I've been avoiding this review for the better part of a month because, with all the hype the Envy line has gotten (some deserved), I took the Envy 15 out of the box and had one thought: "Cheap." In brief, the Envy is indeed light system with plenty of power, but it never feels premium, nor does the battery life reach adequate levels.

The multimedia and gaming experience blew us away -- rarely do we see such performance out of a laptop this sleek and thin -- but all that power results in incredibly high temperatures and below-average battery endurance. If you're willing to put up with hot metal and less than stellar battery life for a pretty awesome multimedia experience, the Envy 15 may be worth a try, but in the end it's hard for us to recommend a laptop that actually became uncomfortable to use and hampered our everyday computing experience.