I'm confused. Engadget's review of the current Envy 15 says it lacks an optical drive and has a battery life of less than 2 hours. http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/hp-envy-15-review/

It's a similar story for the Envy 13 ( http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/05/hp-envy-13-review/ ). 2 hour battery life (estimated 5 hours with the huge battery). No optical drive. Terrible trackpad.

I have the Envy 13t. It comes with an extended battery that fits over the whole bottom of the computer. There's a pic in that engagdet article (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/10/hp-env...). This makes the battery life for me more like 8-10hr and you can't even tell the battery is on there, i.e. its flush.

No optical drive but I literally never use CDs so I don't care. The trackpad doesn't bother me that much. I'd say it isn't the greatest, but its multi-touch and works fine.

It's also quiet and fast. Not sure how much of that (if any) is due to the SSD or my other particular specs.

• Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo SL9600(2.13GHz, 6MB L2 Cache)w/512MB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 4330 Graphics • 3GB DDR3 System Memory (1 Dimm)

If HP has indeed caught up with Apple on battery life and overall noise, that's the real story here.