Are HP laptops any good? Looking at the Envy 4-1170ez

Steffano2002

Good evening,

I am looking to buy a laptop here in Switzerland (must have Swiss keyboard) and STEG are giving 15% off until Monday on all HP Ultrabooks.

I need a laptop for college (don't need a power house, just needs to run Office and be "decent" overall) and I'm looking at the HP Envy 4-1170ez (spec below).

Will I suffer from not having an optical drive? Can you think of better, more reliable, cheaper laptops I should try to find instead of HP?

Thank you in advance for your comments and assistance.

Envy 4-1170ez Spec:

Screen 14.0" (35.56 cm)
Resolution 1366x768 WXGA (>16:9)
GPU Intel HD Graphics 4000
CPU Intel Core i5-3317U (64 Bit) & Graphics
CPU Speed 1.70 GHz
Memory 8 GB (1x 8 GB) DDR3 (1333 MHz)
Storage 500 GB HDD & 32 GB SSD
Optical drive None
Operating system Win 8 64Bit (D/F/I/E)
Network 1x LAN 1 Gbit/s & WLAN 802.11 b/g/n & Bluetooth
Webcam 0.3 megapixels
Weight 1.80 kg
1x USB 2.0
2x USB 3.0
1x HDMI
Screen LCD brillant & rétroéclairage LED & Touchscreen

Skill Magill

Take a look at this thread, some people are quite dubious of them
and quote by PaddyP
"

I can vouch for that having repaired them, I even have a couple of hp laptops that clients simply decided they didn't want back after repair, they'd rather spend 700 quid on a new one. Very shoddy thermal design, heatsinks are skimped to the bone and made out of rubbish alloys, another couple of grammes of copper is all thats needed in some cases, poor design and layout of air inlets and exhausts mening they are easily blocked in normal use, rubbish heatsink pads etc. same mistakes repeated accross models year on year - they're definitely not the toyota or honda of the car world. "

This thread will stear you in the right direction, great advice and solid deals. Not sur about the swiss keyboard though

Steffano2002

Thanks Skill Magill, I remember hearing they weren't great alright...

So what are the good laptop brands out there then? Toshiba (Portégé)? Lenovo? Asus?

Skill Magill

Asus are good, heres facts though

Steffano2002

Wow, that's an impressive graph! Don't know the source for this data but I'm happy enough to keep away form HP!

I was looking some more and I'm now looking at this Asus R505CB on a different website (Digitec.ch).

Any thoughts on this bad boy?

Steffano2002

Or this Asus N56VZ if I decide to cough up a little bit more...

bonzodog2

It's a shame really, back in the 1970's and earlier, HP were the dog's b0llocks for scientific electronics. Couldn't comment on earlier laptop quality, but somewhere along the way the bean counters got in.

Skill Magill

Is that about €650? Thats a good price for an i7 alright. Consider the fact that you don't need anything nearly as powerful as that, if your just using it for college. What might be of more importance would be battery life. Take a look at what they say here
It is gorgeous though!!
Or look at pcspecialist, you can build your own (well they'll build it, you pick what you want to go in it), takes about 3 weeks though.
+ they offer ips full hd screens on their 15.6" versions.
What you quoted is a good deal imo, Id be tempted myself if the resolution wasn't 1366

Steffano2002

HAHA! I was on that very same thread earlier Skill Magill!

Yes, the Asus R505CB comes in at 650 EUR but it has a 4-cell battery... The Asus N56VZ has a 6-cell and is overall sexier. It comes in at 880 EUR but fook it, I'll have a decent laptop for the next 3 years so I think I'll get that one.

billy few mates

If you do buy a HP laptop just make sure you buy another 'non HP' laptop as well so that when the HP laptop dies you can at least use the other one to write a few dozen letters of complaint (all of which will go unanswered) to their non existent customer service department and to trawl through the websites in a vain attempt to discover why yours is the only one out of the hundreds of thousands of faulty laptops they've produced that ins't eligible for the recall and repair, and to partake in any of the vast numbers of website forums and support groups for other former HP laptop customers and victims....

I used to be quite a fan of HP products, over the years I've had scanners, printers, Pocket PCs and a whole heap of other stuff. The only HP items I now possess are the remains of my former laptop and a printer, I refuse to buy HP ink cartridges for that and when it eventually dies I intend to bury it in the garden along with the laptop and finally cut all ties with anything to do with HP....

Steffano2002

Sounds like you're a little bit frustrated there billy few mates! Sorry to hear all the sh!t you had to go through...

I'll be staying well clear of HP now!

Torqay

HP may not be amongst my favourite brands (for a variety of reasons), and yet I have to deal with them on occasion and the experience is rather satisfying. In the last year, I had a faulty laptop (from Komplett) and HP (in the UK, IIRC) replaced it within 3 days, more recently I needed a HP laptop charger to be replaced, it arrived the next day (via express curier).

I'm not in business of dissing certain brands (maybe with the exception of Advent ), there is another thread going on here with posters bashing Toshiba laptops left right and centre. According to the "impressive graph" above (which by the way is 3 years old) Toshiba is amongst the most reliable brands. We all have our experiences but if you buy cheap then this is exactly what you get. Don't expect too much from some budget laptop for 350 yoyos, regardless who makes it.

truedoom

Depends on the model of laptop.

In my experience, the pavilion series are buggy and easily broken.

But the probooks are fantastic, and very cleverly designed.

Elitebooks are very good and relieable.

Currently using a Folio 9470m, and it seems to be great, but it is at the high end of laptops, costing around €1400.

Like any laptop company, the cheaper models are going to be a less reliable.