Wow, I can’t believe I’m the only buyer on this deal – though there are two versions of the deal still active, and the other one’s getting more attention. (The systems in both deals appear to be identical.)
Mine arrived Wednesday, and honestly, I’m loving it. The SSD’s nice and snappy, quite responsive. Sound is markedly improved from the Envy from which I upgraded (a 17T-S000), with a little bit more low-mid definition. Hinges are snug without being brittle, and the fans, while quite loud at full speed, do indeed move air through the laptop.
The screen’s a big surprise – excellent, bold color definition, especially with bright, saturated colors. Reds really pop on this display, in particular. There were some scaling issues with the immense QHD screen – some apps just aren’t designed to handle 250% font scaling on a 4K display, and have either blurry fonts, or layout issues – but switching to the Win8.1 method of scaling solved this problem for me.
Per a question on the other listing for this laptop, the laptop does indeed ship with software to create recovery media, albeit no physical media included. Mine arrived with (massive) 230W power supply and a quick start and warranty guide.
This laptop does not include an optical drive. If that’s an issue for you, consider picking up an external USB optical drive.
The battery is completely internal, and not as easy a replacement, as it is on the comparable Envys. It can be replaced, but there are additional steps needed, including opening up the laptop – grab a copy of the service manual here if you’re curious. The RAM service door on the bottom will make memory upgrades much simpler.
The power jack isn’t as grippy as I hoped, and the power cord has a tendency to fall out, if the cable’s jostled. You’ll want to keep that i mind, and make sure to position the cable in a way that won’t encourage its own weight to unseat it. This seems to be the primary design flaw of the laptop so far, and I can see how it would frustrate some people, if not planned for. Take care not to put this laptop in a position where it’s likely to experience cord yank, if that’s going to be a problem for you.
I’m quite happy with mine, but I note that the internal battery, power jack prone to unseating, and lack on an optical drive may put off some buyers. It’s exactly what I wanted, though, and I suspect that it’ll be a very attractive purchase for folks with similar priorities.
Wow. This was an amazing deal, and I seem to be the only person here. I am the only buyer, and the only commenter.
This was a gigantic killer awesome laptop party and I was, it seems, the only attendee. A shame…I love mine. Should this laptop go up for sale again, provided the above caveats aren’t dealbreakers for you, definitely check it out.
I took the plunge, Rancourt. I’m still a bit nervous because of reviews and comments I’ve read about heat dissipation on past models but I’m hopeful that with a cooling pad I’ll be OK. Out of curiosity I’m seeing some conflicting information about whether this one has G-SYNC or not and also if it came with the 1 TB HDD in addition to the 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD. Can you confirm if it does have G-Sync on the panel itself and if it came with the 1 TB HDD in addition to the SSD?