Fight for the Envy 14 radiance display.

[Polluxus]

OK guys. I am super disappointed by HP. I tried to order the Envy 14 with radiance display in Germany for months and I did not succeed (constant shortage) and now they downgraded it. I am writing negative reviews and anyhow try to let them understand that they annoyed a lot of people with this action. Does anyone try to do the same ? I mean they are a company and should be customer oriented right? Thus if there are enough people that demand the radiance display they might bring it back ? Does anyone have the email of the guy in this video YouTube - HP Envy 14.
I'd write him to at least get some information about the whole issue.

Greetings
Polluxus

[Flotti]

Haha, thats funny, I did the same... Also informed notebookcheck.com about the issue and they posted it in the news.

Obviously, HP is not very interested in the german market as they do have constant shortage of the Envy 14, with or without Radiance... Its not possible to order any Envy at this time. The 1101eg is still not in stock.

Apart from that, I dont know how one could influence HP. The guy from the video/HP probably knows about the superiority of the Radiance Display. HP should also be smart enough to know about the strong demand for MBP competitive NB with great screens. I don't know what you could do. By telling them "Hey, we are 500 people who want an Envy with Radiance screen", you are probably not telling them anything new.

Of course, there has to be a reason for HP not to sell it at the moment. There are different explanations: 1. If the reason is a supply shortage of the radiance screen: HP's manufactories constantly build all the other parts (case, mainboards, keyboards etc.) so its the smartest thing for HP to keep selling the Envy with a BrightView only. 2. manufacturer went out of business. Same as in 1., while they are looking for a new supplier for premium screens. 3. they wanted to push the reviews. in this case they will just keep producing the BrightView Envy, hoping that still enough people are going to buy it.

I appreciate your initiative. But on the other hand, if we spend 20 hours for this campaign, we could also actually go to work, earn money and go for a Sony Vaio Z or EliteBook with Dream Color 2 display instead... This is not politics, but free market economy. You don't exert influence by running initiatives, but by buying from a competitor. If Envy 14 BrightView sales drop by 90%, some executive might kick someones at HP... rightly so.

[Polluxus]

Yeah that makes sense.
I disagree with point 3 though because they would shoot them self in the foot with that strategy if they pull that trick more then 2 times.
I think I'm just frustrated about the company policy of HP. Development should point upwards and not downwards.

Guess i'm just gonna wait for the second generation of the Envy 14 and in the meanwhile keep poking HP so that they get the things right next time.

There just one thing that puzzles me about the radiance display. We have a 2 year warranty in Germany and the screen is included. They must have quite some displays in stock just to back up any repair demands. It should still be possible to order it as replacement part. I'm considering buying the "nerfed" version and replacing the brightview display myself with the radiance display.

[e14]

HP told me they don't have any radiance displays for sale as a spare part any more, but it isn't even worth the effort and expense.

The radiance screen actually wasn't as good as they hyped it to be, same with the rest of the laptop, here is the hype deconstructed:

"7hr battery life, 14 with the slice"... nope! its closer to 3 or 4hr and 7.5 with slice, and that's for dualcore it gets worse for quad. this was no big surprise though, everyone lies about battery life. plus the slice weighs more than just carrying a spare, and puts the overall weight to 7lbs which is as much as a 16" desktop replacement weighs.

"350nit radiance display".... nope! it measures out to be only 300nit max, with 263nit on average, and only 247nit when on battery power. not even close to the claimed average of 350nit. a vaioZ is actually brighter if you adjust it in the control panel. So basically, the brightness of a radiance is good but not spectacular, a lot of others are just as bright or brighter.

"high resolution, high contrast, high color gamut, best in class"... vaioZ, macbook pro, dell studio, elitebook, etc. all have a good screen too, some are even better than the radiance, so its not special, its not the best.

