I really don't understand some of the more hostile sentiments towards the Envy.
There's nothing wrong with HP coming out with a new laptop. They do it all the time.
The hostility comes when the question is framed in a way such as "gee, don't you mac fanboys feel sooooo stupid buying a macbook pro, when the envy is soooo much better? Clearly
you can't deny that Apple products are inferior because their specs are lower, right?
Isn't Apple stupid?"
When the discussion is steered this way from the start, what kind of response do you expect??
I don't see why you don't even give it a chance.
Been there, done that with both HP and Windows. When you get disappointed over and over again, "give them a chance" starts to be less appealing over time.
Threads like this ignore common sense. There are going to be people who obsess over clock speeds and figures on a spec sheet, and they will go after the system that has the highest and best numbers because it somehow makes them feel good about themselves. Even if the
reality turns out not to be what the specs promised.
Then there are those of us who have been there one too many times, and know that the spec sheet doesn't tell the whole story and that ultimately, the best computer is the one that works for you. For many of us here, Macs work well for us, so much so that we pay a premium because we
know it works well for us. We arent buying the latest MacBook Pros because we're going to ditch it the moment something shinier comes out. We buy the latest because we intend to
keep it for a few years.
The good news is that, for better or for worse, the market supports both types of people quite well. The "spec-whores" can buy their souped-up machine and feel smug about their purchase, and then not care that the machine might turn out to be crap because they'll likely lose interest and buy something newer and shinier before it becomes a problem anyway. And in between purchase cycles, they'll troll the forums to get a rise out of people and further affirm their feeling of dominance and superiority.
And the "mac fanboys" will pay their premium, buy Applecare, hang on to their purchase for a while, and then sell it on eBay because even after a few years, their old laptop will still retain some resale value. They they can use the cash to upgrade to the latest mac model and start the cycle again. And
they can feel smug when a spec-whore decides to troll their forum for a while.
There are of course, the in-between folks too. You have your self-loathing mac users who bash Apple and the decisions made by its engineers from behind the keyboards of the systems they claim to abhor so much. And you have the people who bought a windows based system but wish they had done otherwise. They contribute appropriately to the side they
wish they were on.
No one's opinion changes, each side comes away with a bigger ego, and outsiders to the conversion, whose lives
aren't defined by the logo emblazoned to the lid of their laptop, realize how incredibly silly both sides look for even taking part in it. Everybody wins.