HP Omen (17-inch) review: High gaming performance without impressive looks (2023)

Mostly,fare portable computersthey have an aggressive look with angular bodies, colored lights on the lid and keyboard, and large, stylized vents. You may also find additional buttons or other controls on the keyboard, making these systems more like a mobile command center than a laptop.

7.8

HP Omen (17 cali)

well

The 17-inch HP Omen comes in a variety of configurations to suit your needs and budget. A reasonable price, even for the top VR-ready version. Low profile and good battery life compared to other gaming systems. Beautiful screen with ultra HD resolution.

Bad

It doesn't have the flashy look or macro/hot keys found on other gaming laptops. It can get hot and noisy under load. No USB-C ports. No touchscreen.

the most important

The 17-inch HP Omen may not look aggressive, but you'll be able to handle the competition with this fully featured gaming laptop.

However, HP took a more iron-fisted approach to velvet gloves with the 17-in.Omen. If it weren't for the old VoodooPC logo on the lid and the bright red keyboard, it could easily pass as a normal, if slightly crusty, desktop replacement. In the case of the Omen, it's mostly the components inside that make it a gaming system.

For example, the $1800 system I tested was the top configuration with a VR-enabled Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card paired with a sixth-generation Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor. Combined with 16GB of memory and a 256GB solid state drive and a 1TB 7200 RPM hard drive, it saves performance even when playing at full 3840 x 2160 resolution. A similar setup in Australia will set you back3.699 USDwhile in the UK will guide you1.899 GBP.

You can also choose to scale downSaveIbringing the price down to $1,600. (Note: The configuration I reviewed is currently unavailable, but is expected to return.) If that's still too much for you, HP offers several configurations with other 10-series cards, as well as the older GeForce GTX 965M card, with prices starting at just over $1,000. But again, if you're looking for bells and whistles or typical gaming system design features, you won't find them here.

This thing is huge

Everyone who saw me use the Omen 17 was shocked by its size. There's no doubt it's big, but by 17-inch gaming laptop standards it's hardly impressive (although gaming laptops of all stripes are getting thinner and lighter). In fact, thanks to the rounded edges and thin openings, it doesn't look as bulky as others of its size. Make no mistake though, this notebook is big and traveling with something that big is literally a pain.

After working on a 13.3-inch system every day, having the extra space a 17.3-inch laptop provides is great, and when gaming, it's that much more immersive. The matte screen with Ultra HD resolution is sharp and reproduces colors perfectly. The GTX 1070 had no trouble keeping Battlefield 1 running at a playable frame rate and full resolution.

The full-size keyboard is comfortable and has plenty of range of motion, even for people who press the keys. Its red backlight gets pretty sharp, but it's either on or off, so if you want to dim it, you're out of luck. The clickpad also works fine, and I didn't experience cursor jumping despite constantly dragging my right hand across it while typing.

But for gaming, you'll probably want to plug in an external keyboard or at least a mouse when you can. The Omen has three USB 3.0 ports, one on the left and two on the right. Also on the left side are separate microphone and headphone jacks, joined by an SD card reader, Ethernet jack, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort outputs on the right side.

Rounding out the feature set is a decent above-screen webcam that pairs with a Windows Hello-enabled Intel RealSense 3D camera to use facial recognition to unlock the PC. It can also be used for games with gesture control. The Bang & Olufsen sound system is front-facingSpeakersand another set above the keyboard. They lack bass, but are loud enough to definitely drown out fans of the system.

Ready to go

Within seconds of starting a demanding game, the fans kick in and stay at full speed. They are loud and listening to the dialogue with their hum requires you to turn on the sound or position yourselfheadphones. Given the narrow vents on the back, I'm surprised they don't need to spin harder than they do, and frankly, maybe they should, considering the back of the system gets uncomfortably hot under heavy loads.

But the heat didn't seem to slow this laptop down at all, and this top-of-the-line configuration is worth investing in for gaming. While my test system used a sixth-generation Core i7 processor, HP also offers seventh-generation options. However, we did not see large performance differences between the two. Again, HP offers this system in a variety of configurations to suit your needs and bank account. For gaming, your choice of graphics card will have more influence than your CPU.

Battery life reached 4.5 hours in the video streaming test. It's actually better than average with a 17.3-inch high-resolution screen. Doing something more demanding will certainly shorten that time, so I wouldn't plan on being away from the outlet for too long, and most gaming laptops can run for about an hour with the GPU on.

It all depends on what's inside

For under $2,000 (the equivalent of around £1,600 or AU$2,600), our 17-inch HP Omen setup is a pretty good deal for what you get. This means you don't want a lot of bells and whistles and you don't care about making it look more like a "gaming laptop" or be more portable. Although it doesn't look like it, you'll have no problem destroying your competition with this fully featured laptop.

Analysis of the results

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