HP Launches $2,299 Dr Dre Music Notebook

[JMcEntegart]

HP has announced the limited edition Envy 15 Beats, a music notebook that is the product of a collaboration with Dr Dre and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine.

HP Launches $2,299 Dr Dre Music Notebook : Read more

 

[doomtomb]

Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine continue to fight the war on degrading sound quality by introducing $2300 laptops. Such a noble fight.... >_>

 

[hellwig]

I think music producers seriously underestimate the hearing of the average person. Anyone who thinks a 320-kbit MP3 is a reduced platform for music either works in the music industry or spends too much time listening to music.

Sure, I want my music to sound good, but anyone who walks around listening to Dr. Dre thinking "man, I really could have used a little more on the high-end there when he was talking about beating down hoes" has their head up their ass.

 

[hellwig]

Damnit, I meant to say overestimate. I know I don't hear that well.

 

[r0x0r]

Right, now all we need is for online music stores to offer us DRM-free 1441kbps .wav as well.

 

[Honis]

seven hours on one charge

Must be intel gfx too. That sound card better not be a sound blaster with "custom" drivers. You think Creatives driver support is bad for its regular drivers...

 

[SAL-e]

Anyone who describes the quality of the audio equipment with terms: "Warm", "full", "pleasing", and etc without providing technical data like frequency range, THD (Total Harmonic Distortion), frequency response, sensitivity and Dynamic range is simply crook.
Just couple of facts:
1. 80% of the people older then 18 years CAN NOT hear frequency higher then 17 kHz and lower then 40 Hz.
2. The human ear CAN NOT distinguish level differences lower then 3dB.
3. The humans practically can not locate correctly the vertical position of the sound.
4. The humans locate the source of the sound based on were it come first not by its level.

So if you have $2300 to give it to HP and Dr. Dre go ahead. You are welcome. If you smart will save your money and ask HP to release the specification sheet and find independent laboratory to test it. There is big difference between intended specs and resulting one after compromises are made to reduce the cost during manufacturing.

 

[sdcaliceli]

[citation][nom]Honis[/nom]Must be intel gfx too. That sound card better not be a sound blaster with "custom" drivers. You think Creatives driver support is bad for its regular drivers...[/citation]

The original HP Envy 15 is slated to come with an ATI Mobility HD4830. What I don't like about the "seven hours on one charge" claim is that they don't mention the "slim fit" battery attachment that gets added on to this thing to make it last that long.
Otherwise, the concept for the laptop is great. Clone a macbook pro body in magnesium and slap a core-i7 w/ windows 7 into it and you've got a laptop that is worthy of carrying the name Envy. I just wish that Voodoo actually had a hand in the making of this thing. If the price were lower, I'd be all over this.

 

[wildwell]

So.... can it run Pro Tools?

 

[soul555top]

I am all for having better sound quality, but I still think mp3 is great in terms of file size to sound quality. I think Dre is a very talented artist, however his lyrics, much scrutinized at times, are not his strong point. He is a talented producer which doesn't only mean great beats, but high production value. The problem here, is that HP is garbage. I was at Best Buy last night and saw the Dre headphones, not only was the sound quality average, but they felt like cheap $40 Logitech headphones. They also weren't very comfortable. At home when I am on headphones, I use the Bose tri-port over the ears, and while I am not a Bose fanboy, I love them and would only replace them with the same model. Considering they are half the price (has anyone ever said that about Bose??) I just don't see a point of this Beats line.

In all honesty, I dont care who makes, who sells, or who's name is on the headphones. They need to sound great, be comfortable, and look decent. The Dre ones don't achieve that on any level. I am going to assume that laptop is in a similar place.

 

[hannibal]

Hmmm... MP3 is great for jogging and car, but with Hifi system you can tell the difference to original. But can you get Hifi quality sound from notebook?
All in all, you have to "learn" to hear the differences. They are there but they are guite difficult to find out without some experience, so it's true that in most normal cases 320bit mp3 is good enough!
You need very quiet environment, very high end system and you need to switch between the original and mp3 version on fly. Allso acustic instruments are needed. In electronic music it's much harder to find out, but not impossible.

 

[bigalfantasy2004]

How well does it play Michael Bolton?

I'll be honest with you, I love his music. I do. I'm a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, I don't know if it gets any better than when he sings "When a Man Loves a Woman".

 

[socrates047]

all respects to Dr Dre for all that he has done with music and everything, but he looks like a zombie in that pic.lol

 

[anamaniac]

Don't give a damn about the msuc stuff... I can notice between 128 and 192kb/s, but anything hiher is useless to me. My hearing ain't perfect.

HOWEVER!
A high res 15.6", i7, 4830m... actually does sound like a nice laptop.

