HP Omen 15 review: Fast, and with a ton of memory

HP’s gaming line has come a long way

HP isn’t a brand you’d traditionally associate with gaming. When I think of HP, I think of its Pavilion and Envy notebooks, and also enterprise stuff like printers and servers. But the company has come a long way in creating a niche for itself in the gaming space.

The Omen brand is HP’s dedicated gaming line-up, and its devices shed the company’s corporate veneer in favor of a more upstart look that gamers tend to favor. This means aggressive designs and RGB lighting, in addition to a very distinctive tribal mask that serves as its logo.

Those who follow developments in the industry will probably recognize it as the original Voodoo PC brand logo, which HP acquired back in 2006.

The latest Omen 15 laptop hews to a trend I’ve written about and reviewed extensively – slim and light gaming notebooks. It features a GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q, so it’s competing directly with laptops like the Razer Blade (2018) and MSI GS65 Stealth Thin.

Here’s an overview of its specifications:

• 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel IPS 144Hz G-Sync display
• Intel Core i7-8750H processor (2.2GHz, 9MB L3 cache)
• 32GB DDR4-2666 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q
• 256GB SSD + 2TB HDD
• 70Wh Li-ion polymer battery
• 360 x 263 x 26mm
• 2.4kg

The above will cost you S$3,599, which is actually a pretty competitive price. It’s at least a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than its competitors like the Gigabyte Aero 15X and MSI GS65 Stealth Thin, so HP is starting out with an advantage on the pricing front.

But how good is it really? We take a closer look at the laptop over the next few pages.

A touch of Voodoo

Like most of the gaming laptops we’ve reviewed this year, HP’s latest version of the Omen 15 is very much an iterative upgrade over its predecessor. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it’s less risky and allows for small refinements and improvements that can go a long way toward creating an all-around better product.

The crimson tribal logo and red accents make an appearance again, and the lid boasts distinctive carbon fiber detailing and an X-shaped pattern. The Omen 15 is a laptop for gamers, and it’s built specifically to appeal to them with an aggressive, eye-catching design.

I like the look of the Omen 15, and I think it expresses the brand’s character without being too gaudy or over-the-top. This is also a laptop with a Max-Q design, which means it consumes less power than your average gaming notebook.

However, compared to some of the other laptops we’ve reviewed in this space, such as the Razer Blade and MSI GS65 Stealth Thin, the Omen 15 is still a little chunky. It’s noticeably thicker and heavier, measuring 26mm thick compared to the Blade’s 17.3mm and weighing 2.4kg to the latter’s 2.1kg. These may seem like small differences, but they’re pretty obvious when you’re handling the laptop and have to carry it around with you.

The Omen 15 may be cheaper than its competitors, but it looks like its paying for that in terms of added bulk. Fortunately, the laptop has pretty good build quality. The metal chassis feels solid and well-built, and there’s little to no discernible flex anywhere. It also has a brushed metal finish, which makes for quite a nice look overall. There’s some flexing to the lid, but since you’re not going to be fiddling with that most of the time anyway, I don’t think it poses much of a problem.

One of the biggest improvements over the previous generation is also the slimmer bezels. The bezels at the side have been lopped off, and in addition to looking way better, it also helps to reduce the footprint of the laptop. The bezel at the bottom of the screen is still quite thick however, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about the hinge design, which creates the impression that the display is floating free from the body of the laptop.

That said, the 1080p IPS display is sufficiently bright and has good viewing angles and contrast. The matte panel helps reduce reflections and glare from overhead lighting, and the 144Hz refresh rate means that everything, even dragging windows around on the desktop, feels super smooth and fluid. G-Sync is supported as well, so you shouldn’t experience any stuttering or tearing in games.

The dual bottom-firing speakers are pretty good as well, and it looks like the Bang & Olufsen tuning counts for something here. In fact, they may be one of the best speakers on a gaming laptop, and I found myself actually wanting to continue listening to the sound they pump out. For starters, they definitely get loud enough to fill a small room, and music comes through with decent clarity and minimal distortion. There was nice impact to the low-end of the audio spectrum as well, but I did notice some sibilance in the higher frequencies.

The laptop also comes equipped with a full-sized keyboard that offers decent key travel and tactile feedback. There’s no support for per-key customizations however, and you’re limited to four independent zones, including the WASD key cluster.

