Voodoo Envy HW:201

The Voodoo Envy HW:201 is not just a notebook; it's an experience. From unboxing this 16-pound beast (complete with its own hardcover owner's portfolio) to opening the massive lid and turning on the huge 20.1-inch screen for the first time, you'll have no doubt where your six grand went. But while our configuration's performance was very, very good, you'll need to spend even more to upgrade the components to match the Alienware Area-51 m9750's numbers.
 
The HW:201 certainly looks the part of a luxury machine. The Bavaria Blue Candy automotive-quality paint job (one of 22 colors available) is flawless, as is the 1680 x 1050-pixel screen. It delivered a sharp, clear picture with rich, saturated colors and excellent motion-video reproduction. The panel's viewing-angle performance was the best we've seen from all angles, meaning you can place it on a coffee table and everyone will have a good view.
 
The full-sized keyboard and number pad were very comfortable to use, as were the smooth touchpad-painted the same color as the chassis-and the large brushed-silver mouse buttons. Although there are four dedicated buttons for the webcam, Bluetooth, e-mail, and browser, there are no dedicated multimedia control buttons, though there's clearly plenty of room for some. The deck-mounted speakers and internal subwoofer deliver plenty of volume and bass response-perhaps the best we've heard on a notebook.
 
The HW:201 also has a full contingent of ports, including five USB ports, FireWire, S-Video out, DVI jacks, and more. There's a Type II PC Card slot as well as a 7-in-1 card reader. Voodoo includes its own disaster-recovery software, as well as the Roxio Easy Media Creator 8.2 suite and CyberLink DVD 6.0. You even get a Func Industries high-performance gaming mouse pad.
 
But it is what's not included that surprised us. There is no second hard drive at this price, only a single 100GB unit (you can add a second 100GB drive for $175). The Nvidia GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512 GPU is fantastic, but opting for a dual-GPU SLI config will set you back another $630. There is no internal TV tuner (an external USB TV tuner is a $154 option), and no high-def DVD drive option yet (an 8X dual-layer DVD+/-RW drive is your only choice). And for all the style of the owner's portfolio, with its separate bound envelopes containing a certificate of ownership, a page showing our system's benchmark results, and so on, we would have preferred a bit more substance in the form of a printed user's manual specific to our machine. (That's something Voodoo can learn from parent company HP, which produces among the best manuals in the biz.)
 
Those wish-list items aside, the HW:201 is certainly an enviable performer. Powered by an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 CPU and up to 2GB of RAM, this beast delivered 4,999 on PCMark05 and a stellar 29,322 on 3DMark03, which up until the m9750 arrived from Alienware, was the highest score we'd seen on this test. As you might expect, the gaming experience is top-notch, and the machine delivered 108 fps on our F.E.A.R. test. Those are excellent results, but note that the Core 2 Duo/SLI-equipped Alienware m9750 topped the Voodoo entry on every single test and costs almost $1,500 less.
 
Also, as with the Acer 20-inch model, we're not sure a clamshell laptop design with a screen this big is the most elegant solution. A detachable keyboard would let you move further back from the display. But all things considered, we like the Voodoo Envy HW:201. The screen is amazing, as is the performance. We just wish it didn't require another $1,000 in upgrades to make it perfect.

 

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