Gear65 is back! This week Justin and I show you the HP Envy 15, that computer that looks suspiciously a lot like a particular laptop that we all know and love. Nevertheless it still has a head turning design, and monster specs, as we show them all to you, this week on Gear65.

Link: HP Envy 15

We just got the Alienware m11x and decided to do a live unboxing at http://www.tech65.org/live. Just in case you missed it, here’s the unboxing video where we reveal the relatively smaller gaming machine!

Don’t forget to follow our twitter account so that you never miss another live unbox!

We finally get hold of an HP Envy 15, a very speced out version too, and we unbox it for you to give you a sneak peak at what the HP Envy 15 is all about.

The Gear65 episode you’ve all been waiting for is finally here! This week we finally take a look at the ultra-thin Sony Vaio X, a machine that in my opinion is Sony building a right product. We can’t hide the fact that we really love this machine, so much so that we made a 2-part special! So grab some pop-corn, sit back and find out if you feel the same about this sexy machine as we did. (Don’t forget to click on to watch Part 2 of the video as well!!)

Link: Sony Vaio X

At the HP Fall 2009 launch event in Singapore, HP announced the HP Envy 15, a new premium notebook that resulted from their acquisition of Voodoo.

Jerrick and I had a conversation about the HP Envy just last night, and we realised that the Envy 15 might just do very well.

While most of you can’t tell what’s so special about the Envy’s design, those of us who were at the launch itself would agree that the HP Envy was really a beautiful machine. Sure, it looks just like a Macbook Pro, from the metal casing, the glass-to-the-edge display, the black hinge, all the way to the button-less touch pad. However, if I had to choose between a Macbook Pro and the HP Envy 15 strictly based on design, I’d go with the HP Envy. Something about the design just makes it look really beautiful and expensive.

Then there’s the specifications on the Envy 15. They’re not in the video, but here’s the official list:

• Future, yet-to-be-announced processor based on the Intel Core i7
• ATI Hobility Radeon HD 4830 with 1GB GDDR3 VRAM
• 15.6″ Full HD (1920 x 1080) LED backlit HP Ultra Brightview Display
• Up to 16GB of 1066MHz DDR3 RAM with Dual Channel Memory Support
• Pretty insanse Hard Drive options (Single SSD 320GB / Dual SSD: 160GBx2 / SSD 160GB + HDD 250GB 5400RPM / HDD 250GB or 320GB or 500GB 7200RPM)
• VGA Nightvision Webcam with IR LED for illumination
• Beats Internal speakers
• HDMI-out, eSATA port

Of course, they did leave out some things as well, namely the optical drive, and a VGA port (you need to get an HDMI to VGA adapter)

Then finally, it’s not difficult to build the most powerful machine in the world, but it’s difficult to do it while making it relatively affordable. According to the official press, the HP Envy 15 will begin sale from October 22, 2009, with a starting price of US$1899 (or S$2700). If the base model already has the new Intel chip, the ATI graphics cards and the HD display, it’s going to be a really attractive machine to buy.

HP Envy official page

Now, if only this thing could run Mac OS X…

In summary, Fujitsu has a new service centre, HP has a new budget ultra portable, Singapore has a new rank to show-off, Windows has a new ad and Farinelli has a new feature in Gmail he totally should start using.

A great time to just talk about stuff that isn’t news?

- Daniel and DK

Stories this week:

[02:20] New Fujitsu service centre
[05:00] HP’s new Pavilion DV2 budget ultra portable
[09:10] Games Developers’ Conference 2009
- [10:00] OnLive – Cloud gaming console
[14:05] Singapore 4th most networked country… Yawn…

Let’s talk about Tech
[14:50] Windows Vista – Now no longer a technical failure but a PR failure?
- Microsoft’s latest “I’m a PC” ad
[22:50] Samsung TouchWiz UI (P.s. When I said “confirmed”, I really meant “convinced”)

[29:10] Byte of the week! Wait, let’s talk about Facebook first
[31:55] Byte of the Week: Gmail Labs: Undo send!

Read on for a look at the Instant-On mode on the Vaio P

So far, the device has proven that even though it’s running on Windows Vista, it is usable and doesn’t lag. As long as Aero is off (and unlike Windows 7, Aero doesn’t do anything extra other than look cool), the device can run quite smoothly. In fact, some of the advantages of Windows Vista is proving to help the Vaio, especially with regards to connecting to the internet wirelessly by tethering to your bluetooth enabled 3G phone. I’m actually liking it so far. Will that change? Well, I guess you’ll just have to wait for the next episode of Gear65 to find out!

Size

There’s no doubt that the Vaio P is a really beautiful device. They made the width of the device just long enough for you to hold with one hand, and fit in your jeans pocket (not that anyone will ever do that). That makes the device really small, and I’m sure will be a joy to carry around too (I’m not certain about this, since they won’t let me bring it even more than a few meters away from the display ). Small size means you have to sacrifice the display and the keyboard size though.

Sony made up for the keyboard by maintaining the size, and just removing the palm rest of the device. The keyboard is actually quite comfortable to use at my first attempt due to the size of the keys and the gap between the keys, just like it was for the HP Mini 1000, but the lack of a palm rest made it quite akward to use. Of course, since the device is pretty slim too, you could use a table top to make up for the lack of a palm rest. It will certainly take a while to get used it. As for the track point, it’s using the traditional fabric-like trackpoint, rather than the flat-rubber-topped trackpoint found on the newer Lenovo Thinkpads and HP Elitebooks. It was actually quite stiff to use in the beginning, but after DK maxed the speed of the pointer in the Control Panel, it actually become slightly better. Oh, and did I mention that you can click by pressing the trackpoint in?

