HP Envy 13 unboxing and first impressions

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September 30, 2009

We’ve got one of HP’s sexiest laptops ever staring us down here, the brand new Envy 13. It hits the streets on October 18, running Windows 7 and brazenly demanding a $1,700 base price tag. Worth every penny? Perhaps. We’ll be going more in depth with the laptop over the next few days, but here are a few first impressions.

This is one sexy laptop. It’s incredibly quality in its construction, and intensely attractive. The screen in particular is a knockout, showing up very bright and vibrant behind its glossy, mirror-tastic sheen
The single button trackpad is severely miscalibrated, and perhaps an altogether bad idea. We’re having trouble scrolling consistently, but clicking is also a hit or miss affair — having multiple fingers on the trackpad at the same time seems problematic, with our cursor glitching this way and that. It’s also actually possible (likely even, if you’re as bad at mousing as we are) to “click” the pad and yet have nothing happen, which seems very counterintuitive.
The keyboard is comfortable, but has a bit of a loose, pushover feel to the key action — not cheap, but not really best-in-class either.
Boot time is pretty snappy, even with the quick boot Envy “Instant-On Solution” Linux acting as a pit stop along the way.
With a full Core 2 Duo processor inside and a real feeling of heft and thickness compared to other laptops in “thin and light” land, it’s surprising that the Envy 13 goes with the same external Ethernet dongle of its predecessor, the Envy 133.
That full-powered processor? Snappy. It takes on YouTube HD, the real computer killer of our times, without breaking a sweat.

The great thing about a “luxury” laptop like this (as HP dubs it) is that there’s so much more to explore, including an external Blu-ray drive in the box, the endless wire-free adventures promised by the optional slice battery, and of course the real prowess of the GPU when faced with 3D gaming and some HDMI output. Good times shall be had, we promise you that.

Gallery: HP Envy 13 unboxing