HP Envy

They both look very much like HP versions of Apple-esque aesthetics.

Seriously though...I'd go with the 15" model myself, but I'd be using the thing for photo editing, maybe some light video work, etc. That's the "power" model, if you will. Not a desktop replacement, but enough extra "oomph" for my creative uses away from work and home.

That said, the battery life on the 13" model is more impressive, and incredibly impressive with the added "battery slice" (18+ hours, apparently). And it's no slouch in the power department itself for a laptop of the sort.

It really depends on what you're gonna use it for, when you're gonna use it, and for how long each day.

Are you going to use it for graphics intensive programs like photo editing, etc.? Are you going to use it for office functions mostly, and taking notes (either at work or in class...or both)? Will you have a power outlet near you at times to charge up the batteries? How long do you think you'll need for those batteries to last during the day? Oh, and weight. Weight is an important factor. How much are you gonna lug this thing around (everyday, once in a while, almost never)?

Those are, btw, the things that should factor into your decision when purchasing a laptop moreso than simply how fast and powerful the CPU and GPU happen to be. If the latter is the most important factor, and questions of portability come secondary, then you should really look into a desktop (tower or all-in-one computer) or a total desktop replacement laptop (which aren't very portable, tbqh, and are very, very expensive).

Sorry I can't give you a straight up "this is what you should buy" answer, but, y'know...it's not that cut and dry.

 

Very hard to compare directly the AMD and Intel offerings. Both are X86 processors, obviously, but the tests for x86 errs more toward Intel not because they're necessarily faster or anything, but because the documentation is more "open" with Intel's offerings. I will state that some programs, due to this factor, have "issues" running on non-Intel CPUs.

IMHO, government agencies should start looking into that as I feel it makes for an unfair advantage for Intel.

I have no idea why the smaller model is more costly. Only thing I can think of is that the price of the internal components might be a bit costlier.

As you're only going to use it two or so hours out of the day, and therefore battery life isn't much of an issue, I'd say go with the 15" model.

That said, keep this in mind:

It seems that neither has an internal CD/DVD ROM drive. That's why external options are offered. So if you need an optical disc drive...I'd look elsewhere.

In that case...I'd say go with one of the "high performance" options from HP:

"High Performance HP laptops

This one seems nice, and is less expensive than either of the Envy models while offering more bang for the buck:

HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition series

Might suit your needs better and is less expensive overall, even after stocking it out with a BD-ROM drive w/DVD and CD R&W capabilities, and upgrading both the memory to 6GB (a free upgrade, btw) and hard disk drive to 320GB of space (another free upgrade, btw).

 

I was actually looking at getting a HP Envy 15 a few months back as my new laptop, I decided against it because I game a lot which means an internal CD/DVD ROM Drive is important (Although they made one specifically for the Envy that matches, but sucks lugging it around) and it also has a mediocre graphics chip. The i7 processor is powerful though and I think it can pack up to 16GBs (Or more?) of RAM which is crazy.

The battery life is kinda great for a laptop that packs an i7 especially with the battery slice, plus it is rather light.

If you want the best advice, I'd recommend creating an account at http://forum.notebookreview.com/ and post in the 'What notebook should I buy?' Section or you can also head over to the HP Section and ask around in the owner's lounge.