Unfortunately, both keyboard and trackpad were buggy, at least upon first impressions. The keyboard would repeatedly spam a single key whenever I clicked on any text field, and the trackpad, which incidentally is also not a Precision Touchpad, would stop working shortly after booting up.

I managed to fix the issues by reinstalling the keyboard drivers, so it’s possible that this was just a one-off instance of bad luck. Still, I’d really have liked to see a Windows Precision Touchpad here, as it does make a difference in terms of responsiveness and accuracy.

Networking is handled by a 2x2 Intel Wireless-AC 9560 module, which supports a maximum throughput of up to 1.73Gbps and the latest 802.11ac Wave 2 routers. 

Finally, there’s a decent selection of ports and connectors to choose from. You get one Thunderbolt 3 port, three USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A, one Mini DisplayPort, one HDMI, and an Ethernet jack. There’s a dedicated SD card reader as well, which is a nice addition.

When it comes to performance, the long and short of it is that the Omen 15 and its GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU will run nearly any modern game at High to maximum settings. The good news is that it manages to stay quite cool as well, and the palm rests never became warm enough to cause discomfort. The dual fans also draw in cold air from the bottom and expel heat through large vents at the rear of the notebook, so you won’t have a stream of hot air disrupting your mousing hand when using the laptop.

Test setup and performance

Here’s a full list of the notebooks we’re looking at:

• HP Omen 15
• Razer Blade
• MSI GS65 Stealth Thin
• Gigabyte Aero 15X

These laptops all feature the same Intel Core i7-8750H processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU, so there’s little variance in terms of absolute performance. Instead, things like design, portability, and battery life will arguably matter more when drawing comparisons between them.

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We ran the notebooks through the following benchmarks:

• PCMark 10
• 3DMark
• VRMark
• Ashes of the Singularity
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Tom Clancy’s The Division

PCMark 10 Extended

PCMark 10 Extended assesses the performance of systems in a variety of workloads, including basic computing tasks, productivity applications, digital content creation, and gaming. Compared to PCMark 8, it also adds in new test metrics, such as app startup times, which quantifies how long it takes to launch a variety of real-world apps, and a rendering and visualization workload to simulate professional graphics and engineering applications. In addition, existing workloads have been updated to reflect modern usage.

The HP Omen 15 turned out quite a strong performance in PCMark 10, coming ahead in terms of overall scores. It was around 5 per cent faster than the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin, the next best performer. A look at the results breakdown shows the Omen 15 doing especially well in the Essentials benchmark, which comprises workloads such as web browsing, video conferencing, and app start-up. 

3DMark

3DMark is a more relevant assessment of gaming performance, and it puts the system through a range of graphics and computational performance tests at different resolutions, starting at 1080p and going all the way up to 4K.

The Omen 15 didn't really stand out in 3DMark, but it did manage to keep up with the other Max-Q notebooks. There was little to differentiate the different notebooks here, which isn't really surprising given their near identical configurations. 

VRMark

Futuremark’s VRMark benchmark is designed to assess a PC’s ability to handle high-performance headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. If a PC passes the Orange Room test, it is ready for the latter two systems. The benchmark also has a target frame rate of 109FPS, and I've included the average FPS each notebook managed to provide a clearer measure of their respective performance. 

The HP Omen 15 did especially well in VRMark, much to my surprise. It was a good 21 per cent quicker in VRMark than the Razer Blade, a pretty significant advantage. It's worth pointing out that the Omen 15 comes outfitted with 32GB of RAM while the other notebooks have just 16GB, so it's possible that the extra memory can help it in more demanding VR applications. 

Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes of the Singularity is a demanding real-time strategy game that puts thousands of units on screen, and it’s capable of pushing even the most powerful GPUs. However, it can be CPU-limiting at lower settings.

The HP Omen 15 performed more or less within expectations here, with the exception of the DirectX 11 test run at 1080p and High settings. That's probably the most CPU-limiting scenario out of all four test runs, but it's possible that as in VRMark, the generous 32GB helping of RAM helped it edge ahead. The Omen 15 squeezed out a 13 per cent lead over the Razer Blade at the aforementioned settings, although it wasn't able to replicate that advantage in the other test scenarios.  

