HP's high-end Envy line of laptops is one of the few bright spots for notebook design in an industry currently filled with midprice plastic boxes. The ENVY 14 is a well-designed multimedia laptop with great performance and only a few flaws. The HP Envy 14 aims to compete with the Apple MacBook, so the 14-inch model has a slick metal chassis and backlit keyboard. 

HP ENVY 14-2070NR 14.5-inch Notebook PC - Silver

Hp Envy 14 Specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

2.66GHz Intel Core i5-450M 2.40GHz (Turbo Boost)

4GB RAM

500GB hard drive

14.5 inches (1,600x900 native resolution)

Internal Bluetooth 3.0

Integrated Intel HD graphics and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 (1GB, switchable)

1.11x14.01x9.33 inches

Weight: 5.2 pounds

8-cell Li-ion battery (14.8V, 3800mAh)

2-year limited warranty

HP ENVY 14 Review

The ENVY 14 bears a close resemblance to the Apple MacBook, which isn't a bad thing though does not leave a whole lot of room for originality.  At 5.6 pounds, the Envy is on the chunkier side compared to the 13-inch MacBook Pro (4.6 pounds) and the waifish Sony VAIO S (3.8 pounds). The robust build quality and all that metal make the Envy 14 quite heavy for a mid-range laptop, but also far more durable. While the 215-minute battery life is bettered by both the Asus and Toshiba here, you can work for nearly four hours while away from mains power.

The 14.5-inch wide-screen LED display offers a 1,600x900-pixel native resolution. The text is smallish on the higher-res display, but it’s sharp enough that even small fonts are easy to read.  Moreover the 720p (1366x768) screen resolution is poor and results in a lot of unnecessary scrolling online and in most programs since there are not enough pixels to display content.  The bright panel and sharp resolution show photos off to good effect, but we did find the screen uneven at times, with images a little washed out.

The Envy 14 features a black matte island-style keyboard with large flat black keys. The superb Chiclet keyboard has excellent response, good spacing between keys, and is very comfortable to type on. The ENVY 14 has a Synaptics 'clickpad' - that is, the touchpad has a clickable surface. But its design is not very well.

HP ENVY 14-2020NR 14.5-Inch Notebook (Silver)

Sporting a 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-2410M processor and 6GB of RAM, the Envy 14 performed admirably, posting-above average results on many of our benchmarks.  Taking full advantage of the Beats Audio technology under the hood, the Envy 14 has loud, crisp speakers that easily fill a small room. Despite the badging they are not overwhelmingly better than most notebook speakers; bass is sorely lacking and their placement under the palm rest means muffled sound while typing.

The HP Envy 14 impresses in a number of areas including build quality, design, and performance. It is a very fun wolf in sheep's clothing laptop.

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