"envy will start at $1000 and comes standard with core i5 and the really good radiance screen"... hahaha! +$300(or more soon?) option, either due to greed or low supply/demand. instead of an i5 they gave everyone an i3 when it launched, upgradable to an i5 that actually ran slower, hilarious! people were real mad to find out they paid extra to downgrade their cpu, it took HP a week to remove that false upgrade from the list.

"premium and precision design, special envy concierge service for support"... yeah right, if you google CPU whine its amazing how many times you see envy14 pop up compared to other laptops. misfitting aluminum parts with gaps, logo backlight off center, rubber feet and screen gaskets falling off after 3 months and having to fight with HP to replace them for free even though the computer is under warranty. Since when do people with a premium laptop have to RMA it multiple times in order to get a good one, the macintosh buyers don't I am sure.

"powerful ati 5650 graphics"... nope! they use low binned chips that are underclocked by 100MHZ and undervolted, so its probably about as fast as an ati 3870 or nvidia 335 GT. the full speed 5650 isn't too good for gaming to begin with, so this kills gaming performance and will force you to play on lowest settings for new games coming out since it can barely play the current games at the native res of 1600x900. the budget priced acer timeline laptops give you a full speed 5650, and they're the same size as the envy, so there's no excuse for this.


I am probably going to get a 13" vaioZ or a 15" macbook pro now, because I am getting really sick of the games that HP has been playing. They have no respect for their customers at all, the least they could do is issue a press release or even a memo to their sales staff so that they can tell us what is going on and why the radiance screen is once again not available.

[hahncholo]

You forgot to mention how much more expensive the Vaio Z and Macbook Pro are compared to the Envy, even with Radiance.

[schismal]

Honestly, I'm with e14 here.

I love the design, but I'll be waiting for the next 14" or 15" refresh before I plump down money on old internals. Until HP fixes the display issue (c'mon, a high res screen should be standard here... my freaking 10" netbook runs 1366x768), upgrades the graphics, adds a Blu-ray option, and perhaps even ships Sandy Bridge processors (if it takes that long to fix the other deficiencies), then the sub-17" Envy line just isn't worth it to me. Sucks to wait longer, since I'm in need of a machine now, but it sucks more to plop down so much money on something that is already outdated (compared to competitor's hardware offerings) at the time of purchase.

Here's to hoping the 15" makes a comeback, since I'm not sure HP can fit all that in a 14" shell.

[aBs0lut3z33r0]

underpowered 5650 , read this for the first time

[jeffreybaks]

yeah as much as it is nice to see another great gaming noteook come to light like the envy14, pritty much everything e14 said is hiting it directlly on the nail. Do I still like the envy14, with radiance display, yes but there are many notebooks to choose from also, one being the new asus g53.

Also there is no excuse for having to wait for anything even in germany. Thats complete nonsence. Id be supa pissed If I was you and would write some nasty letters and chew some idiots up, and rip some heads! bah!

[metalcoat]

I contacted HP about the Beats Edition with a Radiance Screen about a week ago and I was told that the original supplier for the Radiance Display went out of business. So I am guessing they are looking right now.

[tybert7]

Originally Posted by hahncholo

You forgot to mention how much more expensive the Vaio Z and Macbook Pro are compared to the Envy, even with Radiance.

I think that omission was by design if I remember previous posts from e14 correctly (i.e. my boyfriends mbp is better in every way to my envy 15, mbp is better, I wish I had a mbp, I love the mbp blah blah).

However, without the screen there are better options for the money. For now. If the situation stays the same with the next iteration of the envy 14, then we will know it is more serious.


As it stands, all I see is a case of the envy 14 with the nicer screen being more popular than HP expected, and they got caught off balance on the supply issue, which is possible to fix with time.


For the moment, if anyone needs a good screen with OK graphics, then the vaio z and mbp 15 are the main options if battery life is needed.

if battery life is not as large an issue, the elitebook 8540w beats all of them by a country mile with the screen option it comes with, as well as graphics power. Though that may actually be more expensive.