HP ENVY 13-1030NR 13.3-Inch Magnesium Alloy Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)

by HP

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 8.5 x 0.8 inches ; 5.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002TEE3OO
• Item model number: VM173UA#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,256 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 18, 2009

Product Description

Meet your business-class seatmate: Precision crafted from the highest quality metals; super portable starting at 3.74 lbs. and less than 1-inch thin; all-day and into the night battery life. Each ENVY 13 notebook is individually crafted from aluminum and a magnesium alloy then artfully inscribed with a subtle design. Each is built with best-in-class components then individually tuned for maximum performance.Experience full-throttle graphics and superb performance. And up to 16.25 hours of battery life with included Extended-Life battery; enough to keep you productive and entertained during nearly an entire flight from LA to Sidney. Each aspect of the ENVY 13 architecture was carefully chosen to enable exceptional performance and battery life for the frequent traveler.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Laptop I have ever owned, December 2, 2009

By 

Michael Simpson "Owner of KronosRobotics.com" (Leesburg VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP ENVY 13-1030NR 13.3-Inch Magnesium Alloy Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)

I currently own 5 laptops. They range from small netbooks and tablet PC's to a 17" HP Entertainment laptop. As a contractor I used the 17" for all my meetings and it served its purpose well. The problem is I wanted something smaller, and a longer lasting battery.

I had looked at the envy 15 but it runs hot even while idle. I just did not like the heat on my palms as I typed. After much research the envy 13 seemed to meet all my requirements. ITs a very portable laptop and even with the slice (extra battery) attached its thinner and lighter than all my other laptops.

Even when playing graphic intensive games it does not break a sweat. As for the battery/s I'm getting about 11 hours of constant use with Bluetooth on and wifi off. With wifi and Bluetooth on and streaming movies I get about 7 hours of constant use.

The laptop is small so the IO ports are at a minimum. It only has two USB ports so I purchased a Microsoft Bluetooth mouse and it works perfect. The included external DVD drive gets its power from the USB and also acts as a USB hub supplying 2 ports.

There does not seem to be any user accessible panels on the laptop so you can't change the hard drive of update the memory. Even though the laptop has only 3GB installed it does have windows 7 64-bit installed and can handle up to 5GB. But currently I see no way to upgrade.

One thing I noticed is that the laptop has an accelometer installed so it can detect movement. When on the battery it will park the hard drives if you pick up the laptop. This is indicated by a small orange LED that turns on in place of the normal white hard drive LED.

The speakers are probably the weakest point on the laptop. They just don't have any output for most movies so you will have to use earphones or purchase a external speaker set. I got a pair of those tiny USB powered HP speakers and they have plenty of volume and are small enough to keep in my laptop bag.

As will all laptops there is quite a lot of bloteware installed. It took me three solid days to get rid of all the crap but now the machine runs at between 0-2% CPU usage when idle.

Would I purchase the laptop again? The answer is definitely YES.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice but not great., April 13, 2010

By 

Fredy Rosal "Fred Rose" (Overseas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HP ENVY 13-1030NR 13.3-Inch Magnesium Alloy Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)

I really expected more from HP. I read great reviews about this laptop, and most of them were right on the money: A good attempt to a different breed of PCs but falling short on key points.

I was close to send it back but i kept it at the end mainly because of the size and weight and also because i needed a sturdy laptop. These are the key points that prevented the HP Envy from being a magnificent machine and a true contender against Apple:

- Battery life not even close to 5 hours nor 16 with the additional battery: HP really oversold the battery capacity here. Expect to get 2 hours at the most when using wifi. With the extra battery you probably could get 5 to 6 hours but that's it. And then the weight goes from 3.8 pounds to 5.3 so, not so light to get more juice. My wife owns a MacbookPro that she uses for 5 to 6 continuous hours with no sweat and definitely less strain on her arm.

- Trackpad: The worst ever. I thought that because of the product age (about 6 - 7 months now) they had come up with a better driver for it. Nope. It still stinks. Clicks are limited to a tiny area in the trackpad. Why did HP make such a big trackpad with no buttons (a la Mac) but limit the area where you can click? Doesn't make any sense to me at all.

- Price: If you are conscious about money and need to save some money look elsewhere, this is not worth the money you pay. Again, I kept it only because the magnesium casing was important to me but you probably can find something similar from Asus or Dell where you can save some dough.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hard drive crashed and other problems..., September 20, 2011

By 

Married with Children - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HP ENVY 13-1030NR 13.3-Inch Magnesium Alloy Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)

I bought two of these for employees at work. I prefer the basic Apple models, which I have, for $1000, and it performs much better, better battery, and integrated disc drive. This model has a separate disc drive, which is not as good, and today the hard drive crashed. Of course it's two months after warranty. I have to have Windows applications due to working with Medicare, but my Apple is much much better, and costs less. Didn't want to add Windows to an Apple, that seems like an oxymoron to me...?