HP Envy 15-K151NR 15.6 inch Laptop Review

15.6 inch HP Envy 15-K151NR
via Amazon

HP Envy 15-k151nr (J6P00UA) is a great new mid-range 15.6 inch non-touch screen professional laptop with a high end Haswell i7 processor, large storage and memory for power users so it is capable of running just about any software, even the extremely demanding ones and will let you multitask very smoothly and work with photos and videos comfortably. Multimedia editing, simulation, running engineering software or anything similar that doesn’t require a proper mid level discrete graphics card is easy on this machine.
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HP ENVY is offered with the 4th generation quad core Intel i7-4710HQ processor (6MB Level 3 cache) at 2.5 GHz base speed that moves to 3.5GHz dynamically when needed by your tasks and with hyper threading for 4 cores to work with 8 threads in parallel, 8GB DDR3L SDRAM (1 DIMM) for running the programs efficiently and multitasking power- most certainly enough as it is but should also be upgradeable, 1TB hard drive at standard 5400rpm rotating speed with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection as ample storage space to save lots of documents, photos, music and videos and 64-bit Windows 8.1 operating system and something hopefully better is going to be released soon- Windows 10 and will be available for free upgrade.

15.6 inch diagonal HD BrightView WLED-backlit non-touch display with the basic 1366x768 pixel resolution delivers nice enough visuals but not as good as a Full HD screen and the IPS panel is not mentioned in specs so it would be TN panel without the very large viewing angles of IPS. Intel HD graphics 4600 with shared memory comes built into the main CPU and offers up to 60% better overall performance than the regular Intel HD 4000 and matches the performance levels of Nvidia GeForce GT 620M/630M which means -also thanks to the powerful CPU and 8GB memory- you can play all current games but at lower settings and acceptable frame rates (easier games like Minecraft are playable at high settings and frame rates). It has a front-facing TrueVision high-definition webcam which is fine for live meetings on Skype but is only adequate in terms of quality- not bad but not the best. Sound on the other hand is reported to be impressive for a laptop, with Beats Audio and the dual stereo speakers and a subwoofer.

Silver HP Envy 15-k151nr weighs 5.16 pounds and has the measurements of 1.05 x 15.14 x 10.24 inches- average weight and size for a 15 inch laptop (it could actually be heavier and bulkier because of having such powerful components) and the battery life is up to 6.25 hours with its 4-cell 41WHr 2.8Ah lithium ion battery with built-in dual array digital microphone but will depend on the power management setting and what you’re doing on the computer and it will naturally decrease over time and usage. Non-backlit keyboard has an ergonomic design and keys with a nice feel as well as a 10 key numpad for easy number crunching and a large Touchsmart pad- HP ControlZone Trackpad entered to the space bar for easy navigation on Windows 8 functions but whether it will make up for the lack of touch display will come down to your preferences. It comes with a SuperMulti DVD drive to play and burn DVD’s, 802.11b/g/n WLAN wireless, Bluetooth 4.0, 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connectivity, 3 x SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports that are up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and 1 supporting USB Boost, Multi-Format Media Card Reader for Secure Digital cards, 1 x HDMI port for using the computer via your HDTV or an external monitor but no video serial port if your monitor doesn’t work through HDMI and a Headphone-out/microphone-in combo jack.
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Conclusion HP ENVY 15-k151nr HN-CO4W-062D is a powerful modern computer you can count on at work, school or home with its high level Intel i7 processor with a very high Passmark benchmark score of 8001 as of today, 8GB memory and 1TB HDD and is designed mainly for professionals that would need more than the basic performance levels offered by Pavilion computers. Although it comes with some annoying bloatware to start with, you can simply uninstall those that you won’t need and increase the speed and storage space. This is a laptop that comes with very high end technical specs offered at a very reasonable price so they had to cut costs on a couple of things like the lack of Full HD touchscreen with IPS panel and the lower quality of webcam and it doesn’t seem to be so easy to upgrade the RAM (lack of easy access panel underneath) but will you seriously need more than 8GB memory for multitasking power? Main selling point of this machine is the high end powerful Intel i7 processor with super potential along with the size of memory and hard drive- not SSD and not at 7200rpm but great for those that need the storage space. Considering the price level of this laptop- about half of an entry level Macbook and the technical specs it offers, the cons pointed out are minor and honestly adding a FHD with IPS panel display would really add to the price and the webcam does the job, although it is not like those cams you get on Apple machines.

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