The Envy 17 is an elegant desktop replacement laptop that you will find quite useful in digital photograghy, gaming, movies and music. It offers a suprisingly good sound system unlike most laptops. The only major issue is with its heating problem, that is not helped by its noisy fan that can be an iritant. The price of the device range from a base value of $1400 to about $1825 for considerably configured units.

The Envy 17 is propelled by an intel four -core i7 720QM processor that moves at a speed of 1600 MHz. It uses an 8 GB DDR3 memory with a speed of 1333 MHz. Storage comes mainly in the form of two potent hard disk drives with a combined total capacity of 640 GB with a top speed of 7200 RPM. This impressive armour is bolstered further by a Multimedia Card, a Memory Stick, SDHC Card and an XD -Picture Card. The Envy 17 comes with ATI Mobility Radeon Discreet graphics chipset number HD 5850 that comes complete with a 2 giga bytes of video RAM. That makes it the most potent Radeon GPU outside of the upper -class powerful and pro -gaming laptops.

The GPU proves its worth in gaming by returning a solid performance . The system churns an impressive 42 frames per second when tackling Dx10 mode in maximum 1080 pixel settings. The machine also puts up a good show in an even more demanding Just Cause 2, where it almost deliver 27 frames per second. But you will have to scale down the graphics configurations for best results. The keyboard comes with a good layout and a pretty useful feedback mechanism. The only notable setbacks of the keyboard are the lack of a specialised media keys -quite strange considering its media playback repertoire-, and its obvious cutbacks on the arrow keys. The trackpad on the other hand is a bit unresponsive.

The machine comes with a commendable sound system, with speakers that are pretty audible and the tonal quality is superb. There aren’t many systems that can stand to the Envy 17, soundwise that is. The only poor review for the sound system is its lack of bass -most laptops suffer from this disease-, and its loss of volume when the system is in full cry. The graphics equalizer dropped in by HP is another tick in the box. You are also likely to love the headphone audio. The image display is also worthy a mention with its great color rendition in videos and games. The Envy 17 offers a robust viewing angle compared to most of its peers. The movies performance is great.

The machine operates Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition. Other included software are; Microsoft Works, Video Pro X3, Roxio CinemaNow and the Paintshop Photo Pro X3. It uses 10/100/1000 ethernet and 802.11n Wi Fi for network connections. It comes with one USB 3 port and three USB2 ports. You will also get Bluetooth, VGA, HDMI and eSATA. The machine weighs 9.5 pounds when packed with accessories and measures 16.4 by 10.8 by 2.3 inches.