HP ENVY 15-3090CA Notebook Intel Core i5 2450M(2.50GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm Slot-Loading SuperMulti DVD Burner AMD Radeon HD 7690M

Pros: Beautiful laptop, large crisp screen, surprisingly light for it's size, keyboard is wonderful

Cons: For the specs, I was expecting a laptop much more capable of handling Win8. Upon upgrading I experienced several performance issues. The Radeon 7690M crashes constantly when I use Photoshop (cs6 version). I experience a lot of lag when I try to draw on the computer. I am also unable to adjust brightness and contrast via keyboard.

Small annoyance, you have to press the fn key every time you want to us ant of the f keys--it defaults to the programmed functions (Which is super annoying as I use f2 a lot more than brightness contrast). Another annoyance about this laptop, even the slightest bump to the beats dial will adjust the sound, even if you have it set to mute. Also you can't take the battery out without undoing the screws. I personally don't like keeping the battery in my laptops when I use them as a desktop replacement.

Other Thoughts: I'm not sure if some of the performance issues are the laptop itself or it being refurbished.

Pros: I was really excited about this purchase even though I'd be stepping out of my Asus comfort zone and going with a brand I never really cared for much, especially when it came to graphic intensive gaming. The Envy proved me wrong in most regards. I was able to run most of my modern, graphics hungry games on it with no trouble, all except one.

For what you pay for, this is an impressive laptop. I never owned a laptop with so many speakers and a built in subwoofer, making this laptop my go to machine for music (compared to two Asus laptops and a custom build desktop) and the like. The 1080p supported screen is a very nice feature too, up until my purchasing of this laptop, I had no clue you could get such a high resolution out of a 15 inch screen.

This laptop just begs to be used for medium-high gaming and all of your multimedia needs. It is sad that it is discontinued on Newegg now, but that is to be expected of a laptop of this age.

Cons: I spent weeks working with the game designers and using my own knowledge to tweak, modify, and change every aspect of the laptops configuration and software that I could think of to make World of Tanks run on this laptop to no avail. I eventually gave up and purchased an Asus, though I still own the Envy.

The Switchable Graphics are a nice concept, but I do ultimately believe that is a large part of where my problem lies. I don't believe a (still beta) game like World of Tanks was designed to cooperate with hybrid graphics, much like how the game still only can utilize one CPU core, so I cannot fault the laptop entirely when it comes to this issue. Still, it is worth noting that if you want a rock solid gaming PC, I would avoid anything with hybrid graphics.

Other Thoughts: Unfortunately, being an nVidia guy, this incident doesn't do much to improve my opinion of ATI graphics, even if I am certain it isn't the dedicated graphics card that is the trouble, but rather the built in hybrid technology.

I dropped 16 GB of RAM into the laptop (a very nice feature of this laptop) and currently use it for its originally intended purpose and multitasking, I just don't play World of Tanks on it.

Pros: Sleek and thin! Runs great and has a big bright screen for gaming. Doesn't come with too much pre ware. Overall looks great and runs great.

Cons: So a couple complaints. First of all I have never seen this but in the top right corner of the screen their is the edge of a piece of paper that barely hangs down over the screen. It looks like it is the backing for the Envy logo that may have slip down... Weird and fairly annoying while small......Looking at it right now and realizing how much it bugs me lol.
Second is a small gripe but the keyboard is layed out really funky. The shift button on the left is suuuuper small and I keep missing it. Also the enter button is shifter over a little more than usual so it takes some getting used to for sure.
Last the trackpad is very sensitive but then it has trouble with swiped to scroll up or down sometimes. It just seems touchy..

Other Thoughts: Overall a good buy!