HP Envy Touchsmart M7-J178CA Help Please & Much Thanks!

[Chumer]

Hello everyone,

 

I just bought me an HP Envy Touchsmart laptop model M7-J178CA for $1199.99 at Best Buy Canada (plus taxes) and I intend to use it with Cakewalk Sonar X3 (as well as other music software). I'm still going to buy a tower-style PC (in the next month) for my home studio but I really like the idea of being able to record and edit in the box wherever I may be.

 

Screen Size 17.3 in

Native Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080

LED Backlit Display Yes

Touchscreen Display Yes

3D Capable Display No

Processor Type Intel Core i7 4700MQ

Processor Cores 4

Processor Speed 2.4 GHz

Hard Drive Capacity 1 TB (Hybrid Hard Drive)

Hard Drive Speed 5400 rpm

SSD Function Not Applicable

id-State Hybrid Drive No

RAM Size 16 GB

RAM Type DDR3L SDRAM

RAM Slots 2

Optical Drive SuperMulti DVD Burner

Built-in Memory Card Reader Yes

Memory Card Reader - Compatible Memory Type SD Cards

Graphics Chipset NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M Graphics

Video Memory Configuration Dedicated

Dedicated Video Memory Size 2 GB

Wireless Display (WiDi) Capable Yes

Speaker Wattage Beats Audio

Integrated Microphone Yes

Microphone Input Yes

Webcam Yes

Keyboard Language Bilingual

Numeric Keypad Yes

Backlit Keyboard Yes

Type of Pointing Device Clickpad

USB 2.0 Ports 0

USB 3.0 Ports 4

VGA Output No

HDMI Output Yes

HDCP Compliant Yes

IEEE 1394 Input/Output No

eSATA Port No

ExpressCard/34 Input No

ExpressCard/54 Input No

IR Receiver No

Other Input or Output Ports HP Protectsmart Hard Drive Protection; HP Simplepass With Integrated Fingerprint Reader; 1 Supporting USB Boost; 1 Headphone-Out/Microphone-In Combo Jack

Ethernet Port 10/100/1000

Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11ac

Integrated Bluetooth Yes

Approximate Battery Life Information Not Available

Battery Type Lithium-Ion

Battery - Number of Cells 6

Battery - Capacity 2800 mAh

Energy Star Qualified Yes

Pre-loaded Operating System Windows 8.1

Operating System Language Bilingual

Loaded Software Pinger; Skype; HP Support Assistant; CyberLink PowerDirector

 

As indicated above, it comes with a one 1 TB hybrid drive and I figure it's going to work best with the addition of an SSD (or maybe two). I could remove the optical drive thus giving me three internal bays in total (at least I believe I can correct me if I am wrong).

 

My thinking is to use the existing 1 TB hybrid drive for the OS, applications & plug-ins and one SSD for sample libraries and audio projects. But perhaps I would be better off with the existing 1 TB hybrid drive plus two SSD's making a total of three drives. On the other hand some people feel a single SSD is so good now that it's best to simply use one big SSD and eschew more than one drive altogether. Check out the Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB or the new Crucial M500 1 TB below.

 

Drive configuration options (including the argument for a single large SSD) http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=117456

 

Samsung 840 EVO vs. Crucial M500 http://techreport.com/review/25763/clash-of-the-terabyte-titans-crucial-m500-960gb-vs-samsung-840-evo-1tb

 

Questions:

 

1) Will the HP model M7-J178CA do a good job?

 

2) What would be the best way to configure it in terms of additional internal drives?

 

3) I feel the HP model M7-J178CA represents really good value and so far it runs beautifully, however it's still on it's 30 day return policy so I'm not obligated to keep it, however I do not want to turn this whole ordeal into a career, especially in light of the fact that I'll still be buying a tower-style PC (in the next month) for my home studio but I really like the idea of being able to record and edit in the box wherever I may be. Thoughts?

 

4) It seems I may need an adapter kit for the SSD's, and the one listed following appears to be a good bet (again I am open to suggestions). However it might be that I only need the rubber rails (if even that) and not need the SATA Cable / connector, I am not sure. It depends I guess if this cable is intended to allow the SSD to connect to the internal SATA port of the laptop, or if it's intended to connect the SSD to USB so as to allow data transfer. Note that I already have a Thermalake 2.5 /3.5 HDD USB docking station, so I would not need a USB to SATA adapter for data transfer. http://www.newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=542

 

Very much thanks for all your help!