 

[eccentric909]

If they're packaging a program like Traktor, I don't think sound "quality" is the only concern for the laptop. It'd also have to have a higher end sound card, which has lots of input/output channels, for mixing music/instruments/etc. I could see that maybe driving up the cost a little bit, because high-end professional sound cards/equipment tend to be a bit pricey.

 

[3rev]

OK If this thing doesn't have Loads of USB 2.0 and Firewire Interfaces, Proper Low latency Audio hardware with Full ASIO support and a Solid State disk it is NOT worth the money (at least for music production) Might as well by a Macbook Pro and put an SSD in it. (And thats saying something cause I m not an Apple fan boy.) As for MP3's being good enough. Well maybe but go to this site take a listen and see if you still have that opinion. http://productionadvice.co.uk/why-mp3-sounds-bad/

 

[sciencectn]

God, I hate audiophiles. Even when confronted with double-blind ABX tests like this, which says that only 4 in 145 could tell the difference between regular DSD and 24 bit PCM, they always say, "Well, I AM the 4 in 145 that can tell the difference". No, you're just trying to justify spending tons of money on a trivial or non-noticeable difference in audio quality.

 

[3rev]

[citation][nom]sciencectn[/nom]God, I hate audiophiles. Etc Etc Etc.... No, you're just trying to justify spending tons of money on a trivial or non-noticeable difference in audio quality.[/citation]

Interesting POV, I never saw this as being marketed to audiophile PC user. As an electronic musician and MS OS user, I saw this as serious alternative to Mac hardware for Music Production vand DJ work. Sounding good is essential if you plan on doing professional work. But so are a host of other feature so the real worth of the machine of course will really depend on what they put in there for audio rendering and I/O as well CPU and memory fast drives. See my points above. TBH I'm not holding my breath judging from the Headsets. (I prefer AKG's for production & Bose Noise canceling for my Zune)

 

[dingumf]

[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]I think music producers seriously underestimate the hearing of the average person. Anyone who thinks a 320-kbit MP3 is a reduced platform for music either works in the music industry or spends too much time listening to music.Sure, I want my music to sound good, but anyone who walks around listening to Dr. Dre thinking "man, I really could have used a little more on the high-end there when he was talking about beating down hoes" has their head up their ass.[/citation]


Um excuse my wise and beautiful friend but ARE YOU A DJ AND A DOCTOR?

I don't think so. Sit your ass back down.

 

[dingumf]

[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]Anyone who describes the quality of the audio equipment with terms: "Warm", "full", "pleasing", and etc without providing technical data like frequency range, THD (Total Harmonic Distortion), frequency response, sensitivity and Dynamic range is simply crook.Just couple of facts:1. 80% of the people older then 18 years CAN NOT hear frequency higher then 17 kHz and lower then 40 Hz.2. The human ear CAN NOT distinguish level differences lower then 3dB.3. The humans practically can not locate correctly the vertical position of the sound.4. The humans locate the source of the sound based on were it come first not by its level. So if you have $2300 to give it to HP and Dr. Dre go ahead. You are welcome. If you smart will save your money and ask HP to release the specification sheet and find independent laboratory to test it. There is big difference between intended specs and resulting one after compromises are made to reduce the cost during manufacturing.[/citation]

Actually they can my wise and beautiful friend. You just have poor ears.

Or the fact your not a audiophile. Enjoy your onboard my wise and beautiful friend

 

[sciencectn]

Or the fact your not a audiophile. Enjoy your onboard my wise and beautiful friend

An onboard my wise and beautiful friend? Those are pretty hard to come by.

Although, I heard that MSI is releasing a new 128-bit FPU (my wise and beautiful friend processing unit). It's supposed to relieve most of the faggotry load off the CPU.


I love it when people forget commas...

 

[SAL-e]

[citation][nom]dingumf[/nom]Actually they can my wise and beautiful friend. You just have poor ears. Or the fact your not a audiophile. Enjoy your onboard my wise and beautiful friend[/citation]
Where I have heard this before.... yes. I remember. I have a friend. He is very good and commercially successful musician and I used to fix his stuff all the time. His partner use to argue just like you, until we did couple of tests. Guess what.... I had better hearing then he did. Yes, I don't know the difference between C and D, but I could hear higher frequency then he could. He also had big -12dB drop at 150 Hz because he was a drummer.
So Do you like to take the same test? I can tell you I still can hear 16 kHz, but I don't know at what level.
Yes, there are people with exceptional hearing, but they are few.

 

[Guest]

What it comes down too is what kind of Digital to analog converter (DAC) is inside this laptop. Simple as that. For example the E-MU sound card has a A/D converter: AK5394A and a D/A converter: CS4398. These DAC/ADC chips are dam good and found in a lot of Pro Products. Next is how are the drivers? Does it have ASIO drivers and how stable are they? Everything else these guys are marketing as all talk and bullshit, consumer stuff.