HP’s Slickest Laptop Is Designed to Stir Envy

THE HP ENVY 13 is a PC answer to Apple’s MacBook Pro: It’s similarly sleek but costs a bit more, starting at $1699 (our review unit is $1799). It comes with a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SL9600 CPU, 3GB of RAM, and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 discrete GPU. The laptop is 12.6 by 8.5 by 0.8 inches and weighs 3.1 pounds. It earned a nice WorldBench 6 score of 94. You can play HD video on the crisp, glossy 13.1-inch backlit LED screen—but reflections on it will be distracting. The Envy has high-tech Beats audio, but you’ll need headphones or earbuds to appreciate it. Though the touchpad’s multitouch functionality works, the mouse buttons are poorly placed. The keyboard is fine. The notebook has a couple of USB 2.0 ports, an HDMIout, an SD flash-card reader, and a headphone/mic jack. Missing are ports for wired ethernet and VGA (you do get Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi). And it has no optical drive—you must buy an external one (starting at $100 for a DVD-ROM version). A helpful six-cell battery slice goes for another $100. We give HP nods for smart design overall, and a promise of premium support. (You even get a 2GB SDHC card that holds the manual.) The Envy 13 has a lot of eyecatching touches and is a good machine for people who have money to burn.

Source of Information : PC World December 2009