HP Envy 17 3D

In 2010’s PC World multimedia laptop roundup, HP’s Envy 17 proved to be best in show. 2011’s model doesn’t constitute a particularly substantial overhaul of its predecessor beyond the addition of two extra CPU cores (bringing its total to four), 3D capabilities and a full 1080p display.

Even so, it’s proven a winner in our mid-2011 multimedia laptops roundup contest, authoritatively dominating much of our CPU and GPU benchmark testing. Its Radeon HD 6850M graphics card proved too much for the Nvidia chipsets of the competing notebooks, blitzing the STALKER: Call of Pripyat, Unigine Heaven 2.0 and 3DMark11 benchmarks – even though it doesn’t feature the best CPU in the round-up.

And its not just a beast in the performance department. With its embossed metallic finish, the Envy 17 3D is a very attractive notebook. The base of the unit provides plenty of real estate and, subsequently, wrist support, ensuring that an extended typing session remains a comfortable affair. As mentioned in the review of the previous model in August 2010, the touchpad is rather large and very usable. Of course, the added real estate also means that the Envy 17 3D is fairly large as notebooks go, weighing in at 3.28kg; not entirely unreasonable for a truly multimedia-capable machine, but certainly enough to cause at least mild discomfort after prolonged use on your lap. To its credit, the profile is rather slim when the machine is closed, so it’s far from unportable.

Justifying its size, the Envy is decked out with every connectivity option you’re ever likely to need, including four USB ports (one of which is a USB 3.0 port, and another that doubles as an eSATA port), HDMI-out, VGA-out, FireWire and an SD card reader. The model tested in our round-up included a mammoth 2TB of storage (two 1TB hard drives) – easily the largest of the four laptops we tested, and perfect for those who intend to take large libraries of music, images, movies and games on the road.

Aside from boasting the largest display of the notebooks tested– a 17.3-inch Ultra BrightView Infinity LED display – it’s the only one with stereoscopic 3D capabilities. Unfortunately, we weren’t provided with the active-shutter glasses required to make use of this functionality (reportedly bundled with each unit bought at retail), so we couldn’t test this aspect of its performance. Naturally, you can expect frame rates to take a hit with 3D enabled – dropping the resolution you run your games at can help offset this.

It’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into figuring out precisely what consumers want out of a multimedia notebook during the design process of the Envy. HP certainly hasn’t skimped on the features, which means that the Envy leapfrogs the competition in many key areas. Of course, being significantly pricier than the other PCs tested, perhaps only those who have to have the very best can justify the outlay. In any case, the Envy is undoubtedly the top performer in 2011’s round-up, and few would regret the purchase once they see it in action.

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