Good Honest review on the HP Envy X2

[woodbane]

I just bought an envy x2 and I love it. The battery life on the tablet for me was about 7 hours, and with dock was about 12. The build quality is fantastic though, the tablet is solid and so is the keyboard dock. I would have liked to see more ports on the tablet, but the dock makes up for it (a non-issue for me cause I'll almot always have the dock with me). The keyboard as nice, its full-sized but the keys are a little shallow so not bad, but not the best typing experience. The screen is nice, good viewing angles. I really like the look of it, its the only dockable tablet that actually looks like a laptop, not a tablet that's being docked into a keyboard (I'm looking at you ativ, acer w510, and asus vivotab!!!).

Camera is good and performance is snappy. It lags a tiny amount with stuff like scrolling on the desktop, but otherwise its fine. I haven't really had a chance to test out normal x86 apps yet like office, and vlc, utorrent, putty...etc. I'm returning mine tomorrow and swapping it out cause mine has 3 dead pixels on the screen (so that the guy above doesn't think only hp's have dead pixels, this happens all the time on computers in general. I once sold a guy a Samsung galaxy tab 10.1" the original and he returned 3 of them because of dead/stuck pixels to this stuff happens to all brands unfortunately...). So far though, the more I use it the more I like it. The tablet it light, the keyboard is good, and I've never been a huge proponent to adobe flash, nor do I like the technology, but I have to say that its nice to have a tablet that loads web pages like my desktop does without having to do anything special, you tube comes up like youtube, vimeo, flash games on newgrounds, they all work like they should (cause this is a pc, but its nice on a thin and light tablet, flash is also perfectly smooth and not stutter which I am surprised with!!!).

Would love an update on your experiences with the HP Envy X2 now you've had it awhile.

Specifically - battery life - improved any?
Track pad - patched yet? Tried one in store and seemed a little insensitive to me but it was floor model.
Legacy apps/games - I have some pretty old PC games I'm interested in trying again but don't know if they'd run. Games like Grim Fandango, Silent Hunter 2, The Sims and Guild Wars (the original from 2005).

Guild Wars would be the most demanding I expect and specs say best performance with Pentium 3 @ 1Ghz or equivalent and ATI Radeon 9000 or GeForce Ti series video card or something with 64MB VRAM for video.

Can this tablet handle that? Guess I'm most confused about video specs as it's a SOC system.

Any help appreciated.

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

After having it for a couple of weeks, the more I use it the more I like it. Battery life is still the same, about 7-8 hours and about 13 with the dock. I haven't played any games on it, grim fandango would probably run without issue, guild wars maybe...? Maybe I'll try to load something old like starcraft or Deus ex. I never had any issues with the touchpad, it works perfectly for me, no issues here. Other people I've talked to haven't had issues with it either. Back to the games, you might want to get one with an i5 if gaming is your goal. I wouldn't even try it on an atom, older games may still work though. The only major issue is once in a while the sound will cut out and I have to restart the computer to get it to work, hopefully HP will come out with a driver update soon.

 

[woodbane]

After having it for a couple of weeks, the more I use it the more I like it. Battery life is still the same, about 7-8 hours and about 13 with the dock. I haven't played any games on it, grim fandango would probably run without issue, guild wars maybe...? Maybe I'll try to load something old like starcraft or Deus ex. I never had any issues with the touchpad, it works perfectly for me, no issues here. Other people I've talked to haven't had issues with it either. Back to the games, you might want to get one with an i5 if gaming is your goal. I wouldn't even try it on an atom, older games may still work though. The only major issue is once in a while the sound will cut out and I have to restart the computer to get it to work, hopefully HP will come out with a driver update soon.

Gaming - more of a curiosity really as I just found this stack of old PC games in a desk drawer. Certainly not my primary intented purpose. Main usage would be web browsing, social networking, listening/managing music (if MS gets it's act together and sorts Xbox Music out, otherwise I guess as it's x86 i cn use other services as well), watching Netflix/Hulu and light MS Office work. If it played some games that would just be a bonus.

I take it that it will run any of the games downloadable from Windows Store just fine? Curious as to how it runs a 3D game (say Wave Runner) in comparison to the Tegra 3 chipset RT devices?

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

I'll have to go check it out...haven't bothered to try gaming on it yet...

 

[woodbane]

I'll have to go check it out...haven't bothered to try gaming on it yet...

Any information would be most appreciated.

Actually, maybe you can help clarify my understanding of how the battery system works. Here is my understanding:

Tablet and dock both have batteries. Both chargeable independently of one another.

When tablet is docked, the dock battery continually keeps the tablet battery topped up to 100% and therefore drains first, meaning whenever you remove the tablet it's fully charged.

If the dock battery fully discharges while the tablet is docked then the tablet battery will power the tablet and the dock, but obviously drain faster.

When tablet is docked and plugged in to charge, tablet charges first, then dock, again to ensure tablet gets charged first.

Is this right? Seems very clever if so.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[nottechsmart]

I'm Windows 8 shopping and seen the Envy at Staples next to the Samsung Ativ, wow! The HP has got them beat by a mile there. Going to Best Buy now to see what they have.

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

That's personally why I bought it, yes it is more expensive but I think the build quality and the keyboard dock are worth the premium, I've been nothing but extremely pleased with mine.

 

[inteller]

Better than the business oriented ElitePad which has a crappy 1280x800 resolution.

 

[woodbane]

Better than the business oriented ElitePad which has a crappy 1280x800 resolution.

Glad to see you edited your comment as when it came through my email I jumped right on here to say that it does indeed have a 1366x768 resolution. But I see you beat me to the punch.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[nottechsmart]

I pulled the trigger and got the Envy X2 @ Staples for $749. Love everything about it, except one fatal flaw, the lack of digitizer/stylus. HP advertises this w/ optional stylus. Turns out, this is not ready yet. I called them to make sure that the X2 has a built in digitizer and was informed some models do. When I asked if mine did, nobody would say what model #'s actually do. This is a deal breaker for me, shame cause this really is a quality unit. The performance was great and much better than I expected. Battery life for the couple days I've had it, stellar. All day and could've gone more if needed. I may just put the tablet search on hold till more come out. The ASUS VivoTab I like but $1,000 with dock is a bit steep, plus reading some posts here no product support would piss me off. If you guys have any info or suggestions I'd love to know. Thanks.

 

[Ruined]

I just got a 128gb ENVY X2 for 650+tax via a combination of coupons and discounts from HP's website.

I think this model did not get the attention it deserves. It is the only convertible that has a detachable keyboard that appears both A) very solid with no wobbling, and B) can be used very comfortably on your lap unlike the surface.

Strangely, reviews dinged this for being too expensive for an Atom and not powerful enough. Well, I guess if I paid $900 I might feel that way but for 650 it looks pretty awesome. And with iPads being in the 500-700 range, how is an Atom that can do much more all of a sudden too expensive and slow? I guess if you are going to say photoshop is sluggish, you should consider that other premium tablets can't run photoshop at all. And, comparing it to an ultrabook is pointless because this can transform into a totally standalone tablet.

Question, I know this is poor for general gaming, but how does it play the Windows 8 Store games? I heard Cut the Rope isn't optimized too well for the atom and tegra, is that still the case?

 

[Andrewbachle]

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Coupon code: " CAMPUS178 "