HP Envy 14 Beats Edition review

Graphics muscle comes courtesy of AMD’s Mobility Radeon 5650 chipset; it’s already a generation old, but still capable of gaming at reasonable levels of detail. The Envy completed our new DirectX 11 Dirt 3 racing benchmark (1,280 x 720, 4x anti-aliasing and High detail) with 33.8fps and the game still ran at a smooth 31fps at the laptop’s native screen resolution of 1,366×768. Unsurprisingly with this much graphics power, the Envy had no problem with high definition video. 720p footage played smoothly on the laptop itself and 1080p content looked just as good on an external display.

The laptop screen’s image quality was slightly above average, but not a patch on the fantastic Radiance display seen on previous Envy models. The 1,366×768 resolution is smaller than we would like, but images at least looked reasonably sharp and colours were as accurate as we would expect from a TN (as opposed to IPS) panel. Viewing angles were very limited and not helped by the ultra-glossy screen finish, but plenty of screen tilt helps to compensate.

We were hoping that HP would have fixed the Envy’s touchpad for this limited edition, but unfortunately the Beats edition suffers from the same problems; because the buttons are integrated into the touchpad, any movement over the dividing line will send the mouse cursor flying across the screen. Thankfully the backlit QWERTY keyboard is a much better. Each isolated key has a reasonable amount of tactile feedback and very short travel times, although the wrist rest can get a little toasty after several hours’ use. The red backlight is subtle enough not to be distracting, and you can also disable it.

In spite of the great design and solid performance, the Envy Beats edition can’t justify its high price. Its processor is from a previous generation and it has disappointing battery life as a result. The screen is also a step back from previous versions. Although there are few Windows-based laptops that are quite so good-looking, it’s hard to justify spending so much for style over substance.