Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My turn to step again into the early-adopter line for a new piece of cutting-edge tech. This HP Envy 34 all-in-one is a stunning machine, and the end result is something very new in the rather stale field of desktops. Not since Apple introduced the 5K iMac 27” have I seen such a radical step in desktop PCs. This is a long review, very long. It includes some DIY info at the end for opening this PC and hard drive replacement. So, you’ve been warned. Let’s get started. My rating of 5 stars is based on the end result. There are many, many things to ogle and admire on this new HP Envy 34. There’s also a few real issues with this completely new form factor. As delivered, this machine is at best a 3-star experience. There’s 2 areas that are desperately in need of attention: the hard drive, and the Intel Realsense 3D camera. I’ll cover those issues as well, along with my solution to each of these problems. First, the good. The best 3 things about this AIO? The screen, the screen, the SCREEN! The curved, 34”, 21:9 widescreeen with native 3440x1440 resolution is just amazing. I’m not a fan of curved televisions, but in a monitor, especially an ultra wide screen 21:9 unit, it’s a completely different story. Sitting in front of this screen, you’re completely immersed in content. It’s equivalent to 2 side-by-side monitors, but without the bezels. The curve is quite sharp on this screen, a 2m radius. With such a large widescreen, the curve means my eyes don’t refocus when glancing from the edge to the center. I’m older, my eyesight isn’t what is used to be, as I stare at a computer screen with progressive eyeglass lenses. This curved monitor is so much less fatiguing than flat screens. The screen has an effective anti-glare coating as well, another strong positive. Brightness and color gamut are also stunning on this unit. I had no problem brightening this in a well-lit room with a plenty of windows. In fact, the screen is most of the reason to purchase this unit, it’s just that good. What else is good? The overall design. HP has done a fantastic job on the case and presentation of this all-in-one. It’s not quite to Apple standards, but it’s close. The case is white plastic, with black plastic accents. The bezel fits impeccably, with no gaps, including around the monitors concave curves. The highly-polished aluminum stands are a work of art. The tilt mechanism is a model of great engineering. You can easily position this monitor at any angle, and it just stays put. Speakers and camera are well integrated, and there’s plenty of ports (including 4x USB 3.0, yeah!). Sound is stunning. It’s branded as “Bang and Olufsen” and it’s the best I’ve heard from a stock all-in-one. The Intel Realsense 3D camera is also well integrated, when it works. Performance is great. I’m not a super-power-gamer, but I do play the usual stuff like Warcraft, Diablo III, etc. On these games, frame rates were well up above 30fps in full 3440x1440 mode. So far, the highlight game has been Race Driver Grid 2. It runs smoothy in native resolution, and it just glorious on this screen. The nVidia GTX 960a graphics did a fine job on all these games, no complaints. 4k videos streamed without stuttering in Youtube, and a really highlight is 21:9, 1440p content on Youtube. The Envy 34 is quiet. There’s a built in fan, but it rarely went to higher speeds. At slow speeds, you can barely here it. The power supply is a separate brick, and I prefer this, as it limits volume and heat inside the case itself. Overall, the “PC” part of this all-in-one works well, and it’s packaged in an amazing case with a stunning 21:9 screen. Ok, now some of the issues with this new machine: The keyboard and mouse are pretty cheap. There’s no separate brightness control on the keyboard, which is quite an oversight, given that this machine is all about the screen. Yes, you can change settings in Windows, but HP could easily have put dedicated buttons on the keyboard. This machine comes stock with Windows 10. I was not a fan of Windows 8, and managed to live for years by buying machines with Windows 7 instead. Windows 10 is honestly just a slightly improved version of Windows 8. I’m not going to ding HP in my rating for this, as it’s more a Microsoft issue, but man, is W10 a pain to setup. I could go on and on about W10 issues, as have others. Cortana is a sad joke compared to Siri, sending 95% of my requests to a bing search page. I’m sure this will improve with time, but geez Microsoft, what happened to you? I digress… The Intel Realsense camera did NOT work out of the box on this machine. I finally got this partially working, and it wasn’t pretty. HP shipped basically a beta copy of the Windows install, and you’re going to have to do a bit of work to get things running, as I did (below). Once working, the ability to use W10’s “Hello” feature is well worth the effort. Login occurs when it recognizes your face, automagically. So, it’s worth grinding through the install headaches for this feature, too. Finally, the biggest flaw in this all-in-one: the hard drive. This comes shipped with a 1TB, 5400 rpm HD. And it’s a total and complete dog. Why HP would gimp this otherwise magnificent new piece of hardware with a terrible and slow HD is beyond me. Initial setup took over an hour, and cold bootup with the HD is a several-minute experience thereafter. I swapped the internal HD for a proper solid-state drive, and it’s a night and day difference. If you’re buying this machine, consider a hard drive upgrade absolutely mandatory. See the end of this review for my instructions on how to change the hard drive. So why did I award this 5 stars? Frankly, once the camera and hard drive issues are resolved, this is a wonderful, fantastic desktop with an absolutely unique screen and stunning design. It’s worth correcting these problems for the end result. This is cutting edge-tech in monitor design and form factor, and this is the first Windows-based desktop in a few years that really pushes the envelope. It looks incredible in person, the online pictures can’t begin to do this HP Envy 34 justice. The screen case, and (especially) the gorgeous polished feet make this stand out as a work of art. Why not just purchase a similar monitor? That’s a fine choice, but I prefer the aesthetic of an all-on-one, with no cables (except the power cord). The polished aluminum stands are unique to this all-in-one as well. Further, you don’t get the 3D camera on the monitors (at least, not yet) and most don’t have the integrated B&O