HP Envy 4-1002TX Features

After the recent update, the Samsung Series 5 had become a cracker of an ultrabook, particularly when you consider the price tag. For quite a while now, we have been recommending the Ivy Bridge version of the Samsung ultrabook to anyone who has been asking for what to buy! But, there us a new challenger on the block, and is taking the battle / providing an alternative, whichever way you look at it, to the Samsung. Yes, we are talking about the HP Envy 4-1002TX ultrabook.
Ultrabooks, quite simply had just one task to accomplish on the looks front – look sexy. Laptop designs and form factors had gone out of hand quite a long time back, and Intel wanted to retain some good elements, as far as possible, in this new category. The HP Envy 4 does tick most of the check boxes on the design checklist.
There is a generous amount of aluminum used on the HP Envy 4, which gives it a “looks more expensive than it actually is” look. The illuminated logo idea that HP had dabbled with till recently, has now given way to the neat looking logo on one edge of the lid. The lid has a very subtle brushed metal finish, and that carries forward to the areas around the keyboard. While this is completely matte and not glossy at all (there really is a God!), this finish has a very annoying habit of accumulating smudges! The very tip of the lid – near side, if you may, when the lid is closed and ready for opening, correct side on – is plastic.
The ports are on the sides of the HP Envy 4, as they conventionally are for most laptops, with no testing the idea of placing them behind the display. Also, the muscular display hinge wouldn’t allow for that. What you cannot miss is that the side spines as well as the base are in the soft finish crimson red colour, with a matte finish. Yes, for those who have a more conventional thought process, there is the complete black finish option as well, but we believe this one looks absolutely fantastic. Flip the laptop over, and you will see a very well thought out channel of vents – sucking air, blowing it out as well as for passive cooling.

The only real negative that we can see in the otherwise excellent build of the HP Envy 4 is the glossy bezel around the display, and quite frankly we don’t understand the logic for that at all. When you have the most excellent brushed metal finish for the laptop, why ruin it with this dollop of scratch, dust and fingerprint magnet.
For your storage needs, there is a 500GB hard drive on the HP Envy 4. However, to speed things along, there is a 32GB flash storage for the caching tasks. Incidentally, the Samsung Series 5 has a 24GB flash storage, but unlike them, HP doesn’t have nifty software that allows you to enable or disable this feature, or to clean up the flash drive periodically.