HP Envy 14-1196

HP Envy 14-1196ea review

The HP Envy 14-1196ea laptop sports the Beats by Dr Dre colours and packs some potentially powerful components. Sadly, we didn't find the sort of performance we were hoping for. Our model came with a quad-core Intel Core i7-Q720 processor and 4GB RAM. It's available now for around £1,000.The Envy 14-1196ea is immediately recognisable as being part of the Beats audio range; the black plastic lid has a humongous red Beats logo taking up the middle, which dwarfs the actual HP logo in the bottom corner. Evidently, when HP goes toe-to-toe with Dr Dre, there's only going to be one winner. Other than the Beats logo, there's not much going on with the lid; it's a standard matte black affair. It's not bad looking though, so long as you don't mind proudly displaying to all and sundry that you worship at the church of Dre. Sadly, once you get your hands on the laptop, the matte coating proves to be a total fingerprint trap; a smart-looking machine is soon transformed into a grimey slate of grease. That's a big Beats logo... would you really want to display that so proudly? It doesn't feel particularly well built either. We prodded and poked at the lid and found a fair bit of flex, which is never a good sign.