audio. This system does work, and its glorious once you fix the issues I mentioned. This really is a centerpiece on your desktop, either work or home. The no-cables look and sleek, curved case are like nothing else available. A final word: this machine is not a plug-and-play computer for the novice. The fixes, below, are 100% mandatory to bring out the best in this computer, and they’re not for the faint of heart. HP: I know you’ll read this. Please scrap the terrible 5400 rpm drive and equip your magnificent new design with a proper SSD (and not the 128GB “upgrade” option you’ve promised). And have a few of your engineers solve the driver issues with the 3D camera while you’re at it. Otherwise, well done! You beat Apple to a magnificent new form factor; expect the iMac version of this screen within a year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix: Solving Realsense 3D camera issues and installing a proper SSD in the Envy 34. First, here's how to do the SSD install. There’s 2 challenges: the physical drive install, and moving system software onto the new drive. I’ll cover each. First, moving the software. I put this first, because you’ll need to do this first. There’s 2 ways to approach this: 1) clone the drive, or 2) reinstall Windows 10 from recovery media. I’ve tried both. Several times. I strongly suggest you move the system software to the new SSD via recovery media. My “cloned” drives failed to restore the recovery partition, and gave all sorts of problems a few days after the install (for the record, I cloned via the Apricorn/USB 3.0 adapter and EzGig software). Here’s how to create recovery media. Boot the HP Envy 34 on the stock, 5400 rpm hard drive. Complete the intial Windows 10 setup, but don’t do anything else. Grit your teeth at how slow the stock hard drive is. Once you get to the W10 desktop and before anything else, create windows recovery media FROM THE HP UTILITY. You'll find it in the HP software under apps. DON’T use the W10 recovery creation app. You get to make 1 copy of recovery media, and you’ll want to do this to a USB 3.0 thumb drive of at least 32 GB capacity. Save this thumbdrive for future use. Now, you can perform the physical drive install. The Envy 34 has a spare M.2 slot for next-generation SSDs. My plan was to use this to add a Samsung Pro 850 M.2 500 GB drive. I carefully took apart the Envy 34 (see below for how), I spent a good 60 minutes carefully removing the motherboard (not for the faint of heart) to access the open M.2 port on the backside, and installed the Samsung Pro 850. Yeah! Except…. I couldn’t get the BIOS to recognize this drive. I changed every BIOS option I could find, and no joy. I don’t know if I made a mistake, or if HP disabled the ability of the non-SSD version of this motherboard to recognize an SSD in the M.2 slot (HP will sell you a version of this computer with a 128GB M.2 SSD). I’d still like to use the M.2 slot for a proper, high-speed SSD, but for now, I’ll go with plan b (if anyone reading this has better ideas, please let me know in the comments). So, plan B. I procured a 500 GB SATA III SSD, to swap with the 1TB 5400 rpm unit. With my recovery USB in hand, I swapped the stock HD for the SATA III SSD. This was easy, the HD is in a separate bay, and other than being very careful with the fragile SATA connector and cable, this went fine. Now, reboot the computer, enter the bios by spamming the F10 key during startup, and set the boot order for USB drives to come first. Save and exit the BIOS, and insert the recovery media into one of the USB 3.0 ports. Restart the machine, and it will boot from the USB. My system immediately recognized the new SSD, and I choose to reinstall Windows 10 to this drive. Settle in, this took about 2 hours, but went smoothly. After all this, I finally got to the desktop. More W10 updates, and about an hour later, my machine was working, except the 3D camera. Joy! Now, how to physically get into this machine to swap the hard drive? First, remove the bezel. It’s connected by plastic pins, with no screws. I inserted a credit card carefully between the case and bezel, and slowly working around the entire bezel, I gently pulled to remove it. There’s double-sided tape also holding the bezel to the monitor glass, I carefully pulled this away as well. Be careful near the camera, there’s a fragile cable here with very shaky looking plugs. I choose not to unplug these, and simply set the bezel near the case once I removed it. With the bezel removed, you’ll see a total of 12 screws holding the screen to the case, 4 on each edge, and 4 more about 8 inches in on the long sides. Carefully remove these screws, and you can lift the screen. Be especially careful not to drop a screw, as the curve of the case will send this under the motherboard, where it's hard to retrieve (don't ask). You’ll find 4 cables connecting the screen to the motherboard, and they’re long enough you can move the screen without unplugging these cables. Slide the screen down to the bottom to expose the hard drive bay, or tilt the screen upright to the front of the case, just be careful not to stress the cables or their connectors. With the screen out of the way, you’ll see the hard drive, where replacement is now straightforward, provided you're gentle with the SATA plug and thin ribbon cable. It’s a 2.5” unit, and my 500 GB SSD was a plug-n-play replacement. For the more ambitious, you can also remove the motherboard to either replace memory or gain access to the second M.2 port. Finally, here’s how I fixed the 3D camera. First, the model in this machine is the Intel RealSense F200. Google drivers for this camera, and you can download the Intel driver set. The Intel drivers won’t install with the older drivers on the system, so I went into settings>app management and deleted the drivers for the realsense 3D camera (but not the RealSense training program). Now, you can install new drivers from the Intel download. On my machine, Realsense training and other apps still don’t recognize the camera as installed, but Windows 10 does, and importantly, the new W10 “Hello” feature is working. Again, if someone figures out how to get other apps to recognize the camera, please let me know in the comments. So, that’s it. I know this is terribly long, but I couldn’t find any help in changing drives on this computer online, as its so new. So, I choose to put that info here, and I hope it helps you if you decide to pull the trigger. I’ll regularly check comments here, and I’ll try to answer questions if you have them. Thanks, and good luck.