HP Envy Leap Motion Hands-on

Over the years, computer manufacturers have been trying to replace the traditional mouse keyboard with new technology to achieve a more humane PC experience, in which leap motion can be said to be the first to enter the reality of the gesture operation around. In addition to buying alone, leap Motion is also looking for an integrated marketing model, and HP Envy Leap Motion Special Edition is a case in point. This entertainment audio and video notebook with a 17-inch screen, Haswell processor, and Nvidia graphics card is built into the leap motion component, providing an integrated gesture-handling function. So, does this new feature make notebooks easier to use? Look at the experience.

　　Fuselage design

HP Envy Leap Motion Special edition of the overall design to maintain a consistent style of the series, the fuselage top cover and chassis part of the use of metal materials and engineering plastics mixed materials, and tightly combined, the overall work well. The Black chocolate Keyboard has a moderate key, the key design is also more mainstream, but the disadvantage is that the combination of the fuselage does not seem close enough, typing can feel some empty feeling. In addition, although the keyboard has a backlight function, but does not support brightness adjustment, only to achieve close and open two-file operation, a little less humane.

interface, with a 17-inch stencil, it is able to integrate a large number of interfaces, including four USB 3.0 connectors, Ethernet, HDMI, audio/microphone, SD card reader, and a DVD-burning optical drive. Wireless connection, the machine has built-in Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi b/g/n, did not use the latest AC standard slightly regret.

Unfortunately, Hewlett-Packard Envy Leap Motion Special Edition as a 17-inch audio and video notebook, using only the 1600*900 pixel of the entry-level resolution (low version), the display is not delicate, and even the 1080P screen, contrast, brightness, Color reduction performance is also difficult to satisfactorily.

As for the audio part, the notebook's built-in speaker can only be competent chat, Windows sound effects, if you want to get good music playback effect, connect headphones or external speakers is necessary.

　　Leap Motion Experience

The HP Envy Leap Motion Special Edition has a Leap motion sensor built into the right-hand side of the touchpad that enables gesture manipulation. But the problem with leap motion is that it sounds cool, and the actual experience is another thing: each application has its own set of actions, and you need to learn and adapt to new gestures, and you don't actually get easy, easy-to-use results. In addition, the number of compatible software is low, it is not possible to fully apply the gesture operation in daily PC operation.

At the same time, even though the product has been on the market for a year, the experience has remained unchanged in the HP Envy Leap Motion Special Edition. The All-in-one form of integration does not lead to software optimization at the bottom of the system, and it feels more like a gimmick: when you show your friends that your notebook can use gestures, you may use leap motion to demonstrate several special games; but in peacetime, you may forget its existence, Continue to use the keyboard and mouse for daily operation.

　　Performance and battery life

We tested the HP Envy Leap Motion Special Edition with the Intel Core i5-4200m processor, 4GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GT 750M stand-alone graphics and 750GB hard drives, plus HP also offers I7-4702MQ, 8GB A high version of RAM and 1080P screens.

　　Processor performance Testing

Performance, you can see the HP Envy Leap Motion Special Edition (low version) of the performance is expected to meet the general household requirements, but did not use SSD solid-state hard disk or cache, in a certain way affect the performance of further play. Game, the GeForce GT 750 can be medium quality, smoother frame rate to run the mainstream 3D game, but if it is "island crisis 3" such a high demand for hardware, you need to adjust the quality to the minimum, close a variety of special effects to smooth operation.

　　Cooling effect Test

Battery life, the machine can achieve about 4.5 hours of continuous video playback, due to large screen size, this performance is acceptable, in addition to its positioning more prone to desktop substitutes, so there will not be too many users to carry. As for the heat dissipation, the HP Envy Leap Motion Special edition in the pressure test performance, the heat sink temperature up to 57.8 degrees Celsius, fortunately the fan noise is not exaggerated, not more than 40dB.

　　Summarize

As a home audio and video notebook, HP Envy Leap Motion Special edition of the configuration and performance is good enough to deal with day-to-day office and multimedia requirements. Unfortunately, poor screen displays affect the multimedia experience, while the built-in leap motion sensor is impractical and lacks good software support. In addition, million yuan around the price is also somewhat high, so destined to be a relatively small number of products.