Help Me, LAPTOP: HP Envy 14 or MacBook Pro 13?

Recently, one of our readers, a student about to head off to college, asked us Vostro 1000 Battery if he should get the 13-inch MacBook Pro or the HP Envy 14. He wrote:

“For everyone who will be doing graphic arts or web design projects from a dorm room, and who will also have to lug their choice around for the next few years, please help in making the decision between the HP and the Sony VGP-BPL9 Battery new MacBook Pro 13. Is the battery life difference between the two laptops several hours, really? Is that offset by the extra “real estate” of a 14.5 display? Speaking of displays, I’ve read the HP Radiance Infinity display is 60% brighter than anything else. Is that true; does that include the new MacBooks?”

Putting aside the different operating systems, we’ll go, round by round, through the Toshiba PA3534U-1BRS Battery merits of each notebook, and see which one is best suited for students.

Design, Portability, and Usability

Apple has long led the way when it comes to notebook design. Its laptops’ aluminum unibody construction is not only first-rate in terms of looks, but also Akku HP Pavilion DV8 feels durable too. However, the HP Envy’s bronze metal etched lid and deck is every bit as stylish as the MacBook Pro.

Both notebooks feature comfortable, Akku HP Pavilion DV7 island-style keyboards, but the MBP’s 4.1 x 3-inch touchpad is not only larger than the Envy 14’s (4.25 x 2.5), but is easier to use, HP’s improvements notwithstanding.

Naturally, the Envy 14’s larger screen size necessitates a bigger chassis and heavier weight. While both are roughly 1 inch Akku HP Compaq 6735S in thickness, the Envy 14’s footprint is 14 x 9.3 inches to the MacBook Pro’s 12.8 x 8.9 inches. Also, the Envy 14 weighs 5.4 pounds, compared to 4.4 pounds for the MacBook Pro.

Winner: MacBook Pro

Display

In terms of sheer size and pixel count, the Envy 14 Sony VGP-BPS9 Battery carries the day. Its 14.5-inch screen has a resolution of 1600 x 900, which is much greater than the MacBook Pro’s 13.3-inch, 1280 x 800-pixel resolution screen. However, in terms of image quality, the two are evenly matched: The HP’s Radiance Infinity screen was as bright, crisp, and saturated as the MacBook Pro’s.

Winner: HP Envy 14

Performance

The HP Envy 14’s more powerful components led it to outperform the MacBook Pro in most areas. The Envy 14 uses a 2.4-GHz Intel Core i5-450M, 4GB of RAM, VGP-BPS9A Battery and a 500GB, 7,200-rpm The storage device that holds your OS, programs, and data.

Learn Morehard drive. The MacBook Pro has a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600, 4GB of RAM, and a 250GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive.

Before we delve into numbers, a little Inspiron 1545 battery disclaimer: The MacBook Pro’s performance scores were taken while the system was running Windows 7 in Boot Camp mode.

In PCMark Vantage, the Envy 14 scored 6,129 to the MBP’s 4,164, an obvious delta. Also, when VGP-BPS13 Battery transcoding a 114MB MPEG4 file to AVI, the Envy took 54 seconds, about 20 seconds faster than the MacBook Pro. However, the efficiencies of the Mac’s operating system allowed its slower hard drive to complete the transfer test in 2 minutes and 54 seconds, nearly as fast as the Envy 14 (2:51).

Winner: HP Envy 14

Graphics

The Envy 14 features switchable graphics in the form VGP-BPS13A/B Battery of integrated Intel GMA HD and a discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 with 1GB of memory. By contrast, the MacBook pro has an Nvidia GeForce GT 320M GPU with 256MB of memory. Here too, the HP was a bit more powerful.

In 3DMark06, which measures overall graphics performance

, the Envy 14 scored 6,876 to the MBP’s 4,754. When playing World of Warcraft at native VGP-BPS9 resolution and with effects at max, the Envy notched 54 fps to the MBP’s 50 fps. Same goes for Far Cry 2: The Envy 14 saw gameplay of 27 fps at native, where the MacBook Pro got just 19 fps.

Winner: HP Envy 14

Battery Life

One of the biggest drawbacks of the Envy 14, though, is its battery life: On the Notebook batteries provide power to the system whenever it’s unplugged.

Learn MoreLAPTOP Battery test (Web surfing via Wi-Fi) it lasted good battery just 4 hours and 26 minutes. That’s about 3 hours and 20 minutes less than the MacBook Pro (7:48).

Winner: Apple MacBook Pro

Value and Verdict

The HP Envy we tested costs $1,289, the MacBook Pro was $1,199. So, which one should you get? Well, if you value endurance and portability, there’s no question that the lighter and longer-lasting 13-inch MacBook Pro is the better value. But if battery pure performance is what you’re after, then the HP Envy represents the better deal.

