Any negatives to list about this item. Can a SSD be added within the case while retaining the internal HD like with the 17" screen models sold here before?
I don’t think this has a 2nd HD bay. Being a fairly slim factor, having an optical drive and being only 15.6 inches would make it hard to get a free bay in there. If you don’t think you’ll use your DVD drive, you can remove that and put a HD caddy in its place. This company sells one for about $28, Hp Envy 15-k253ca 2nd HDD SSD Hard Drive Caddy Adapter for Laptop. If you know for sure that the optical drive is 12.7mm, here is one for $10 http://www.amazon.com/Protronix-Optical-Drive-Universal-12-7mm/dp/B004XIU4T2
Can memory be added? Just about ready to order this deal. Anything I should be caution about? Can’t find any reviews on Cnet or PCmag for this computer. Let me know what you think. Thanks
http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04334360 This is how you take out the optical drive. If you decide to put the HD in this bay, do this step first to figure out if you need a 9.5mm or a 12.7mm
bay. Here is a 12.7mm bay caddy http://www.amazon.com/Protronix-Optical-Drive-Universal-12-7mm/dp/B004XIU4T2 and here is a 9.5mm bay caddy (I would guess it would probably be this one) http://www.amazon.com/Protronix-Optical-Drive-Universal-12-7mm/dp/B004XIU4T2.
You could also get an external enclosure for your DVD drive to use it as USB. But you’ll find that a lot of the enclosures costs almost as much as just buying the USB DVD drive itself. This one will cost $20 after the promo code http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106104
Make sure you get an extended warranty. Bought a laptop which is the next step up on woot which worked great fop 5 months and then the touch screen went out. Still works, but without the touchscreen, but ouch…HP offered little help after the fact.
This is the same laptop on Amazon, about $918 delivered. Good reviews although nothing really detailed.
There are some crazy expensive gaming laptops on eBay using the same 4720HQ quad core processor.
I see this as pretty much a no-brainer for my needs so if anyone smarter than me can tell me why I shouldn’t buy then please speak up.
Bought an HP Envy very similar to this one last year. After 5 months the hard drive failed. Two months later the wireless card died. Right now it is in the shop to have the motherboard replaced. Needless to say, that is the last HP I will ever buy.
It says there is only 1 Dimm slot, so for you to add more RAM you would need to get a 16GB DIMM and I don’t know if they make that - and if they do, would it be compatible? Newegg did not sell any 16GB DDR3 laptop dimms. Having said that, 8GB is more than enough for 99% of users. The place to put your money would be to upgrade this HD to an SSD that would enhance your performance far more than going from 8GB to 16GB RAM. The processor in this laptop is a mother. The I7-4720 HQ scores an 8154 Passmark…but it also has a max TDP of 47 watts, which means its battery life is probably not that stellar. So if true portability is what you are looking for then this is not your answer. If you need something with a lot of power then this would be a great solution as far as you don’t stray too far from an outlet for too long. The graphics are pretty decent for being on-board graphics:
The integrated Intel HD Graphics 4600 offers 20 Execution Units (EUs) clocked at 400 MHz up to 1200 MHz with Turbo Boost, making it about 30 % faster than the HD 4000 and comparable to a dedicated GeForce 820M
The price is OK- not great. If you don’t need a DVD drive this one might be one to consider for $630. It has twice the RAM at 16GB, the processor has slightly less performance with a passmark of 7877 (but still really powerful).It is a touchscreen also.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834217070
Is it possible to hook up more than one monitor to this?
If the 2 monitors will be exact clones yes- regular HDMI splitter would work. If you need separate or extended screen functionality you need to use a USB display adapter- like this for instance: http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-Universal-Multi-Display-Adapter-K33974AM/dp/B00BSREURI
THanks. That is very helpful. I guess I would hook up one monitor to the hdmi and the other to the USB display adapter?
Yes
Thanks.
Thanks for the info. When reading the specs, I thought that it had a single 8gb sodimm installed, instead of two 4gb sodimms; so I was assuming it had two mem slots, one being left empty since the form factor could easily support two sockets.
When I looked it up on the Crucial memory site it indicated that the laptop has two slots and comes with memory in one of them, but will know for sure in a few days when the one I ordered arrives and I can have a look.
I bought for my son for college as he just broke his 3 year old Samsung i5 Laptop. This should be a screamer over his older one. Maybe he’ll even do programming on this and hopefully it last him another 4 years. I’m sure it will suffice for his game playing as well. It’s shipping already to be received tomorrow! I’ve been reading up on the processor and this one is definitely fast and is being used on many of the new computers sold still.