HP Envy 17 17.3″ Laptop Review

HP Envy 17 powered by Intel Core i5-2430 processor and 17.3 inches screen offers better performance to do multi tasks. It has high resolution for its ‘big’ screens, rich in color and it has good brightness too. For storage media, this device offers an option with 128 GB mSATA SSD or two hard drives up to 1 TB.

HP ENVY 17 Specifiations:

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel Core i5-2340M
• Radiance display
• AMD Radeon graphics
• 750GB 7200RPM hard drive
• Beats Audio with 6 speakers + subwoofer
• Slot-loading DVD+/-RW
• HP Radiance backlit keyboard + proximity sensor
• 91 WHr, 1000-cycle HP FN04 battery
• 6GB DDR3 SDRAM
• 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi with Bluetooth 4.0 and WI-Di

The Envy 17 is slim enough that you might not think, at first, that it qualifies as a true desktop-replacement machine. At just 1.25 inches thick and 7.5 pounds, this is an impressively sleek machine. The laser-etched lid and the chassis, both in bronze-colored aluminum, scream durability, resist showing fingerprints, and hint at the high-end components lurking underneath. The uncluttered keyboard deck is also aluminum, following the dark bronze motif. As with the lid, it has a dotted texture that comes from an etching method that we’ve seen only on Envy notebooks. The left palm rest gets very warm, however, even during mild usage.

The 3D experience isn't much to write home about, either. Relatively still scenes look good through the included active shutter glasses, but once the action starts, the image quickly gets blurry and fuzzy. Compared to a theatre, or even a decent 3D TV, where 3D suffers partly because of the limitations of the human brain, the experience is pretty pathetic.

Across the board, these bad boys can be configured with quad-core CPUs, and come standard with six speakers, a subwoofer, HP's CoolSense technology and support for HP Wireless Audio. The Envy 17, in particular, can be configured with either a 128GB mSATA SSD or dual 1TB drives. Naturally, like every other in HP's lineup, they all have Beats Audio on-board. No surprise there.

The HP ENVY 17 uses a chiclet style keyboard design. The short throw laptop style keys means that typing is a quiet experience. Surprisingly the tactile feedback on this keyboard is pretty good, with nice clicky response despite the scissor key mechanism. The larger 17in form factor also allows space for a dedicated numpad. Aside from the arrow keys being placed under the right shift key, the keys are positioned just like that of a regular desktop keyboard, making it very intuitive to use. The ENVY 17 keyboard also comes standard with backlighting, which is very well done. The letters are etched on the keys and the light shines through, creating a subtle, attractive, and unobtrusive experience.

The Envy 17 comes with 8GB of RAM, which is enough to either run many programs at once fluidly or run very intensive image and video editing software. The Envy 17 features an unbelievably generous 2,000GB of hard disk drive storage. This can store a vast collection of media content.

Because of its many advanced features and the attention to detail that has been observed in making this product, the Envy 17 is available at a premium price. However, it is possible to purchase the HP Envy 17 charger at a discount. By obtaining HP Envy 17 discount coupons, the savings you could make on the purchase price can be quite substantial. Moreover, reading reviews on this product will help you make an informed decision on what to expect from your laptop.

The large clickpad evokes Apple’s version, with the left and right mouse buttons built right into the clickable surface. The size is decent, but could easily be even larger, and the multitouch functionality can’t hold a candle to Apple’s (which is something that can currently be said of any non-Mac laptop). We especially missed handy Mac gestures such as two-finger right-click tapping and the four-finger swipe for hiding all open windows.

The laptop's 7,200rpm 640GB hard drive should provide plenty of storage space for all of your games and media, but external hard drives will benefit from the speedy USB 3.0 port and USB/eSATA combination port. For other peripherals that may not need the faster data transfer afforded by those connections, there are two additional USB 2.0 ports. A multi-format card reader lets you pull content from a variety of formats (SD, MS/Pro, MMC, XD).

As in the smaller models, HP again relies on a chiclet keyboard with separate keys in the Envy 17. The advantage of a large 17 inch laptop is the vast amount of room. Consequently, the full size keyboard fits easily into the case. The 15x15 millimeter sized keys are on par with desktop keys in regard to size. Due to the large gap in between the keys, you in fact hit the key that you actually intended to hit.

The sound system on this HP model keeps up with the graphics and the performance. Enjoy studio quality sound with the Beats Audio system. Pack up your Blu-Ray DVDs along with your HP ENVY 17 Notebook to watch them on the go. Whether you’re playing HD games, listening to music or watching videos, this laptop will perform either at home or when you’re out.

After removing this protective keyboard cover the keyboard is revealed in its full glory, it’s very spacious and includes a number pad. Also notable is the volume dial on the right side, it has a Beats Audio logo on it and makes for a quick and easy way to adjust volume on your multimedia powerhouse.

Another trick up the Envy 17’s sleeve is Beats Audio—a digital music playback profile developed by HP and Interscope Records. The difference in sound quality with and without Beats enabled is dramatic—although the “without” state is particularly anemic. Still, we’ll admit that Beats Audio makes music sound pretty damn good on a notebook, especially through an external set of speakers or headphones.

There's only one GPU option available, and that's the ATI Radeon HD5850. It's more than fine for mid-to-high-end gaming, even with resolutions cranked up to 1,920x1,080 pixels. Our only real knock is that without Nvidia's Optimus system, the GPU can't turn itself off automatically to save HP Envy 17 battery life. Playing Unreal Tournament 3 at the full 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution, we got 86.2 frames per second.

The Envy 17 features a spacious 4.3 x 2.7-inch Synaptics clickpad that HP calls an Imagepad. Similar to the Envy 15, an HD sensor enables more accurate control than other clickpads on the market. The Imagepad's most notable feature is the slightly raised gray line that demarcates between the touchpad and the mouse buttons.

Those heavy performance parts and the large screen take a serious, and we mean serious, toll on battery life. The six-cell HP FN04 battery lasted only two hours and 10 minutes on our battery rundown test, which loops the same standard definition video. Now, we do assume you won't be moving around with the rig all that often and you can always pick up the nine-cell battery for an extra $75, but we're still disappointed that you won't be able to finish a full movie before having to string the rather massive HP Envy 17 AC adapter across the room.

The strong hardware not only provides movie entertainment in FullHD, but also a lot of fun in gaming. The Envy 17 also looks good in this field. We had a few doubts about the display at first. While a backwards step from a Radiance display to a standard display had been made in the Envy 14, a high quality display with an impressive brightness is used again. However, it can't quite reach the Radiance display. Moreover, the 3D feature is a nice gimmick that will be welcomed by many multimedia fans. You are still left a bit in the dark by HP in terms of games. At least we couldn't find any information in the included documentation about this.

As noted above, the ENVY 17 runs games and Blu-Ray movies smoothly using the discrete HD6850 graphics card. Unfortunately, we have been running into the problem where every so often, the ENVY would automatically switch over to the Intel onboard graphics, even while the game or movie was playing. This results in a few seconds of EXTREMELY slow framerates because the onboard chip cannot cope with the load. This has happened often enough to be a serious nuisance, and we hope that HP fixes this in a future update.

When you buy HP Envy 17, you will benefit from the manufacturer's one-year limited warranty on hardware. Since the company also provides support via email and live chat 24/7, purchasers of their products know they are not alone should the machine develop complications. Moreover, HP has an in-house service through which it sends staff to attend to clients who need repairs or for trouble shooting in the clients' homes.