adjusted to give real life accurate palettes for the graphics types out there. Then there's the supposedly weak wifi, well not mine, once you set the driver options correctly its on par with all the other laptops laying around here...and then there's the "heat". Well, last night I ran a raid instance in northrend at 1920x1080 on "ultra" settings. GPU ran up to 52C, the cpu a bit more, highest at 59C....on the 1 core, other cores 3 to 4 C less....This box has the I720, 4830 combo, 6gig combo.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the onboard card reader takes SDHC cards, and that they mount flush...so you can keep one in there all the time and forget about it. For a machine with three fans, its amazingly quiet, and I don't know who said the screen only opens 90 degrees, mine lays back more than enough to use on a table, or lap, oh and regarding that, the whole raid I was sitting in a recliner with the laptop on my lap...no burns, nothing.

Frankly, I'm confused as to where all the horror stories came from. Perhaps there is more than one assembly line, or perhaps there were changes made from the initial units..or...drumroll...*maybe* its because this unit came from the Microsoft Store. The description notes that the unit was customized by MS as to software etc. (I notice that a number of things listed on the HP site are not on this unit), and that amazingly, it has NO crapware whatsoever (assuming you don't thing MS puts out 'crapware' lol.) In any event, whatever they put on here works. Frankly after doing this since the very beginning of laptops, this was by far and away, the simplest, quickest, and most pain free laptop acquisition and setup I've EVER had. Couldn't be happier with the HP Envy 15. Oh, btw, this unit came with all the accessories, and the big battery that fits on the bottom of the unit is noticeable only by weight and the total elimination of any warmth whatsoever on the bottom of the unit. The thickness it adds is negligible, and if you didin't tell someone looking at the combined unit, they would never notice it was on there.

Seer

[johnnobts]

My Envy Limted Edition (2nd Gen) has performed like a champ thus far.

[seeratlas]

OK, quick update, ran some diagnostic software today which showed Quanta as the manufacturer of the mboard.

seer

[wild05kid05]

Let's see, it's hot than I expected ( first gen i7 720), battery life with extra 9 cells is about 5h ( that's 15 CELLS), the outer part of the body is easy to crack (accidentally drop from mattress/ 50cm), BSOD dues to GPU, black screen issue. The only good thing about this machine is the capacity of RAM it can hold and the design. I paid for a premium notebook, but after time it becomes somewhat a consumer notebook. Well.

[gdansk]

OK, quick update, ran some diagnostic software today which showed Quanta as the manufacturer of the mboard.

seer

Yeah, Quanta isn't exactly an "unknown" Chinese manufacturer, they make many of the big brand's notebooks. As for the quality of Quanta, they do make Apple, Sony, and Lenovo notebooks in addition to HP.

[lagitup]

Let's see, it's hot than I expected ( first gen i7 720), battery life with extra 9 cells is about 5h ( that's 15 CELLS), the outer part of the body is easy to crack (accidentally drop from mattress/ 50cm), BSOD dues to GPU, black screen issue. The only good thing about this machine is the capacity of RAM it can hold and the design. I paid for a premium notebook, but after time it becomes somewhat a consumer notebook. Well.

I'm guessing you're talking about an Envy 15 which is known for heat issues?