We've been overall very pleased with the second generation of Envy laptops from HP. They offer excellent design and high-end features at a reasonable cost, especially the $999 entry-level 14-inch model.
HP Envy 14 Beats Edition
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
As with the original Envy, there is also a black-clad Beats Edition of the Envy 14, which highlights the partnership with Beats Audio. Originally, this version included a pair of Beats Solo headphones, and added about $250 to the bottom line, making it a bad deal on paper, if only by a little (Beats Solo headphones will run you about $179 by themselves).
Currently, the Envy 14 Beats Edition is available without the headphones, and we were able to configure an identical--but not entry-level--build in the black Beats and gray standard editions for $1,149 (you can't knock the Beats Edition down to the same $999 starting point as the regular Envy 14). If that remains the case, we'd have no problem choosing the Beats Edition if we liked the color better than the standard gray.
The Envy 14 looks great and generally runs great, but there are also a handful of minor but frustrating issues that seem out of place on a high-end laptop. Using the volume control buttons automatically brings up an onscreen volume bar that bumps you out of full-screen games; the large multitouch touch pad is nowhere as smooth as Apple's version; and the ATI switchable graphics don't switch as seamlessly as Nvidia's Optimus graphics do.