HP

HP's New Omen 15 Could Be the Best Gaming Laptop Under $1,000

HP is quickly becoming a gaming juggernaut. After a few tries, the company has found a winning formula when it comes to its gaming laptops. Case in point, the refreshed Omen 15.
This time around, HP is putting even more power under the hood, including an 8th Gen Intel processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX Max-Q GPU. Available July 29, the laptop starts at $979, topping out at a fairly reasonable $1,699.
The Omen 15's exterior faux carbon-fiber design remains pretty much untouched from last year's model. At 5.4-pounds at 14.2 x 10.4 x 0.98-inches, the new Omen is smaller and a tad lighter than its predecessor (5.7 pounds, 15.3 x 10.9 x 0.98 inches). There are some notable changes on the interior, including a brushed aluminum keyboard deck. HP is also jumping on the skinny bezel train, while maintaining a top-mounted webcam.
In terms of displays, the Omen 15 comes in three flavors: a 1920 x 1080 panel with a 60-Hertz refresh rate, a 1080p display with a 144-Hz rate and a 4K screen with 60Hz refresh. Some panels will also feature Nvidia's G-Sync technology for even smoother graphics rendering. HP is also offering some variety with the keyboard, letting consumers choose between a 2-zone lighting configuration or a 4-zone setup.
While it doesn't give you the freedom of programming every single key, the Omen still lets you access a massive 16.8-million color palette to customize your keyboard. However you decide to decorate the keyboard, you'll be doing it with the revamped HP Omen Command Center. The redesigned control panel has a cleaner interface and a lot more usability. In addition to programming colors and effects, choosy gHP isn't shying away from giving gamers the power they crave this time around. The Omen 15 can be configured with up to a 2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-8750H processor, 32GB of RAM, dual PCIe NVMe SSDs with a 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU with 6GB of VRAM. And if you're looking to add some more RAM or another HDD, you can access the laptop's innards via the single access panel at the bottom of the machine.

Since the chassis has gotten a tad slimmer, HP has revamped its cooling system, boasting an optimized fan design. The fans are now pushed out to the corners of the device and paired with fluid-dynamic bearings with a 3-phase motor. This means the fans should run smoother and quieter than previous iterations -- something we'll put to the test when it arrives in the lab.amers can toggle fan speeds and power settings in the Performance Dashboard.


Sherri L. Smith-TH