HP Envy 17 Leap Motion: Human Tested

For the next test, we got a laptop from HP - on the Core i7, with 8 gigabytes of RAM and a terabyte “screw”, equipped with two video cards. Here's a 17.3-inch touchscreen glossy screen. A good, powerful laptop. But no more than that. Why did he appear in our review? - intrigue! - because this is the first laptop with a built-in Leap Motion controller. Do you still use a keyboard, mouse, or, God forbid, the touchpad? Then we will come to you! ..

About the Leap Motion technology - or simply Leap - they first spoke in the middle of 2012. Prior to this, the creators kept quiet about their own brainchild and raised money for investors. What they did pretty well - a year later, Leap began to be distributed free of charge to developers, and then sold to everyone.

The gadget itself is outwardly unpretentious. The principle of its action is also simple - and very similar to Kinect, with which it is constantly compared. Alas, no magic - inside there are only two monochrome infrared cameras and three LEDs - also infrared. “There” it costs a little less than $ 100, including shipping; we have 4-5 thousand rubles.



What is it about this Leap? Yes, just its motion recognition accuracy is an order of magnitude superior to Kinect. The difference is only in range: the Microsoft controller has meters, the Leap has centimeters.

Today Leap Motion is promoted mainly by enthusiasts - thanks to them the gadget, for example, has learned to control quadrocopters and even robots. But there is an exception - and here we return to our laptop.

In general, in 2013, two companies ASUS and HP announced their desire to integrate Leap Motion controllers into laptops. Taiwanese plans, apparently, have changed, but Hewlett-Packard has kept its word - six months ago, the 17-inch Envy with Leap Motion was born on board.



In between - HP Envy 17 in inches, gigahertz and terabytes
screen: 17.3 '', 1920x1080,
2.2 GHz Core i7 4702MQ touch processor
video: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M (+ integrated Intel HD 4600)
RAM: 8 GB (DDR3L )
HDD: 1 TB
interfaces: Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth, 4x USB 3.0, HDMI, LAN
battery: 62 W * h
dimensions, weight: 416x275.2x33.4 mm, 3.4 kg

Summing up nothing, we turned to HP for clarification: was the garden worth fencing, i.e. integrate an innovative module without asking users - but do they need it?

According to Irina Kukina, Head of HP Consumer Devices in Russia, the company saw in Leap Motion the evolution of user interaction with their PC - there is a progressive development of technology from the mouse to the touchpad, touch screen and further down the list.

At the end of 2013, the company promised to integrate Leap Motion into several of its devices - they will be available during this year. In the meantime, you can purchase separately Leap Motion, released in partnership with HP.



To the question of whether some research was conducted - how much a laptop with Leap Motion is more interesting for a buyer than without it, Irina Kukina replied that “at the moment it’s rather difficult to talk about some kind of qualitative research, because not so many such devices were sold, this is just the beginning ”- it is natural that in order to understand the advantages and / or disadvantages of such devices, it takes time. Well, let's see.

In our opinion, laptops with built-in Leap Motion have a rather narrow niche, but HP believes that at the initial stage this is understandable: “Users are still represented by lovers of innovation, technology, something new. But here we see both youth and families with children. For example, there are many games that you can play using Leap Motion - it will be a lot of fun for children and even adults, ”the HP representative answered our doubts.

According to Irina Kukina, she herself tried Leap in action: “This is unusual and rather unusual, which is normal for any new technology. We need to rebuild the brain a little bit and everything starts to work out. ”



When you watch videos about Leap Motion, the thought arises: well, that’s it - the “Special Opinion” is already here - remember such a movie with Tom Cruise? At Spielberg it looked very tasty - but what about us? Overall, funny. The sensations are quite unusual and if you perceive the learning process as a game, then you will succeed. But if in anger you love to throw various objects, if you suffer from hand tremors, if “hard-working” and “patient” is not about you, but about some supermen, then ... well, this Leap Motion! Forget it!

In fact, a number of strange features in the behavior of the controller are related to its operating principle. There are a set of unwritten rules to follow:

• Leap radius of action - within 20-40 centimeters from the sensor;
• the controller quite confidently recognizes individual fingers, but do not connect them;
• do not put your palm on the edge - Leap will perceive such a gesture as one finger
• if two hands are used, then they should not overlap each other, otherwise the system will go crazy;
• stay away from heating appliances - any source of infrared radiation, even a regular iron - can confuse the controller;
• in addition to limbs, you can use improvised means - for example, the same Japanese-Chinese sticks.

Where to get applications? Leap developers did not philosophize slyly and launched their own online store Airspace. Fatal pessimists should not look here - there are only about 200 applications, and the number of free ones is slightly less than half. The cost of a single program or utility ranges from 1 to 10 dollars. There are applications for Windows, there are for Mac OS, there are working in any browser. In essence, Airspace is a Google Play or App Store in miniature. Here you can find everything from silly toys to professional applications, but the number of real pearls can be counted on the fingers.



And what, you ask: take-not take? Definitely take it - if you like everything new, if you are calm and balanced, and biceps-triceps-forearms are at least in tone, try holding your hands in front of you for 10-15 minutes, fingering. The price of a laptop with built-in Leap Motion starts from 45 000 rubles. Models from Asus, MSI and the same HP that are similar in filling, but already without Lipa, cost from 35 to 42 thousand. But without the "linden". If in doubt, write to us in the comments on the post or YouTube video and we will share our own experience.