Laptops Arena

Today we are going to look into a couple of review for HP laptops as we have seen that some models have a very good balance between quality and price.

The HP Envy 15-1050nr has packed up some horse power into that 15.6 inch laptop which is both slim and light compared to other laptops that have similar components inside. For $2000 it's a bit weird that you will not get a second battery and that cool external DVD burner. However, if you order directly from HP, you can choose the Blue-ray drive option. We have discovered this machine is good for both multimedia and games, as it has a 1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM processor with 6 GB of RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 that uses another 1GB. To top everything else, you get 500 GB of free disk space to store... well, just about anything and preinstalled, the new Windows 7 Home Premium that can take the best out of your memory components. Originally, this laptop was part of HP's Voodoo line but now that Voodoo does not exist anymore, then the Envy is now a separated brand.

We love this slim and light laptop as it reminds us of the Apple MacBook Pro. You could stare at that black elegant look for minutes in a row. Just like the Sony VAIO models, this laptop also has spacing between the keys which are flat topped instead of concave. Above the keyboard you have the power button and on the left side there are some quick launch buttons for functions like quickly accessing the HP Media Smart application. One thing you may find inconvenient about this laptop is that your default web browser (Microsoft internet Explorer) has a lot of HP toolbars installed which are pretty useless and you can disable them. The speakers are not that good either as they are rather quiet but you can always buy a good set of headphones and with the help of the Beats Audio technology that HP put in this laptop; you can get some nice quality sound, both loud and very clear. Since the optical drive was eliminated from the scene and HP preferred an external drive, we thought that left room for a lot more ports but we were wrong. The HP Envy 15-1050nr has the same number of ports and connections you would find on a smaller laptop.The battery life is disappointing, as the HP Envy 15-1050nr runs only about 1 hour and 57 minutes with the video test. This is less than we expected for a 15.6 inch laptop. You get a one year warranty and if you purchase this laptop directly from HP, you have the posibility to a mail-in for three more years.



Another fine option for a lower price of $850 is the HP TouchSmart tx2-1257dx. The rotating touch screen is bound to win your heart as it is fun to use multi-touch gestures. On the other hand, the components are not that good compared to other laptops which are similarly priced. For 800 dollars you could buy a laptop with a dual core processor, while the HP TouchSmart tx2-1257dx has a 2.2 GHz AMD Turion X2 processor and an integrated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 graphics card. We are ok with the 4 GB of RAM and the 320 GB of available disk space which should be enough for all the files you have to store.  The design is really nice and interesting, with round corners and imprint finish.  The weight may be a bit of a problem, as this laptop has 4.8 pounds. Since the laptop is only 12 inch long, we believe the keyboard is big enough for comfortable typing and it's also very quiet. Scrolling is much easier with this laptop thanks to the pen flick functionality of the touch screen and this makes reading much easier (for both documents and internet pages).



One other thing we think you may enjoy is the fact that you can use both your fingertips for normal computer browsing and the pen for drawing and taking notes. The multi-touch function lets you smoothly use the zoom function, as well as the rotation one. There are lots of tricks you can use to have more fun out of this tablet even though just clicking the right buttons will get the job done faster. By using Windows 7, you can squeeze the juice out of the multi-touch function because the operating system will offer you better support for this.  The display is stable even if it only uses one rotating hinge. The Altec Lansing speakers offer decent sound power and they are located inside the bottom of the display. The nice thing with the hinge is that you can place the display normally and use it like a traditional laptop one or you can fold it on top of the keyboard and use it only as a tablet.



You have enough ports and connection to get around and (what a surprise it was) you also have an integrated Bluetooth device. You have a 6-cell battery that will last 2 hours and 20 minutes if you used it for continuous video playback. This is not enough for a laptop so small which you will probably want to take with you wherever you go. HP could have done much better here. Considering you could use it only for reading documents or browsing the internet, it shouldn't last for more than 3 hours as well since the wireless function eat a lot of the battery's life when it's turned on.



HP laptops have some very good aspects which keep the company alive and running on the market. With the HP Pavilion series that some an impressive number of units, HP is bound to have some products available on the market which may be of some interest to you. You just need to find the time to look into different HP laptop models and there is surely one with the right specs and price for you to buy and use.