Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “OMEN 15 Gaming Laptop (2018) – Almost Perfect!”.
What’S happening is that from tax source and welcome to my review of the 2018 omen by HP. This is a mid tier gaming laptop with a six core 8 gen processor, 16 gigs of ram and the NVIDIA GTX 1066 gigabyte graphics card. Not only are we going to be looking at the gaming side, but also going to be looking at the productivity side, because if you’re gon na buy a 6 core laptop with 16 gigs of ram, then you’re, probably gon na use it for more than just gaming. You only really need a quad core and a px of ram for gaming and that’s because games are more dependent on the GPU, so a faster GPU will get you better performance, so The Omen starts at $ 800 for the i5 and GTX 1050 Ti. However, the six core version we’re checking out in this article is going for around $ 1000 and it also comes with a 128 gigabyte, m2 SSD and a one terabyte SSD.
It’S also very easy to upgrade just remove the screws holding the back panel and you get access to both the drives. The RAM and the Wi-Fi card. Also down here is the 71 hour battery, which will get you around 2 hours and 40 minutes with 20 % battery left so expect around three hours of battery life on this. By the way, guys, the battery test done on my laptop videos are done through the PC mark workstation benchmark.
That way, it’s consistent throughout every single laptop video you guys watch the build quality is really good. It has the omen trademark, so mostly black with red accents, and I really like the carbon fiber material on the top as well. The keyboard deck is made out of aluminum, but the back plate and top plate are both made out of plastic. So there is a good amount of flex on the display, which is to be expected, nothing to worry about. I also like the hinge design, I feel like it’s built really well, and it opens up easily one hand which is always a plus for me. I also didn’t notice any bowing across the keyboard, probably because of the aluminum backing overall, I’m very happy with the construction of the omen. So the monitor is a 15.6 inch full HD IPS display we had 60 Hertz or fresh rate, and it has this anti-glare coating.
The viewing angles are not too bad, even with the anti glare. However, II can’t expect some color shifting here and there now, if you guys, are looking for a 4k display. Instead, then, the omen laptop does have a 4k option available, but the laptop comes with a 1050 Ti instead.
Now the reason why the laptop comes with a 1050 Ti is because laptop is meant to be used mostly for productivity. You get a 6 core processor up to 32 gigs of ram and more storage options, so anybody was gon na be picking up. A 4k display option is obviously gon na, be using it for CPU intensive tasks and also programs that eat up a lot more ram. The 1050 Ti is a nice plus if you want a game in 1080p, but the main reason for the 4k display is for productivity, so the screen doesn’t get that bright at 213. It’S it’s good enough for indoor use and it’s accurate enough to do. Color sensitive work, one of the more welcoming changes coming from the previous models are the bezels. It does have a chin, but the sides and the top are very thin, which is great, since they are able to utilize all that space for screen real estate. Instead, they were even able to squeeze in the front-facing camera up on the top. The keyboard is really nice, the keys are RGB, backlit and spaced nicely. I haven’t run into any issues typing or trying to reach certain keys. I feel like the shift key and the backspace are easy to reach, but the arrow keys took some getting used to the lighting is controlled through their software. However, you’re only able to change the colors of each zone rather than each individual key, but they do get really bright.
If you crank up the settings the trackpad isn’t using when those precision drivers, which is what I prefer in laptops, but it’s not bad. It tracks. Very well for the most part, however, once in a while it won’t recognize some of the gestures I make it’s not a big deal for connectivity.
I love what HP did here so check this out, guys they put the most used ports on the sides so on the left, you get an SD card reader, USB 3 with the headphone jack and another USB 3 on the other side, but they move the rest Of the ports in the back, you get HDMI mini display, Thunderbolt and even an Ethernet port back here. This is a really nice design choice by HP, because this way you don’t end up with a bunch of cables coming out from the sides of your laptop awesome. So the 1060 does great in games.
Obviously you can expect the game comfortably over 60fps across most triple-a titles in high settings. Some newer games like Shadow, the Tomb Raider, are more demanding. So if you want to play over 60fps, you will have to lower the settings. A bit The Omen also does great in productivity.
The 8750 h is enough to power those CPU hungry applications. Editing is a great example. I was able to cut 4k footage easily and I didn’t experience any issues. You can’t expect some stuttering and lagging while scrubbing through the timeline on 4k files. However, for 1080p it’s actually buttery smooth 4k playback was also fairly smooth. However, I had to lower the quality to 75 %, but overall experience was very pleasant, editing on the Illman.
Now, here’s where things get heated literally so when it comes to thermals, I wasn’t that impressed the CPU and GPU get pretty toasty after gaming on a laptop for over an hour with the CPU temps hitting around 90 degrees Celsius. The temps got so hot that I even experienced some throttling playing black ops. 4. If you guys take a look at the graph here, you can see where the GPU dips and clock speed every time it dips.
I experienced a split-second stutter in-game for some reason: black ops 4 was the only game that made the Omen, throttle. Other games like overwatch csgo fortnight and even pub G were smooth, no stuttering or lagging playing those games. This leads me to believe that the game is not yet optimised considering it was just launched, so I’m confident that an update can fix this later on, which leads me to the fan noise, even an idle. You can hear them and if you’re in a quiet place like a library, then it can get pretty annoying really fast.
Unfortunately, there is no way to control the fan speed manually. Otherwise, this would have been an easy fix now, once you start using a laptop for gaming or editing, the fans will kick up and you’re gon na want to put on some headphones because they get pretty loud, especially once you put it on performance mode, so yeah. I wouldn’t recommend taking this to quiet places like libraries or Church on Sunday is anywhere else, you’ll be fine.
Finally, I want to talk about the mind frame headset and the reactor Mouse first up is the headset and guys this is one of the coolest had said. I have used quite literally so this headset features frost cap and it basically uses a thermoelectric device inside each ear cup to cool the speaker grill plates to transfer the heat away from your ears. Honestly guys.
I thought it was a gimmick at first but man. It works like a charm that it actually feels really nice. It’S like having your own personal air conditioning for your ears. It is trippy. The headset itself is very comfortable to wear with a synthetic leather padding for the headband which automatically adjusts for your head, and they come with these breathable mesh ear cups, which fit nicely around my ears and at 7.1 virtual surround sound with a built-in microphone, and you Can control the volume using a knob on the ear cups, the RGB lighting on the ear cups can be customized using the allman command center and through here you can also even control the icecap cooling technology, but yeah guys if you’re looking for a solid built.
Great sounding headset for those super long sessions of gaming, then you got ta check out the mind frame. Headset the frost cap feature on this thing is insane. Finally, we have the reactor mouse. So a lot of people have been talking about this mouse on the forums and I realized why quickly, it’s a really great mouse for fast paced games. It’S really light and compact, with rubber grips on both sides, making it really easy to lift and slide around. It’S a 16,000 dpi mouse with RGB lighting and a metal cable which keeps the wire on the table and prevents it from kinks. I really like the thumb rest on the side. It keeps my thumb from rubbing across the mouse pad every time I have to drag the mouse around and I’m not a really cool feature is the adjustable palm rest. There’S a lever on the side that lets you adjust the height and it’s actually the first time. I’Ve seen this on a gaming mouse. I think that HP did a great job on this laptop. They definitely improved on their omen lineup over the past few years. I think this is the best omen laptop to date.
The fan noise on this shouldn’t be a big issue to most people, because I’m sure you guys to be carrying around your headset or your earphones every time. Nobody really uses the speakers on laptop, especially in public places. So if you guys can look past that and the minor hiccup with throttling on black ops 4, then I think that this is definitely a solid buy for anyone looking for a lab top for gaming and productivity, and that does it for my review of the omen. Gaming, laptop I’ll jump a link below, if you guys want to check this out along with the headset and the reactor mouse, which is actually my favorite mouse right now, if you guys enjoyed the video and want to see more types of these laptop reviews drop a Like and make sure to dislike, if you didn’t enjoy the video thanks again for watching and as always I’ll see you in the next one .