Augen’s Alternate App Store, Firmware Update Fail to Impress

Last week, Augen issued a firmware update for its $149 GenTouch78 tablet, Akku HP Pavilion DV8 which was designed to allow USB charging and to provide calibration for the device’s terrible touchscreen. In light of its mistaken installation of the Android Market, Augen also posted a copy of the AndAppStore Client, a program which searches an unofficial Android app store. Today, we installed both the Akku HP Pavilion DV7 firmware update and the AndAppStore client and tried them both out. While they offer some small improvements, we’re extremely underwhelmed both with the tablet and the device as a whole.

Firmware Update

We downloaded the 66MB update file from Augen, because it’s not available as an OTA (over the air) automatic update Dell GD761 Battery and if you didn’t visit the support site

and click into the “news” section, you wouldn’t know it Akku HP Compaq 6735S existed. After unzipping the file, we read the instructions which advised us to copy one of the two included folders to our desktop and another to the root (and only the root) of our PC’s C drive. After running an update file from the folder on the C drive and following the directions, which called for us to reset the device with a paperclip twice, our update installed without hassle.

The first thing we noticed after rebooting the GenTouch78 was that, with USB connected, the battery icon indicated that the device was charging. However, the device seems to get a lot more juice from its AC adapter, because we tried turning it one with the battery at low charge, and it wouldn’t when it was plugged into USB only but Sony VGP-BPS9A/B Battery would after we attached it to the outlet instead.

The second thing we noticed was the the presence Sony VGP-BPS9A Battery of another app called AndroidCalibrate in the applications

folder. Once we tapped it we were presented with a green crosshair icon on top of a black background. We tapped it and it moved to another location. This happened a few times so we could calibrate the screen. After calibrating, the screen seemed a bit more accurate, but required just as much brute force as it had before. In other words, the screen Sony Laptop Battery is still terrible and forces you to push really really hard before it will register your touch.

We were able to mount the GenTouch78 VGP-BPS9/S as a drive in Windows 7, but it the mounted drive only gave us access to an empty folder named DCIM, which sits somewhere on the device’s internal memory. We say “somewhere” because even after we copied a file to that directory, we were unable to find it on the GenTouch78 itself, using the AndExplorer file browser that comes preloaded. We were also unpleasantly suprised to find we could not mount the microSD card we had plugged into the Sony VGP-BPS9/B Battery system as a drive on our PC.

Finally, a huge unadvertised benefit of the firmware upgrade is that Sony VGP-BPS9 Battery it includes an ADB driver that allowed us to access the GenTouch78 from Davlik Debug Monitor (part of the Android SDK). This meant that we could finally capture screen shots from the device.

Alternate App Store

Last week, Augen also posted a copy of the AndAppStore Client on its site, Sony VGP-BPL9 Battery which is a good thing because, we also learned that Augen made a mistake when it preloaded Google’s Android Market. AndAppStore is a much smaller unofficial marketplace that has a few apps, but doesn’t have a lot of the most popular ones. For example,, we were unable to find the Task Killer utility, the Raging Thunder battery racing game, the Dictionary.com app, or Google Translate. However, we did find Dolphin Browser.

Installing the AndAppStore client app on our GenTouch78 was an extremely difficult and unwieldy process, which involved downloading an APK file from the Augen site (get it here), copying it onto a microSD card from our PC, inserting that microSD card into our GenTouch78 (because we can’t mount the SD card while it’s in the GenTouch78), Sony VGP-BPS13 Battery and then locating the file in the AndExplorer file browser.

Using the AndAppStore installer Sony VGP-BPS13A/B Battery was an exercise in futility. Not only was the selection poor, but the UI was a pain. In order to search for something, you have to tap on the search box, then watch as the entire screen is taken over by the on-screen keyboard, type in your query, and then click next. However, rather than Sony VGP-BPS10 Battery showing you the results of your search after you hit the next button, nothing happens. You have to hit the back button to get back to the results page you generated by hitting next. Confused yet?

The list of apps is nothing to write home about and carries Latitude E6400 Battery no user ratings to help you choose one. When you click through to download an app, you have to tap on its icon in the status bar it after it downloads. You don’t have to do this sort-of two step installation process with the Android Market.

Overall, neither the firmware nor the app store has changed our view that the GenTouch78 is too expensive at any price. Its screen is still unresponsive and it provides an incredibly sluggish and frustrating user experience. USB charging and a handful of mostly unknown apps don’t change VGP-BPS13/B Battery that experience.