*HP ENVY 14 & ENVY 14 Beats (2XXX series) Owners Lounge*

[altecxp]

Heck, even the m14x, probably what should be it's closest competition has a 1600x900 display.

[Fiorella]

I'm starting to get tired of waiting for the SB Envy.. has anyone in Europe heard anything about release dates in their country? I did hear something about mid-july, but it has still been no word of it, so I wonder if it was a rumor or if its just HP's way of doing things.. The 1st gen Envy 14 is on sale here now though, and the largest store has like 20 units left in stock..

[lammah]

if you are gaming, buy the old gen envy as you will get nearly the same performance. Especially if its on sale.

[Fiorella]

Not a gamer. And I don't want the 1st gen with i7, which is the only retail model left on sale here.. I want better battery life than that

[lammah]

Not a gamer. And I don't want the 1st gen with i7, which is the only retail model left on sale here.. I want better battery life than that

in this case yes the old gen i7 has a pretty bad battery life (hence i got the i5-580)

[balkp]

Just got my new envy beats. The color scheme on this and the ports are a little different, and something seems weird about the screen, but I can't put my finger on it. First off there is no chrome around the laptop like on the previous beats, it is just black aluminum like the rest of the laptop. 2 Headphone/microphone jacks instead of 3. The new trackpad does not seem much different than my old envy, but I had one of the newer models from the last gen and really did not see any flaws with that trackpad. This trackpad is really working great so far. Just wish the GPU would have been a little better, going to try out some games after I get back from the gym Man this thing looks sexy. Also the hinges seem a little looser than they need to be, my old envy had nice a stiff hinges, this one closes on me if the screen is like around 2 inches open, not to thrilled about that.

Anyone know any good racing or shooting games which would be nice to try out.

Not sure if its in my head, but these speakers also seem a bit better. Also the volume, brightness icons which come up when changing that are beats icons instead of the normal light blue bar.

[Fiorella]

in this case yes the old gen i7 has a pretty bad battery life (hence i got the i5-580)

Yeah, I know.. So I'll wait for the SB Envy instead Tired of waiting now though..

[mikecc6]

What type of switchable graphics does the SB envy have?

[Snipester]

Here is my mini review of SB Envy 14 beats edition

Why choose Envy 14?
I was looking for something smaller and lighter than my 8540w with comparable quality and gfx power.

First impression:
-Cool box,
-nice matte black bottom an surface surrounding the keyboard. Surface of the laptop also feels expensive
-e2e screen is nicw but bezel to me is a bit thick.
-A bit heavy
-touch pad is quite large which i am not used to
-backlit keyboard is cool
-charger is cool

The screen:
I just calibrated it using the eyeone display 2 and it still looks pretty poor quality. Compared to my desktop 2509b HP monitor it looks like crap.

The contrast is very poor and black level is horrible. Moving your head slightly will shift the black level around the screen causing a full black screen to look washed out.

I'm not going to bother with batt life/perf tests but overall I am a bit disappointed. The screen quality is really bad and it is as heavy as a 15" laptop without the 15" advantage of better resolution screen or gfx power.

I'm also quite surprised how loud it is even at idle. It seems like it is louder than my 8540w.

Anyways looks like i'm going to send it back.

I think the only good contrast mass market TN panels seem to be 15 or 17" 1080p laptop screens or some asus 10" netbook screens based on reviews I've seen on notebookcheck (alienware m14x,x220 IPS, Vaio Z are also good panels).

[Brickinthewall562]

@ Snipester....

I returned my 2050se Beats Edition to Amazon the same day I received it. Your review is spot on. I can't believe how disappointed I was with the screen. Also, I felt the keyboard had way too much flex.

I actually settled on the DV6 Quad Edition in the end. Great battery life, and a 1080p screen paired with 6770 vid card. Hopefully this one turns out to be a positive.