The HP ENVY SleekBook 4t-1000 just arrived to us today, theEnvy 4 was ordered direct from HP.com at its base configuration and starting price of $699.99. While HP isn’t calling this an Ultrabook, apparently they don’t want to dilute the appeal of their more premium $999+ Ultrabooks, it’s at least targeted at the crowd that might want an Ultrabook but don’t want to spend over $1,000 that most models do after taxes. The Envy 4t is still very thin at 0.78” from front to back, but its weight of just under 4lbs isn’t exactly feather light when you compare it to the 3lbs or less weight you see in the thinnest and lightest of notebooks. The ENVY Spectre XT for example weighs 3lbs. However, if you’re a student on a budget or simply want a very light laptop that you can use on your lap in the evening when in front of the TV, the low price of the ENVY 4t might hold appeal – which is why we’re here to offer a first thoughts before the full review in a couple of weeks.
Before we go much further I’ll offer up a video tour of the Envy 4t, it’s not a full blown review but should give you a better idea of what this notebook looks like in the flesh:
HP Envy SleekBook Tour
As mentioned, this model under review was customized and shipped direct from HP. Here’s a picture of the box it arrived in and then out of the box so you get an idea what to expect will land on your doorstep:
And then the entire contents of what’s in the box above:
The top lid of the ENVY 4t-1000 has a black brush metal finish, it’s exactly the same as that found on the Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition. From above it may even look the same as the new Pavilion series with their midnight black finish, but it’s when you view it from the side to see the red accents and thin profile that you can tell this is no ordinary machine:
The thickness is well under 1-inch, but it’s still not as thin as the 0.58” thick ENVY Spectre XT. Either way, it’s still very easy to hold in one hand and how thin do you really need something? At a certain point a laptop gets so thin that you have to sacrifice keyboard quality and port selection, but to me the Envy 4t-1000 is “just thin enough”, you can still fit an Ethernet port, HDMI port, SD card reader, 2 USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, headphone and microphone jack which is a lot more ports than other Ultrabooks can claim.
You can see the red accents along the side of the laptop that HP calls “Ruby Red”, that color carries over to the bottom as well, which is a pretty cool look but not exactly something you’ll be seeing much of.
Makes you kind of wish the lid was the same metallic red color!
The build quality of this SleekBook is above what you would expect for $699. I thought HP would cheap out on the case construction and include a lot of plastic in the finish to keep the price low, but that’s not the case at all. In fact this machine is very firm feeling and solid all over.
The screen on the Envy 4t is a 14” with 1366 x 768 resolution. There’s definitely nothing special about the screen, it’s so-so and the same as you get in just about every other budget laptop. It’s definitely not as good as the ENVY 14 Spectre we reviewed back in January. Here’s a look at the viewing angles:
Obviously the best viewing angle is straight on, and if you look at the screen at such an angle (as most will) the colors are good. The whites are white and blacks black, all colors are vibrant thanks to the glossy finish. The downside of the glossy finish is of course that you get a lot of reflections, which over time causes eye strain.
You’ll notice in the pictures of the screen that the keyboard is backlit. This is a nice bonus, a very cool feature is the fact the F5 key that you use to turn the keyboard backlight on and off is permanently illuminated, so in a dark room you can easily find the F5 key to toggle the entire keyboard backlight on and off. Kudos to HP for coming up with a usability feature such as that, I would never have thought of it and it’s the first I’ve seen of such a feature.
The keyboard is an island style key design (chiclet) and feels pretty much the same as other Pavilion and ENVY laptops I’ve used, there’s no sacrifice of key travel due to thinness that you might find in the skinniest of Ultrabooks.
A lot of people will be interested in the performance of the Envy 4t as you can get a discrete AMD HD 7670M GPU and Core i5 processor. Sorry to say that this configuration has the Core i3 processor and Intel HD 3000 graphics as I wanted to test the $699.99 version. Here are the full specs for the unit purchased:
Processor: 2nd generation Intel Core i3-2367M Processor (1.4 GHz)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000
Screen: 14.0-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1366 x 768)
Color: Midnight Black with Ruby Red Soft Touch (base)
OS: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Memory: 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 System Memory (1 Dimm)
Storage: 500GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
Webcam: HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated dual array digital microphone
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R)
Battery: 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery – Up to 7.75 hours of battery life
Backlit Keyboard
Even with the base level configuration the performance is good, to be honest I’d rather get an SSD than a faster processor and dedicated graphics, but alas HP doesn’t even offer an SSD. In the more premium Ultrabooks you do get an SSD standard, which really helps with bootup speeds and overall application performance. Most people will simply be getting the Envy 4t to do work on the go or browse the web casually when relaxing, and for those purposes the Core i3 is more than ample. However, if you do have more demanding needs and think you’d like to do some light gaming, upgrading to the Intel Core i5 + AMD 7670M combo will net some nice gains for 3D performance. We’ll have full benchmarks of this particular system in the review to be posted next week.
One last bonus picture I have is the ENVY 4t lined up next to the 12.5” ThinkPad X220 I own, as you can see the Envy is quite a bit slimmer at the back and slightly thinner at the front. Lenovo calls the X220 an Ultraportable. To be fair, even though the X220 is thicker it weighs less. The X220 weighs 3.4lbs while the Envy 4t-1000 weighed in at just over 3.86lbs on my scales.
Stop back next week for more complete coverage and the full review of the Envy 4t!
Where to Buy: HP Envy 4t-1000 @ HP.com
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