HP Confirms IPS Display and AMD 7690XT Graphics for New Envy 15

You have to love big companies, sometimes they’re not exactly sure what they’re releasing or what the specs for a product are.  Yesterday we reported on the availability of the new Envy 15 and Envy 17 late 2011 updated models.  There was quite a bit of confusion on what the specs were exactly, especially in regards to the graphics card and type of display technology being used.  All it has on the HP site to tell what graphics card is being used in the new Envy 15 is “1GB AMD Radeon discrete graphics with GDDR5 memory for unprecedented HD video performance”, you have to love marketing where the use of smoke and mirrors are employed heavily.  For gamers that want to know the kind of performance they’ll be looking at with the Envy 15 this specs information is about as helpful as being no help at all.  And if you wanted to know if the $150 Radiance Full HD Infinity LED-backlit Display upgrade meant IPS or TN panel technology, there was nothing to be mentioned or found.

However, we now have confirmation from HP blogger Darren Gladstone that the graphics card is in fact an AMD Radeon 7690XT and the Full HD display upgrade is an IPS panel for the Envy 15.   Here’s what Darren had to say in confirming a question from a commenter:

1) The panel used in the Envy 15 is IPS

2) the graphics should be the AMD 7690XT….that’s all I’ve heard for the time being on that.

3) They come with Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 Wireless (3×3)

4) The SSDs are from the Intel 320 Series

5) To clarify, only the 17-incher has a Blu-Ray drive. The 15-incher has DVD

So there is definitely some good news there, it’s awesome the Radiance display is an IPS panel, although frankly I’m a little skeptical still.  The Intel N6300 Wireless card is also good news as that should offer excellent range.  The SSDs being equipped are from the Intel 320 series which are positively reviewed.  The bad news?  We still have little clue how the AMD 7690XT performance in terms of benchmarks, and to add to the confusion Darren says the Envy 15 and Envy 17 have the same GPU and yet in an earlier post he has benchmarks using the Windows Experience Index showing the Envy 15 scoring 6.5 and the Envy 17 scoring 7.0.  Huh?  Refer to the Windows Experience Index table below I captured from Darren’s post there.  At least the fog is clearing a little, though it may take until people actually receiving their machines before we get a clear picture.