Review: HP Envy 14 Spectre
Category : Notebooks / Tablets
Published by Marc Büchel on 07.06.12
Already at the beginning of this year, or more precisely during CES 2012, HP presented the first pictures and specs regarding their Envy 14 Spectre ultra portable notebook. Meanwhile we've received a review sample from HP and we're curious wether this exquisite piece of hardware can also convince from a performance and battery life point of view. 
When you take the Envy 14 Spectre out of the box you'll see that this exquisite product comes with a neopren sleeve. After removing the sleeve we were in for the next wow-effect. The gorillaglass surface gives this notebook an extraordinary look and it even feels great. So, does the Envy 14 Spectre just look nice or is it even an overall convincing product?
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Preview
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Specifications / Chassis
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2467M (1.6 GHz Standard, 2.3 GHz Turbo) |
| Graphics card | Intel HD Graphics |
| Chipset | Intel HM65 Express Chipset |
| Memory | DDR3 1'333MHz, 4 Gigabyte |
| Display | 14'' TFT, 1600 x 900 Pixel, Glare-Type, LED Backlight |
| Hard drive / Drive | 128 Gigabyte SATA-III SSD |
| Video Camera | Webcam, 1.3 Megapixel |
| Keyboard | backlight |
| Connectors | 1 x USB 2.0 1 x USB 3.0 HDMI Audio Card Reader |
| Battery | 58 Wh, 6 Cells |
| Dimensions | 319 x 220 x 18 mm (W x D x H) |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium |
| Weight | 1.81 kg |
Chassis / Design / Build quality
Already the first glance at the Envy 14 Spectre reveals that HP built a high quality Ultrabook. The materials they've used - aluminium, gorillaglass and plastic in this case - have been exquisitely processed and the result is very good haptics. The gorillaglass used for the cover gives the Envy 14 Spectre a luxurious touch. The plastic, which can be found at the bottom of this ultrabook comes with a matte valvety finish, which is very comfortable and offers good grip. Going a step further and opening we had to use both our hands. There is no comfortable way to open the lid with one hand.
Looking at the connectors shows that HP hasn't been saving here. Wether or not a slim notebook where manufacturers have design ambitions should offer many connectors that's what people can argue about. But on the other hand there is the fact that a RJ45 connector, a DisplayPort, an HDMI port, one USB 2.0 as well as one USB 3.0 connector and a card reader are convinient no matter if you're at home, at work or on the go.
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Display / Input Devices
Display
For its Envy 14 Spectre HP uses a panel from AU Optronics which offers a resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. Furthermore the dispaly comes with an edge-to-edge design and it has been perfectly integrated into the lid. In our tests we measured a brightness level of 234 Candela per squaremeter, which really isn't ver much. For Ultrabooks the likelihood, that they're being use outside is very high and therefore maximum brightness should be at least 250 Candela per squaremeter. Luckily the dispaly offers good stability when you look at the viewing angle. The result is almost 180 degree.
Input Devices
The keyboard has been placed in an aluminium bed which also fits perfectly into the decent design of the entire notebook. As soon as you place your hands and start typing you'll be surprised what a good keyboard HP used for this Ultrabook. Writing even longer articles (such as this review) is very comfortable. Even after hours your wrists wont start to hurt. The only thing which might need some time to get used to the arrow keys with their custom layout.
Unfortunately there are quite a few things which are not brilliant about the
touchpad. Once you're looking
for the buttons you'll get right to the issue. The left as well as the right
button need quite a substantial amount of force until they release. For the left
click this can be solved by tapping the touchpad, which results in the same
gesture but for a right click you'll have to use the button in the bottom right
corner. Furthermore the touchpad could be more precise. The surface is too
slippery and it is quite often that we missed the icons on the desktop or the
menues in programs.
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Test setup
Regarding our notebook reviews we use a practical approach. To get a detailed impresson of the device the tester uses it to work with. In case of gaming notebooks it replaces the testers gaming PC during the time of the test. These methods allow us to provide detailed user experience to you.Regarding performance benchmarks - which are listed below - we don't go very deep. What we do, is that we use benchmarking software which over the years have established as standards for reviewing purposes. Furthermore the specific game benchmarks give insight to the playability of recent games.
