HP Envy 15-1050nr review

Instead of a more common Nivida 200M-series GPU, the HP Envy 15 uses a 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830. For mid-to-high-end gaming, it performed well, giving us 68.4 frames per second in Unreal Tournament III at 1,440x900-pixel resolution. A dedicated gaming machine, the aforementioned Alienware m15x, with a single Nvidia GeForce GTX 260Mm, got 128 frames per second in the same test. In anecdotal testing, we were able to run the upcoming Avatar PC game smoothly at 1,920x1,080 pixels on the Envy 15.

Juice box
HP Envy 15	Average watts per hour
Off	0.46
Sleep	1.42
Idle	31.74
Load	91.65
Raw kWh Number	165.80
Annual energy cost	$18.82

The HP Envy 15 ran for 1 hour and 57 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, using the standard six-cell battery. That's disappointing for a 15-inch laptop, no matter how high-powered the components. The system also comes with a secondary slice battery (if you order the system direct from HP, you can add the second battery as an accessory). Using that battery, we got an additional 2 hours and 21 minutes of life. While we're sympathetic to the power restrictions of high-end components and a slim chassis, that's still a fairly short total working time even for those willing to lug two batteries around.

HP includes an industry-standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty with the system. Buying direct from HP allows you to upgrade to a three-year mail-in plan for $289, but a $2,000 super-premium laptop really should include a longer warranty out of the box. Envy owners get a dedicated support number to call, manned by, "Envy product experts." Online support chat is also available, and, according to HP, e-mails to its tech support team should be answered within one hour.

Unreal Tournament 3 (in frames per second)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,280x800, 0X AA, 8X AF*

1,440x900, 4X AA, 8X AF*

Asus G60VX-RBBX05 @ 1280x720

116.4 

HP Envy 15-1050nr @ 1280x768 / 1400x1050

104.8 

68.4 

Sony Vaio VGN-FW560F/T @ 1280x720 / @ 16x9

82.5 

49.1 

HP Pavilion dv7-3085dx @ 16x9

71.1 

55.1 

Find out more about how we test laptops.

Asus G60VX-RBBX05
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7450; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M; 320GB Seagate 7,200rpm

HP Envy 15-1050nr
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM; 6,144MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm

Sony Vaio VGN-FW560F/T
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7450; 6,144MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650; 500GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

HP Pavilion dv7-3085dx
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM; 6,144MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm