**HP Omen 15 Gaming Laptop Review**
The HP Omen 15 is a powerful gaming laptop that boasts impressive performance, sleek design, and advanced features. In this review, we'll dive deeper into its capabilities and explore whether it's worth considering as your next gaming laptop.
**Benchmarking the Omen 15**
To gauge the Omen 15's performance, I ran various benchmarking tests using the laptop's Intel Core i7-5800H processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD storage. The results were impressive, with the Omen 15 delivering high frame rates in games such as Heaven, Valley, Superposition from Unigine, Firestrike, and Timespy from 3DMark. In fact, it outperformed some Intel-based options with higher-end GPUs, thanks to its quicksync technology.
**Gaming Performance**
The Omen 15's gaming performance was a key area of focus during my testing. I played through various games at different settings levels, and the laptop consistently delivered smooth performance. The highest recorded frame rate was 74 FPS in a game with high graphics settings. In terms of specific results, here are some notable scores:
* Heaven (Unigine): 92 FPS
* Valley (Unigine): 67 FPS
* Superposition (Unigine): 73 FPS
* Firestrike (3DMark): 7,400 points
* Timespy (3DMark): 1,100 points
**Adobe Premiere and Video Editing**
I also tested the Omen 15's video editing capabilities using Adobe Premiere. The laptop performed well, exporting a 4K video in under 10 minutes, which is impressive considering its processor and graphics configuration. In contrast, other Ryzen-based laptops with more powerful GPUs took longer to export similar videos.
**DaVinci Resolve and Professional Video Editing**
In DaVinci Resolve, the Omen 15 demonstrated exceptional performance, offering a top score among 1660 Ti-equipped laptops I've tested. This suggests that it can handle demanding professional video editing tasks with ease.
**SPECviewperf and 3D Workloads**
I also ran SPECviewperf tests to assess the Omen 15's performance in various 3D workloads. The laptop performed well, with a score of around 50% better than some Intel-based options.
**OpenVR Benchmark and HTC Vive Cosmos Elite**
To test the Omen 15's VR capabilities, I used the OpenVR benchmark with the HTC Vive Cosmos Elite headset. The laptop performed closely to other 1660 Ti-equipped laptops in this test, suggesting that it can deliver smooth VR performance.
**Crystal Disk Mark and Storage Performance**
Finally, I ran Crystal Disk Mark tests to evaluate the Omen 15's storage performance. The laptop demonstrated excellent read speeds (around 600 MB/s) but slower write speeds (around 400 MB/s), which is typical for SSDs. The SD card slot performed reasonably well, with better reads than writes.
**Conclusion**
After testing the HP Omen 15 gaming laptop, I'm impressed by its performance, design, and features. While it may not offer the absolute best gaming experience at all settings, it's a strong contender in the market, especially considering its price. The Omen 15 has an edge over some Intel-based options with higher-end GPUs, thanks to its quicksync technology.
**Comparison to Eluktronics RP-15**
The Omen 15's performance was comparable to the Eluktronics RP-15, which previously held my top spot as a Ryzen gaming laptop. However, the Omen 15 has better battery life and a more compact design.
**Build Quality and Thermal Performance**
One area where the Omen 15 excels is its build quality and thermal performance. The laptop's chassis is sturdy, with a flexible lid that allows for better ergonomics. The Omen 15's cooling system is also exceptional, providing smooth temperatures even during intense gaming sessions.
**Value for Money**
Considering its features, performance, and price, I believe the HP Omen 15 offers excellent value for money. While some Intel-based options may offer slightly better performance at higher settings, the Omen 15's balance of power and affordability makes it an attractive choice.