Benchmarking Suite
- Futuremark PCMark 7
- Total Score
- Video playback and transcoding / Video playback Score
- Video playback and transcoding / Video transcoding - downscaling Score
- System storage - gaming / System storage - gaming Score
- Graphics - DirectX 9 / Graphics - DirectX 9 Score
- Image manipulation / Image manipulation Score
- System storage - importing pictures / System storage - importing pictures Score
- Web browsing and decrypting / Web browsing Score
- Web browsing and decrypting / Data decrypting Score
- System storage - Windows Defender / System storage - Windows Defender Score
- Total Score
- Cinebench
- 1 Core
- Multicore
- WinRAR
- Benchmarktest
- Battery Life
- Load
- WLAN and Browser
- Idle
- Noise Level
- Load
- Idle
- Temperature
- Load
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PCMark 7 - Video Playback / Downscaling / Transcoding / Storage
PCMark 7 is a benchmark suite which consists of 20 different workloads. The following results reflect the PCMark 7's standard selection, which provides a good insight regarding overall system performance. For a comfortable presentation we chose to split the results onto three different sites.| Futuremark PCMark 7 | Score |
| ASUS UX21E | 3'450 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 3'297 |
| MSI GT 780 | 3'805 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 3'720 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 3'162 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 3'074 |
| HP Folio 13 | 3'072 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 3'015 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 2'966 |
| ASUS G74SX | 2'500 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 2'261 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 1'693 |
| Video playback and transcoding / Video playback | fps |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 23.18 |
| ASUS UX21E | 23.17 |
| HP Folio 13 | 23.13 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 23.08 |
| MSI GT 780 | 23.14 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 23.13 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 23.12 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 23.11 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 23.10 |
| ASUS G74SX | 23.04 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 23.01 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 22.62 |
| Video playback and transcoding / Video transcoding - downscaling | KByte/s |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 16'353 |
| ASUS UX21E | 15'227 |
| HP Folio 13 | 11'258 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 11'017 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 5'285 |
| ASUS G74SX | 5'251 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 4'948 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 4'912 |
| MSI GT 780 | 4'905 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 4'923 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 4'870 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 2'472 |
| System storage - gaming / System storage - gaming | MByte/s |
| ASUS UX21E | 16.51 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 13.51 |
| HP Folio 13 | 13.35 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 12.56 |
| MSI GT 780 | 14.40 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 13.83 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 7.93 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 7.21 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 7.09 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 4.46 |
| ASUS G74SX | 4.34 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 3.23 |
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DirectX 9 / Image Manipulation / Importing Pictures
| Graphics - DirectX 9 / Graphics - DirectX 9 | fps |
| MSI GT 780 | 50.55 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 50.37 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 49.74 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 47.51 |
| ASUS G74SX | 48.96 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 32.92 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 30.67 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 16.51 |
| ASUS UX21E | 14.00 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 12.61 |
| HP Folio 13 | 11.96 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 11.94 |
| Image manipulation / Image manipulation | Mpx/s |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 9.13 |
| MSI GT 780 | 9.04 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 8.88 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 8.86 |
| ASUS G74SX | 8.80 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 8.72 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 8.72 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 8.66 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 8.19 |
| ASUS UX21E | 6.63 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 6.62 |
| HP Folio 13 | 5.07 |
| System storage - importing pictures / System storage - importing pictures | MByte/s |
| ASUS UX21E | 29.39 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 23.94 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 22.05 |
| HP Folio 13 | 21.98 |
| MSI GT 780 | 21.06 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 11.08 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 10.50 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 9.75 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 9.55 |
| ASUS G74SX | 6.30 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 5.96 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 4.74 |
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Web browsing / Data decryption / Windows Defender
| Web browsing and decrypting / Web browsing | Pages/s |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 14.82 |
| MSI GT 780 | 14.08 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 13.36 |
| ASUS G74SX | 10.66 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 10.63 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 10.26 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 10.21 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 9.80 |
| HP Folio 13 | 8.33 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 8.23 |
| ASUS UX21E | 7.94 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 7.30 |
| Web browsing and decrypting / Data decryption | MByte/s |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 59.06 |
| ASUS G74SX | 55.94 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 54.14 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 48.14 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 47.63 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 47.22 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 47.20 |
| MSI GT 780 | 46.27 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 40.32 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 39.96 |
| HP Folio 13 | 39.58 |
| ASUS UX21E | 31.34 |
| System storage - Windows Defender / System storage - Windows Defender | MByte/s |
| ASUS UX21E | 5.38 |
| MSI GT 780 | 5.12 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 5.06 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 5.00 |
| HP Folio 13 | 4.99 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 4.65 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 3.29 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 3.22 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 3.11 |
| ASUS G74SX | 1.40 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 1.20 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 0.99 |
