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If there's one thing we took away from our jaunt at CES, it's this: consumers' appetites for mainstream laptops haven't waned all that much. Even in the Ultrabook category, Intel expects half of the models to go on sale this year will have 14- and 15-inch screens -- as strong an indicator as any that lots of folks aren't yet ready to give up their slightly larger screens, their discrete graphics, their (gasp!) optical drives. While HP recently announced its first Ultrabook for the consumer market, the Envy 14 Spectre, it's fully fleshed out its premium Envy series to include two additional models for people who crave more oomph.
The Envy 15 is the medium-sized member of the crew, with a 15.6-inch with battery like dell Inspiron 600m battery
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screen and the same overhauled design you'll find across the Envy lineup. Delightfully, too, it marks the return of HP's eye-popping Radiance display, and also comes with a generous two-year warranty and full copies of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. And with a starting price of $1,100, it sharply undercuts the 15-inch MacBook Pro, while taking direct aim at other high-end 15-inchers, like the Dell XPS 15z and Samsung Series 7 Chronos. So how does it stack up? Meet us after the break to find out.
As a rule of thumb, saying a laptop looks like a MacBook Pro is akin to a reviewer falling back on adjectives like "cool," "fun" and "crappy": it's imprecise, and not particularly helpful to our readers. Besides, "It looks like a Mac!" is often shorthand for "it has a chiclet keyboard!" or "it's painted silver!" Usually, we're talking about overarching similarities, at most. Does the XPS 15z bear a resemblance to a now-discontinued Mac? Kind of. Would you ever mistake that keyboard lettering and embellished hinge for Jony Ive creations? No way. And until the suits over in Cupertino start suing rival PC makers for their flattery, we're going to assume Apple understands this too.
Still, it's painfully obvious where HP drew its inspiration for its newest Envy laptops. It's not because of any single design choice, like the aluminum unibody chassis, island-style keys, glowing logo or giant clickpad; it's all of the above! HP's latest 15-incher is the most flagrant Mac imitation we've seen in some time, and the resemblance is close enough that you could, at first glance, mistake the interior for an MBP. Of course, HP threw in some flourishes that keep it from being a total facsimile: the lid and underside are black, not silver, the keyboard area has a thin red ring around it and there are Beats-branded volume controls on the laptop's right side. HP also rounded the edges so that they feel more like a butter knife than a steak utensil. Even so, tacking on an analog volume dial feels like the PC-making equivalent of Honda adding wings to the Civic and calling it the Civic Type R. What we're saying is, the Envy 15 is hardly identical, but HP doesn't deserve points for originality either
In any case, the Envy 15 is attractive, uncluttered and well-made. The hinge feels sturdy, and the metal used in the palm rest seems less vulnerable to scratches than the aluminum casing on the MacBook Pro. Thanks to HP's CoolSense technology, the laptop also does a marvelous job of shifting heat off the bottom side of the laptop, so that you can rest it on your legs for hours without fear of first-degree burns. Still, you might hear some creaking when pressing your fingers against the right side of the palm rest. This is hardly a deal-breaker, though, especially since the laptop's too unwieldy to lift with one hand anyway.
As you'd expect, it's easy enough to shuttle the Envy 15 around the house, or to and from the office. At 5.79 pounds / 1.1 inches thick, it's bulkier and heavier than the 5.54-pound Dell XPS 15z as well as the 5.6-pound MacBook Pro and 4.4-pound Sony VAIO SE series though it's more in line with the Sony VAIO SE series, which clocks in at 5.77 pounds. It's also about as wide as its competitors, save the MBP, which means you shouldn't have a problem toting it in a backpack or some over-the-shoulder bag. Basically, unless you have the dough to drop on the 15-inch Samsung Series 9 and can do without that optical drive, this is more or less what you can expect from a laptop this size.
Continuing our tour around the Envy 15's imposing frame, the bottom side has a reasonably clean look, but still gives you access to the battery and hard drive. A long vent takes up the back side, with the left and right edges consumed by a wide selection of ports, including three USB ports (one 2.0 and two of the 3.0 persuasion), HDMI, DisplayPort, an Ethernet jack, a memory card reader, Kensington lock slot, a microphone port and dual headphone jacks. A slot-loading DVD drive lives on the left side (sorry, no Blu-ray option on this model.) In terms of the layout, HP did Apple one better, stacking the ports on two sides instead of one, with the two USB 3.0 sockets on the left edge, and the lone 2.0 port on the right. Good news for anyone who hates the sight of all their peripherals growing out of a tightly packed cluster of USB ports.