HP Envy 15 review

With the arrival of its new high-end range of laptops, one manufacturer would have us believe that imitation truly is the most sincere form of flattery. Lightweight, slender and sheathed in aluminium – no, we’re not talking about Apple’s metal-framed MacBooks – HP’s Envy range comes dressed to impress.

And just like Apple’s own, the Envy seeks to weave its magic before you’ve even laid eyes on the laptop itself. The black cardboard box is bare, aside from the silver Envy logo at the very centre, the tight-fitting lid sliding off with agonising slowness. In the box the laptop, external DVD writer and power supply nestle in their own perfectly moulded compartments.

If all this effort is designed to set the stage for a truly dramatic entrance then, initially at least, it works. For a 15.6in laptop, the cold, metal chassis of the Envy 15 feels uncommonly light. Shirking an integrated optical drive has certainly helped trim the fat: at just 2.38kg this HP is as light as desktop replacement notebooks get. It’s thin, too, at a mere 28mm tall.

But as distracting as the Envy 15s vital statistics might be, there’s something undeniably underwhelming about the whole affair. There’s certainly no attempt to mimic the uncluttered simplicity of the MacBook Pro’s plain, brushed aluminium finish.

Instead, HP has really gone to town. Tiny geometric dimples create the impression of spirals that coat the lid and reach across the wristrest, while the dark grey finish reaches inside and pools between the black Scrabble-tile keys. It all sounds impressive but, in the flesh, it just doesn’t thrill like it should.

So, shallow-minded souls might not warm to the Envy’s visual charms, but the HP definitely punches well above its weight when it comes to performance. The sting in the Envy’s tail is delivered by one of Intel’s new Core i7 processors: the i7-720QM. It’s something we’d expect to find in a heavyweight gaming laptop, such as the Alienware M15x, but to find it in the 2.38kg Envy 15 is something of a surprise.

The i7-720QM is right at home too, thanks to a capable supporting cast: 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 320GB 7,200rpm Seagate hard disk and a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. And, with a result of 1.57 in our application benchmarks, the Envy 15 proves that it’s effortlessly capable of keeping up with the burliest of desktop replacements. What comes as even more of a surprise is that there’s an equally capable graphics chipset in tow. ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD 4830 didn’t run out of breath until taxed with our most demanding Crysis benchmark, and even then emerged with an impressive average of 19fps.

Even here, though, in its most glorious moment, the Envy leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Those performance figures might prove outstanding, but the massive heat output of the powerful CPU and GPU don’t take long to heat the HP’s metallic chassis to uncomfortable levels. Noisy fans spin up while the Envy labours away, but it’s not enough to stop the wristrest and the left-hand side of the keyboard hitting worryingly high temperatures. It might be portable, but we wouldn’t envy anyone working with the HP on their lap.

Not, unfortunately, that you’ll be travelling far with the Envy 15 before it needs recharging. The slimline chassis leaves little in the way of space for a battery, and it shows. Even in our light usage test, the Envy stumbled after just 2hrs 32mins. And if that’s not enough, well, you’ll just have to shell out extra for the optional battery slice and suffer carrying around an extra few hundred grams in your bag.

Even sat at a desk, the HP disappoints. The Scrabble-tile keyboard isn’t bad but, just like so many aspects of the Envy 15, is hamstrung by poor design decisions. The strip of shortcut keys along the keyboard’s left and right hand edges make touch-typing a frustrating affair, and there’s little in the way of feel to any of the square, short-travel keys.

But if the keyboard annoys, the trackpad is enough to elicit pure, unfettered rage. Just like Apple and its novel glass touchpad, HP has integrated the buttons into the multitouch trackpad itself, requiring you to physically click either side of the trackpad. The integrated buttons are exceedingly stiff, however, and pressing them often jogged the cursor away from where we intended to click. And where Apple’s trackpad happily allows you to rest a button-clicking thumb on the bottom left of the pad, and still smoothly control the cursor with another finger, the HP becomes confused, occasionally snapping the cursor to the position of your thumb.

The final disappointment comes courtesy of the Envy 15’s display. Despite brutal amounts of multi-tasking power on tap from the Core i7 processor, the screen’s native resolution of 1,366 x 768 barely leaves enough room to squeeze two documents side by side. And although it’s bright, colours just don’t pop off the screen as they should, turning Crysis’ tropical battlefield into a somewhat overcast, dull affair.

Power, looks, portability, battery life, ergonomics; whichever way you cut it, the Envy’s performance is desperately inconsistent. There are flashes of brilliance here and there, but they’re so tempered with mediocrity that the Envy 15 becomes impossible to recommend.

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