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Mankind Divided is one of the most demanding titles to run today, but the HP Omen 15 is quite capable of delivering a playable experience.

Once again, performance was very similar among all the notebooks, and the Omen 15 performed within a few frames of the other laptops.

Tom Clancy's The Division

The Division isn’t as demanding to run as Ashes of the Singularity or Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, but its Snowdrop engine can still stress cards with the use of dynamic lighting and the like.

The Razer Blade took the pole position here, although the Omen 15 wasn't that far behind. 

Temperature, battery life and portability

Temperature

I measured the external temperatures of the four quadrants of the notebook after 40 loops of 3DMark's Fire Strike Extreme stress test. This amount of time is more than enough to get an idea of your average maximum running temperature for this workload.

In terms of CPU and GPU temperatures under load, the Omen 15 didn't really stand out and produced temperature figures that were slightly toastier than the competition. However, the good thing is that the palm rests remained remarkably cool while under load, a crucial point for anyone hoping to use the notebook for long gaming sessions. It looks like HP has done something right when it comes to heat distribution, and the Omen 15 should remain pretty comfortable to use throughout. 

Battery life and power consumption

I used the built-in battery life benchmark in PCMark 8 Home to assess the battery life on the laptops. 

Unfortunately, battery life is one of the weaknesses of the Omen 15. It's not terrible by any means, but it is some ways behind its rivals in this category. The 70Wh battery is a decent-sized unit to work with, but it's still smaller than what the others are offering. This is especially disappointing, considering that the Omen 15 is the largest and thickest of the lot, so it seems like HP should have had more space to cram in a larger power pack.

Portability

The portability index is an objective measure of how portable a notebook is, taking into account factors like size, weight, and battery life.

The Omen 15 may be a Max-Q notebook, but it doesn't exactly impress in terms of portability either. Ultimately, the combination of shorter battery life, heavier weight, and thicker dimensions means that the Omen 15 doesn't compare that favorably with the other Max-Q laptops. 

Not all Max-Q notebooks are created equal

Put simply, the HP Omen 15 is a great notebook. There's honestly little to dislike about it. It serves up strong performance and is also equipped with excellent speakers and a decent 144Hz G-Sync panel, which means you should be one happy camper when gaming on the notebook. Better still, it runs pretty cool, so you'll remain pretty comfortable even after long hours. 

Aside from occasional glitches with the keyboard and trackpad, I really had few complaints about the notebook. 

The problem is that this is a Max-Q notebook that doesn't quite feel like one. It is considerably thicker and heavier than something like the Razer Blade, while still having a smaller battery, so it seems like that extra weight was all for nothing. Maybe HP managed to pack in a more robust cooling system – the palm rests on some of the other Max-Q laptops can get quite toasty – but that doesn't seem like it's worth the extra heft. 

When you buy a Max-Q notebook, you're probably expecting something really slim and light, and the Omen 15, unfortunately, doesn't live up to those expectations. To put things in perspective, it weighs the same as the ASUS ROG Strix Scar II and is nearly as thick (the Scar II is 26.1mm thick and isn't a Max-Q laptop), but the ASUS notebook is equipped with a full-fledged GeForce GTX 1070 GPU for much better gaming performance - plus it's cheaper. So it's really looking like HP didn't bother with Max-Q optimizations in the mobility department. To add insult to injury, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M, which also isn't a Max-Q laptop, is even slimmer than the Omen 15 at 19.9mm at its thickest point, runs as cool in the temperature department and is a much higher performance machine. 

These trade-offs may be the reason why the Omen 15 is more affordable than its immediate competitors. It costs S$3,599, S$200 cheaper than both the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin and Gigabyte Aero 15X. The Max-Q optimizations are also more evident in terms of things like power efficiency rather than design, so the extra price premium over something like the ROG Strix Scar II nets you better battery life, but that too isn't a strong point considering that there are longer lasting Max-Q notebooks whereas ASUS ROG Strix Scar II focuses on pure gaming performance and went with a non-Max-Q GPU. One other note to point out regarding its specs and price is that it's one of the few notebooks equipped with a massive 32GB of memory, which is great if you dabble in a lot of content creativity jobs and you need a capable multi-tasker.

All things considered, you'll probably be pretty happy with the HP Omen 15, but only if you moderate your expectations about what a Max-Q laptop is.

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