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Cinebench R10
| 1 CPU | sec |
| Intel Core i7 990X | 170 |
| Intel Core i7 2600K | 145 |
| Intel Core i5 2410M | 195 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w, Core i7 2630QM | 193 |
| Intel Core i7 2630QM | 199 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 205 |
| ASUS UX21E | 246 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 248 |
| HP Folio 13 | 253 |
| X CPU | sec |
| Intel Core i7 990X | 30 |
| Intel Core i7 2600K | 37 |
| Intel Core i5 2410M | 94 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w, Core i7 2630QM | 52 |
| Intel Core i7 2630QM | 52 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 105 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 121 |
| ASUS UX21E | 121 |
| HP Folio 13 | 123 |
WinRAR
| Integer Test | KByte/sec |
| Intel Core i7 990X | 4'131 |
| Intel Core i7 2600K | 4'108 |
| Intel Core i7 2630QM | 3'656 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w, Core i7 2630QM | 3'638 |
| Intel Core i5 2410M | 2'318 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 2'152 |
| HP Folio 13 | 1'981 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 1'955 |
| ASUS UX21E | 1'907 |
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Battery Life / Power Consumption
| Battery life in load | Time |
| HP Folio 13 | 2h 48min |
| ASUS UX21E | 2h 26min |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 2h 03min |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 2h 00min |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 1h 50min |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 1h 48min |
| MSI GT 780 | 1h 04min |
| ASUS G74SX | 1h 02min |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 1h 02min |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 1h 01min |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 0h 37min |
| Battery life browsing web on the WLAN | [en]Time |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 5h 19min |
| HP Folio 13 | 5h 14min |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 4h 32min |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 4h 41min |
| ASUS UX21E | 3h 41min |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 3h 11min |
| MSI GT 780 | 2h 46min |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 2h 24min |
| ASUS G74SX | 2h 12min |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 2h 08min |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 1h 39min |
| Battery life when idle | Time |
| HP Folio 13 | 9h 42min |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 9h 17min |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 9h 12min |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 8h 46min |
| ASUS UX21E | 6h 40min |
| MSI GT 780 | 5h 26min |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 4h 33min |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 3h 35min |
| ASUS G74SX | 3h 33min |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 2h 51min |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 2h 13min |
| Power Consumption Load | Watt |
| HP Folio 13 | 39 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 40 |
| ASUS UX21E | 64 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 76 |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 81 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 116 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 128 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 139 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 143 |
| ASUS G74SX | 145 |
| MSI GT 780 | 148 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 150 |
| Power Consumption Idle | Watt |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 12 |
| HP Folio 13 | 14 |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 15 |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 17 |
| ASUS UX21E | 19 |
| Toshiba Qosmio F750-10L | 20 |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 30 |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 37 |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 40 |
| ASUS G74SX | 42 |
| MSI GT 780 | 46 |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 55 |
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Noise Level
| Load | dBa |
| ASUS G74SX | 39.2 dBa |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 40.0 dBa |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 40.1 dBa |
| HP Folio 13 | 40.9 dBa |
| MSI GT 780 | 41.0 dBa |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 42.1 dBa |
| ASUS UX21E | 43.6 dBa |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 44.1 dBa |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 45.3 dBa |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 45.9 dBa |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 49.0 dBa |
| Idle | dBa |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | 30.5 dBa |
| ASUS UX21E | 31.7 dBa |
| MSI GT 780 | 31.9 dBa |
| HP Folio 13 | 32.6 dBa |
| Sony Vaio F-Serie VPC-F22S1E/B | 33.2 dBa |
| Toshiba Portégé Z830 | 33.4 dBa |
| Sony Vaio S-Serie VPC-SB1S1EW | 33.5 dBa |
| Toshiba Qosmio X770 - 107 | 34.0 dBa |
| ASUS Lamborghini VX7 | 35.3 dBa |
| HP EliteBook 8760w | 35.4 dBa |
| ASUS G74SX | 36.4 dBa |
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Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| An elegant case, good battery life and decent design. Those are the three things the HP Envy 14 excels. Furthermore there is a very low noise level. On the contra side there is a touchpad which has a left and right button that need way too much force until they release. Another thing that could be improved is the displays brightness. In fact you'll struggle to read text when you're using the device outside when the sun is shining. Furhtermore there is the price: at 1'400 Euro (est. CHF 1'599.-) it isn't exactly cheap. | - Case
- Design - SSD |
- Touchpad keys | |
| Display / Input devices | + | - | |
| HP equipped its 14 inch Ultrabook with a display that
isn't above average. Although there is a high resolution the TN panel doens't offer enough
brightness to use the device outside when the sun is shining.
Fortunately there is good stability concerning the viewing angle: almost
180
degree. Another thing that could be improved concerns the touchpads keys. You need way too much force until they release, which really is a pity. Furthermore there is a very slippery surface which makes you miss icons or menu entries quite often. |
- Keyboard | - Display Brightness - Touchpad click - Touchpad precision | |
| Performance / Battery Life | + | - | |
| Equipped with a Core i5-2467M
dual core CPU that has four threads, clocked at 1.6 GHz and Intels
integrated graphics chip, the Envy 14 Spectre isn't the fastest notebook
we've ever tested. But that's also not what it's been built
for. Thanks to a quick SSD it feels very responsive. Looking at battery life shows that the Envy 14 Spectre really has shows stamina. It takes more than four hours and fourty minutes until the device is going to shut down when you browse the web via using the integrated WiFi module. |
-
Desktop-Performance - SSD - Battery Life |
||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you should be looking for a luxurious Ultrabook and you're willing to spend about 1'400 Euros (est. CHF 1'599.-), the HP Envy 14 Spectre is a good choice, whereas you shouldn't be looking for the lightest Ultrabook. | - Ultra portable | ||
| Rating | |||
| We give the Envy 14 Spectre from HP good four out of five stars. | |||
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