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Now that I have used my Voodoo envy for a few weeks, it’s time to share how it worked for me. Voodoo is a powerful name in PC Gaming hardware, but let’s be clear: this is definitely *not* a gaming machine. The Voodoo envy is an ultra-light laptop that is really good at productivity tasks such as email, web browsing, excel and text editing. Think of it as the ultimate internet cafe machine: it is uber-light, will get you connected with the fastest WIFI, looks great on the table and is most likely a conversation starter even if conversations tend to be repetitive and start with “wow, what’s that laptop?”.

The industrial design is the greatest asset of this computer. It is thinner than the Macbook Air from end to end (0.7″) and it also looks so much classier. Very few people seem to have actually seen a Voodoo Envy 133 in the wild. Each time I hop into a meeting, people are watching the laptop instead of looking at the projector screen: you have been warned! Fortunately, I don’t sell anything, so that’s fine. There’s no need for a descriptive paragraph, just look at the photo gallery, it speaks for itself.
Performance
PCMark CPU Score (performance mode)

* Core i7 3.2Ghz: 9873 (desktop PC)
* HP 2730P: 4875
* Voodoo Envy 133: 4536
* Vaio SZ120P: 4191

PCMark HDD Score (performance mode)

* Core i7, Raptor 10k rpm: 9442 (desktop PC)
* HP 2730P: 3750
* Vaio SZ120P: 2996 (Stock drive: Seagate Momentus 5400rpm)
* Voodoo Envy 133: 2767

As you can see, the Voodoo Envy’s CPU is not a horserace by any means, but it is largely “good enough” for everyday applications. The hard drive is another story. Being slower than my 3 years-old VAIO stock drive (a 2.5″ Seagate Memento 5400rpm) is a bit scary, but remember that the Envy 133 has a 1.8″ 4200rpm drive. SSD is an option – at a high price, that said.

During my tests, I got around 3 hours of battery life if I use the maximum power savings mode, and may be 1h15mn in performance mode. I mainly spent my time browsing the web, writing reviews and using webmail (I typically dislike using Outlook on a laptop).

Despite being thinner than the Macbook Air, the Voodoo Envy does have more ports. First of all, it has two USB port. One of them also doubles as an eSATA that can be used to connect an optical drive. The same USB/eSata port can provide power (USB) and connectivity (eSata) to the optical drive. You get the high-performance of SATA and an extra USB port for the day to day use. Smart.

The Envy 133 is obviously too thin to accommodate an Ethernet plug. As we said earlier, Voodoo’s solution is to have an Ethernet plug in the Power supply and have it communicate with the laptop via an AdHoc WIFI-N connection. That way, you can benefit from a fast wireless connection even if you don’t have a WIFI-N router yet.

The presence of an ExpressCard port means that wireless broadband modem or memory cards can be used, which can come in handy, even if it would ruin the esthetics. There’s also an HDMI port that serves as a video out. Of course, there’s a small VGA adapter that comes in the package if you need to plug the Envy into a common projector. It works just as one would expect.