HP ENVY 15-3040NR 15.6 Inch Laptop (Black Silver)

Hear music the way the artist intended using the sleek HP ENVY 15-3040NR notebook with Beats Audio. Plus, HP Wireless Audio lets you stream audio to wireless-enabled devices using KleerNet Technology. Watch DVDs and slideshows on the ultra-sharp 15.6-inch diagonal Full HD LED-backlit display. This stylish HP laptop has an all-aluminum body in nero black and natural silver. With the HP TrueVision Webcam and HP Radiance Backlit Keyboard, working in low-light environments is easy, too. The HP ENVY 15-3040NR also has a large hard drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection to help prevent data loss. With an extended life battery that lasts up to 8 hours per charge, stay powered without plugging in your notebook. Integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth help you connect and sync your HP laptop to a printer, MP3 player or smartphone without using cables. You can also stream content to your HD TV with Intel Wireless Display. Plus, transfer photos directly from a memory card to your PC. And at 5.79 lbs, the ENVY 15 delivers awesome performance and amazing experiences in a size that’s easy to carry in your backpack or laptop bag.

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
I bought this as an upgrade to a 5+ year old laptop, so anything's an improvement on that but...It's definitely very sleek. Nicely put together and the screen is very solid. Backlit keys are awesome...even has a nifty feature (dim red light built in on just to left of screen) that senses if you're near the laptop and turns on when you sit down in front of it.It stays very cool and quiet. Speakers are very good sounding and can produce some decent volume. I read the other issue about the sound card and haven't delved into sound recording yet. But I plan to as I'm an amateur musician as well. It seems there must be a way to disable the Beats audio though...Screen is beautiful. The HD resolution is awesome, but can get a little annoying on web pages (just hit control+mouse wheel to zoom in and make pics and text larger).Switching between graphics cards is a little confusing. The drivers off the AMD site won't install because I think it's just sensing the integrated Intel graphics. But you can get a good driver that will install off of HP's support/download site for this laptop. To choose which programs use which graphics card, just right click on the desktop and choose "configure switchable graphics." This will open up a program that senses which programs you've recently used to set the graphics card. It also allows you to browse for the .exe file that runs whatever program you're trying to configure and set it that way.I do some casual gaming and this will suffice...definitely not a dedicated gaming laptop though. It plays Skyrim at about 40 fps with a lower resolution. Forget it on the native resolution though.The performance is very fast and satisfying. You can get Windows to load to a useable state in just about a minute and most programs only take about one second to load.Overall, I'm very satisfied and I think this is a great "all-around" laptop. Not a dedicated gaming or music machine, but should meet and exceed 9/10 people's needs.