Overall, the HP Omen 15 is a powerful gaming laptop that should be considered as your next purchase. Its impressive performance, sleek design, and advanced features make it an excellent value for money.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enThe HP Omen 15 is one of the best Ryzen gaminglaptops currently available, I’ll show youwhy it’s worth considering in this review.There’s some nice specs for a gaming laptopinside, including 8 core AMD Ryzen 7 4800Hprocessor, Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti graphics, and16gb of memory in dual channel with 144Hzscreen.You can check out other configs and updatedprices in the video description.Overall build quality is decent with somecaveats.The lid is plastic, the interior is aluminiumand the whole thing has a silver finish.The front edge felt a little sharp if youbrush up against it, but I never noticed itduring everyday use.There was quite a bit of flex to the lid whentrying to move it, I first noticed it whenI went to brush something off the screen.A lot of people seem to have concerns aboutthis, but it doesn’t look like it’s thatbig of a deal, you can check out this videoby Code Husky for more information.There’s also some keyboard flex when intentionallypushing down hard, but it felt sturdy enoughduring normal use.No issues opening it up with one finger, andthe screen goes the full 180 degrees back.I noticed some of the keyboard lighting leaksonto the plastic below the screen, it’snot really an issue but something I haven’treally seen before.My config weighed in at 4.6lb or 2.1kg, andwith the 200w power brick and cables for chargingwe’re looking at 6lb or 2.7kg all up.It’s not too large for a 15 inch gaminglaptop, about average thickness and overallquite portable.The smaller footprint results in 6.5mm thinscreen bezels on the sides, but with a thickerbottom chin.Mine has a 15.6” 1080p 144Hz screen, unfortunatelythere’s no FreeSync, G-Sync, or option todisable optimus.I measured the screen's average grey-to-greyresponse time at just under 8ms, there’sa link in the description if you need an explanationon these numbers.It’s somewhat similar when compared to other144Hz panels, but at the same time nowherenear as bad as other Ryzen options like theASUS TUF A15 or Dell G5 SE.I’ve measured colour gamut with the Spyder5, and got 96% of sRGB, 66% of NTSC, 72% ofAdobeRGB and 71% of DCI-P3.At 100% brightness we’re looking at 327nits and a 710 to 1 contrast ratio, so overallsome fair results for a gaming panel, bitlower on the contrast though.Backlight bleed wasn’t too bad in my unit,the glow patches weren’t bright enough tonotice during normal use, but this will varybetween laptops and panels.There’s a 720p camera above the displayin the middle, no Windows Hello support though.This is what the camera and microphone lookand sound like on the HP Omen 15.Here’s what it sounds like to type on thekeyboard, and this is what it sounds likeif we set the fan to max speed, so you canstill hear me ok over the fans.My keyboard only has white backlighting whichcan either be turned on or off without anyfurther adjustment, but there is also a 4zone RGB option if you prefer.All keys and secondary key functions are illuminated,and although there’s no numpad we stillget some extra keys to the right, so the arrowshave plenty of space.I don’t personally use the numpad so itdidn’t really bother me.No N-key rollover though, HP specificallynotes 26-key rollover, which I guess is probablyenough?Here’s how typing sounds to give you anidea of what to expect.The power button is part of the keyboard,so you might want to change the default behaviourin Windows incase of an accidental press,which is to put it to sleep.There also appears to be small air ventilationholes up the back above the keyboard.The precision touchpad clicks down anywhereand works fine without any issues, althoughit’s smooth, at the same time also feelsa little textured and not quite as smoothas others.Although fingerprints aren’t as obviousas on a black finish, they do show, but they’reeasy to clean off the smooth surface witha microfiber cloth.On the left from the back there’s the powerinput, gigabit ethernet, USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-Aport, HDMI 2.0a output, 3.5mm audio combojack, and full size SD card slot.On the right from the front there’s a USB3.1 Gen1 Type-C port with DisplayPort 1.4support, no Thunderbolt here and the laptopcannot be charged over Type-C, mini DisplayPort,air exhaust vent on this side, and two moreUSB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports.All three display outputs connect directlyto the Nvidia graphics, bypassing the Radeongraphics, so good to go for VR.The back is just air exhaust vents, and althoughthere’s nothing on the front, not even anindentation to get your finger into, I hadno issues opening the lid.The lid logo is a sort of reflective blueishpurple diamond in the center with Omen textunderneath.Underneath the back half of the machine appearsto be air intake vents, but if we look atthe bottom panel some of the space is covered,regardless still far better intake comparedto the TUF A15.Getting inside involved taking out 8 phillipshead screws, and inside we’ve got the batterydown the front, two M.2 storage slots withheatsink on either side of it, and two memoryslots and WiFi 6 card above the battery.The two speakers are towards the front onthe left and right sides.I thought they sounded pretty average, there’sa little bass and they were clear enough atmaximum volume, and the latencymon resultswere looking alright.The Omen is powered by a 6-cell 71Wh battery,and I’ve tested it with the keyboard lightingoff, background apps disabled and screen at50% brightness.The results were excellent when compared toother gaming laptops with larger batteries,lasting for more than 8 hours in the YouTubeplayback test and more than 2 hours whilegaming.Interestingly the top four gaming laptopsare all Ryzen based.Let’s check out thermals next.I’ve got a whole video covering this topicin depth linked in the description, I’lljust summarise the important parts here.The Omen Command Center software lets youselect between different performance modes,which from lowest to highest are comfort,default and performance, and you have theoption of enabling max fan speed with anyof these modes, but there’s no further granularfan controls.You can also use the third party Ryzen controllersoftware to further boost processor performanceabove stock levels.Thermals were tested with a 21 degree Celsiusambient room temperature.Idle results down the bottom were good.Stress tests were done with Aida64 CPU stresstest and Heaven GPU test at the same time,and gaming was tested with Watch Dogs 2.In the highest performance mode we’re noteven hitting 90 degrees Celsius under theseheavy loads, an excellent result, and we couldget even cooler by boosting fan speed or usinga cooling pad.The clock speeds were still hitting 4 to above4.1GHz depending on the test and without anymodifications over all 8 cores, so again excellentresults.The 1660 Ti was able to run at its 80 wattlimit regardless of the mode, so the differentmodes only really modify CPU power limit andfan speeds.Due to the high GPU power, we can still playGPU heavy games without performance loss inthe lower modes though we can’t really getmuch of a quieter system, as you’ll hearsoon.I also didn’t find Ryzen controller to boostperformance in workloads where both the CPUand GPU are active.It did however give us a boost in CPU onlyworkloads, for instance in Cinebench we couldboost multicore performance by almost 6% withthis tool.When we compare the results with other laptopsit’s doing extremely well, basically tiedwith the Eluktronics RP-15 and much betterwhen compared to most others tested, onlygetting beaten by thicker and far more expensiveoptions.The keyboard area was never hot regardlessof the workload being run, though it was possibleto get some improvements depending on thespecific mode and fan speed option in use.In particular the WASD keys are always coolas air must get pulled through the keyboard,and the wrist rest was fine too, so it alwaysfelt comfortable even after gaming for hours,let’s have a listen to those fans.When idling the fan would occasionally rampup a bit which is why I’ve recorded twolevels.For some reason comfort mode basically maxesout the fans with the stress tests going,not sure if that’s a bug or if HP’s ideaof comfort is how cool the machine feels withoutregards for your ears, but that’s why comfortmode ran cooler than the higher default mode.Max speed was on the louder side, but nothingthat can’t be resolved by using headphones- same case with most gaming laptops.Now let’s check out how the Omen 15 performsin games and compare it with some other laptops.In Battlefield 5 I’ve got the Omen 15 highlightedin red.The average frame rate is similar to a lotof other 1660 Ti laptops I’ve tested, thougha little behind some others but only by acouple frames.The 1% low seems to be a bit lower on theRyzen based laptops in this game, the i7 optionsin the vapor 15 aka mag-15 and helios 300for instance see a fair improvement in thisregard.These are the results from Far Cry 5 withultra settings in the built in benchmark.The average FPS is similar when compared tothe other 1660 Ti based laptops that I’vetested, however in this more processor heavytest the 1% low performance was better thanthe all alternatives with the exception ofthe undervolted Helios 300.The Helios was also a fair bit ahead in averageFPS now, at least compared to the last game.Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also testedwith the games benchmark tool with the highestsetting preset, and as a GPU heavy test it’snot surprising that we’ve got a few other1660 Ti laptops performing similarly, 74 FPSwas the highest result recorded from a 1660Ti and the Omen 15 was able to hit this too.I’ve also tested the Omen 15 in 20 gamesat all setting levels, you can check the cardin the top right corner or link in the videodescription if you want to see results inmore games.Now for the benchmarking tools, I’ve testedHeaven, Valley, and Superposition from Unigine,as well as Firestrike and Timespy from 3DMark,just pause the video if you want a detailedlook at these results.I’ve used Adobe Premiere to export one ofmy laptop review videos at 4K, and the Omen15 was doing well for a Ryzen based laptopwith 1660 Ti, better than the A15 in any caseand almost the same as the RP-15 with 2060,but those Intel options have the edge heredue to quicksync.I’ve also tested Premiere but with the Pugetsystems benchmark which also accounts forthings like live playback rather than justexport times.Higher score is better here, and with morethan just raw exporting concerned the Omen15 is now doing better than some of the Inteloptions with higher tier GPUs.In Adobe Photoshop the Omen was on the lowerside compared to most others tested, I’mnot too sure why though as this is typicallya CPU heavy test and as we’ve seen the processingpower is certainly there.In DaVinci resolve it’s actually doing quitewell, the best result from any 1660 Ti laptopthat I’ve tested so far.I’ve also tested SPECviewperf which testsout various professional 3D workloads.I’ve used the OpenVR benchmark to test theHTC Vive Cosmos Elite, and the Omen was performingclosely to the other 1660 Ti laptops tested,the CPU matters a bit less here from my testingas this is heavier on the GPU, but in anycase it still offered playable performancein half life alyx, basically only the alpha15 and below didn’t.I’ve used Crystal Disk Mark to test thestorage, and the 512gb NVMe M.2 SSD was doingwell.The SD card slot wasn’t too bad, at leastthe reads are better than the writes whichis preferable as most people will probablydump footage rather than write to the card.The card clicks in and sits most of the wayinto the laptop.For updated prices, check the links in thedescription, as prices will change over time.At the time of recording, in the US the configurationwith 8gb memory and 512gb storage is $1250USD, but it was recently on sale for $200less than this, so definitely worth keepingan eye for.For $100 more you can get double the storageand double the memory which I think is worthgoing for, 16gb of RAM is a great sweet spotin my opinion, but again this was just recently$200 off as well.With all of that in mind let’s concludeby summarising the good and bad aspects ofthe HP Omen 15 gaming laptop to help you decideif it’s worthwhile.All things considered, I think the Omen 15is coming out ahead of the Eluktronics RP-15I previously tested as my current favouriteRyzen based gaming laptop.The performance difference isn’t too largein many workloads and screens are similarwith a slight edge in response time to theRP-15 it just depends what you’re usingit for.The Omen has the edge in build quality, despitethe more flexible lid.The gaming performance isn’t that differentdespite the RP-15 having a 2060, and batterylife is much better with the Omen, so it reallycomes down to price difference and what yourpriorities are.The thermal performance of the Omen in particularreally puts others like the TUF A15 and DellG5 SE to shame, this is how a Ryzen gaminglaptop should be.I think there’s a lot of value on offercompared to alternatives, which is why it’smy current favourite Ryzen gaming laptop,but I do still have more of those coming totest before I do a big comparison.So basically to summarise, if you’re lookingfor a gaming laptop with AMD’s Ryzen processors,then the HP Omen 15 should be right up thetop of the list, especially if you can pickit up on sale.Let me know what you thought about HP’sOmen 15 gaming laptop down in the comments,and if you’re new to the channel get subscribedfor future laptop reviews and tech videoslike this one.\n"
