It seems like the HP Envy 13 and Envy 15 were made official a little bit earlier than expected, although HP has yet to put the official product page live on its website. The leaked details were pretty spot on and the good news is that neither model is quite as expensive as expected.
In terms of looks the Envy 13 and Envy 15 are quite similar and the official photo’s of the Envy 15 reveals that most of the ports are located on the right hand side, just as with the Envy 13. The screen size of the Envy 13 ended up being 13.1-inches which is an usual screen size, while the Envy 15 has a 15.6-inch display. The only details in terms of screen resolution is that the Envy 15 will have a Full HD (1,920×1,080) panel option, with all displays using LED backlights.
Other features worth highlighting includes speakers designed by Beats by Dr. Dre alongside with some special music playback software that’s meant to improve the music playback quality. Sadly the Envy 13 didn’t have the Ethernet adaptor built into the power adapter as the Voodoo Envy 133 did, instead you have to rely on an optional USB to Ethernet dongle, which seems a bit cheap by HP. The discrete graphics on the Envy 13 can also be turned off in favour for the integrated Intel X4500 graphics in the chipset and this should improve the battery life to a degree.
Interestingly the Envy 13′s power adaptor features a built in surge protector and this is something new to us. It’s a great idea, as it’ll protect your notebook from being damaged by power surges and doesn’t require you to carry around an extra surge protector with you when you travel.
As we predicted, the connectors on the bottom of the Envy 13 are indeed for an external battery module and using the internal battery in conjunction with the add-on battery gives the Envy 13 up to 18h of battery life. This is great for long haul flights or for anyone that has irregular access to a power socket.
The Envy 15 also holds a few surprises, like four SO-DIMM slots which explains how it can be fitted with 16GB of DDR3 memory and the option to install two SSD drives in a RAID 0 configuration. An optional “Slim Fit” extended battery will also be available for the Envy 15.
Price wise the Envy 13 is starting at $1,699(€1,163) while the Envy 15 is starting at $1,799(€1,232) which is a fair bit less than the expected $2,000+ price tag. Neither model is what you’d call cheap, but at least the pricing is putting the new Envy models in a more affordable category than the past Envy models.
The official product page should be up here later today and the official availability date is October the 18th in the US.
Engadget also scored a quick hands on video with the Envy 13 which you can check out below.