While the keyboard and track point were fine, I found the display too small for me. Moreover, the fact that they made the display super high-resolution didn’t help things at all. Sure, your images would be extra sharp, and HD video (assuming it could play them in the first place) would really pop out, but that made everything from the start button to the words on the screen super tiny. I’m sure there’s a way to up the font size and icon size in Windows, but I didn’t really get why they insisted on putting in such a high-resolution display (1600 by 768, for those geeks who care about numbers) into such a small display (only 8 inches). I personally felt that even with a 1024 wide resolution would be more than sufficient and sharp enough for an 8 inches display, and would certainly help lower costs.

Design

The design of this Vaio is certainly well done. Lots of metal and gloss where they should be. I always complained that netbooks these days look like they came out of a Fisher Price factory because of all that plastic. HP countered that succesful by using their imprint technology to make the device subtly feel expensive, and Sony, well, they DID make it expensive. According to what I was told, they used magnesium for the body, and painted over the top cover with multiple layers, before adding a layer of gloss, while on the bottom they made it completely flat like the HP Mini 1000, and even covered all the screws. They even said the bottom was made with carbon fibre! I mean, with all that going on, how can this device not stand out?

Specs

This is where I think they completely messed up. Okay, maybe not completely, but just one tiny problem. Sony did say they weren’t making a budget computer, but that doesn’t give them an excuse to come up with such a decision: They paired an Intel Atom processor with Windows Vista!!?! How is it that no one at Sony thought that was a bad idea?? Sure, in the high-end model, they popped in a 64GB solid state drive, and for both models there’s 2GB of DDR2 RAM, but that’s not going to help the fact that it’s being powered by a low-powered Intel Atom chip along with a weak Intel GMA 500 graphics chip!! Did I mention that for the high-end model, it’s running Vista Home Premium?? We took the device for a spin, and it really slowed down after you ran more than 2 apps. In fact, when we first tried the device, we hit the power button, posed with it for a few minutes for pictures, and by the time we were done, the machine still hasn’t finished booting up!! If they put XP in this machine, I’m sure it will sell really well!! Okay, I’m done with my Vista rant.

The rest of the specs are pretty standard for netbooks (yes, I still see it as a netbook!), there’s Wifi A/B/G/Draft N, a Memory Stick Duo and an SD card slot. There’s only 2 USB slots, and like the HP Mini, they took out the 2 biggest ports and replaced it with a port replicator, requiring a special adapter: LAN and VGA. That’s right, unlike the HP Mini, this device is so thin, they couldn’t even hide a LAN port in it. Oh, and did I mention there’s only a headphone jack? They omitted the mic-in jack. Unlike the HP Mini 1000, this jack won’t switch between in and out. It’s just in and nothing else. The high end model supports a special noise cancelling headphone set though. I thought that was cool. There’s a supposed hardware decoder for AVCHD video files in the device too, but I’m guessing only for the industry standard AVCHD you find in some HD cameras. I put in my SD card from my Sanyo HD cam, and it wouldn’t even play 720p properly.

Software, the other place Sony value added this device

Apart from Vista, the rest of the software on this device are pretty packed. They bundled a whole bunch of Vaio software you’d find on most Vaio machines, along with a trial version of Office 2007 Professional, WinDVD (I wonder where you put the DVD in?), Roxio Easy Media Creator etc. They also have this cool cross media bar application that lets you access your media as if you were using a PSP, PS3 or bravia TV. They added an extra button on the device too that when pressed, it will organise all your windows automatically from left to right. I really like that feature.

How they made up for Vista: Instant on mode

If you turn off the device and press the CrossMediaBar button, the device boots into Instant On mode quite quickly, and you get a PSP-like interface to access your music, photos and videos. There’s a web browser (Firefox, I might add) and an IM app (Pidgin) too. The instant on mode is obviously powered by Linux, and to be honest, I’d end up using this mode most often. I mean, between this and Vista on an Intel Atom machine?? In my opinion, this was one of the smartest thing they did with the Vaio P.

Overall

No matter how much Sony keeps trying to say this isn’t a netbook, I still think it is, thanks to the Intel Atom chip. It’s a really expensive netbook (S$1299 for a 1.33Ghz Intel Atom computer?!??), but it’s still a netbook. To put it nicely, it’s a premium netbook, just like the Macbook Air is a premium notebook. I feel that Sony should have gone in either two directions with this device. Add in more power, say an Intel Centrino Solo even, along with an Nvidia 9400 (the one found in the new Macbook) graphics chip, or even the more powerful Intel GMA X3100, and make it more expensive. S$2000 for a powerhouse is value for money. Or they could have gone the other way. Take out Vista and put in XP, use a cheaper 1024pixelled wide display, maybe even a 16G SSD, then charge S$1000. I’m willing to pay S$200 more than other netbooks for that amazing casing, keyboard, form factor and that awesome instant on feature. That would certainly sell better than other netbooks out there.

Most important take away for you, my friend

I haven’t played with the device for an extended time yet, and for all you know, things might change by the time the device hits the market in February. Until then, just keep the good stuff of this machine in mind:

1. Awesome tiny form factor
2. Awesome head-turning design and amazing quality for a netbook
3. Great keyboard
4. Super useful instant-on

As for the Vista and slow performance part, we’re willing to give Sony a second chance to prove us wrong when the device goes on sale in late February 2009.