HP continues to refine its gaming laptop computer lineup with the Omen 16 (begins at $1,299; $1,579.99 as examined), a big-screen however streamlined cell gaming rig in the course of the worth/efficiency spectrum. Our overview configuration is an all-AMD affair with a Ryzen 7 6800H processor and Radeon RX 6650M GPU. We won’t discover many actual flaws, with a modern and comparatively moveable construct with vigorous 1080p body charges, however we can also’t discover a massive draw to make you choose the Omen 16 over equally priced rivals. Battery life might be longer and the Omen’s construct high quality is merely good, not nice. Extra telling, competing gaming laptops with Intel and Nvidia silicon outpace its efficiency. Except you will discover a reduction or particularly dig the design, we recommend testing the Lenovo Legion 5 Professional Gen 7 or the pricier Acer Predator Triton 300 SE.

A Good Omen: The 16-Inch Candy Spot

Omen laptops have gone by means of numerous redesigns through the years, with HP selecting a fairly minimal search for 2023. It is a fashionable and becoming selection for the present laptop computer panorama, transferring away from the busier or extra garish designs of the previous decade.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

At present’s Omen 16 is a slick slab with a barely metallic end. Our overview unit is a darkish grey formally dubbed Mica Silver, however it is usually obtainable in black or white, each of which look fairly sharp. The emblem is much more pleasing than previous variations, with a easy reflective diamond above the Omen identify, for fairly a clear look total.

As a 16-inch laptop computer, the Omen 16 is way from the lightest gamer round, even when its footprint is not too cumbersome. The system measures 0.91 by 14.5 by 9.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.3 kilos. It feels heavier than that, maybe as a result of the laptop computer is pretty dense, however the total bundle is fairly moveable when wanted. It falls proper in step with the 16-inch Lenovo Legion 5 Professional talked about above (0.78 by 14.2 by 10.3 inches and 5.5 kilos).

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

The 16-inch show offers you loads of room for productiveness and gaming. It is a welcome center floor between 15.6- and 17.3-inch laptops and has develop into in style over the previous 12 months, particularly in midrange to high-end gaming laptops. Contemplating the Omen’s slim construct and middleweight heft, it is a advantageous compromise for many who wish to transfer their gaming laptops with no less than some frequency.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

Specs-wise, our check unit’s show is comparatively primary, combining full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) decision with a 144Hz refresh price, primarily the baseline for contemporary gaming rigs. The latter is a marked soar over the usual 60Hz refresh of civilian laptops, and the 1080p decision is much less demanding for working video games at excessive body charges.

It is honest to be upset that the display stops at full HD decision at this value, or no less than that the refresh price ceiling is not larger. HP sells different Omen 16 configurations with 1440p decision or 165Hz refresh. Nonetheless, 144Hz is an appropriate match for 1080p gaming, and that retains the worth within the center reasonably than excessive finish of the market. The show high quality is not something extraordinary, nevertheless it’s sharp, brilliant, and colourful sufficient.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

The remainder of the development is normal fare. The keyboard offers you no trigger for grievance, however neither is it particularly satisfying; the keys aren’t precisely mushy however do not give a lot suggestions both. In the meantime, the touchpad is roomy however feels barely on a budget aspect. These comparatively ho-hum elements in all probability assist hold the worth down and make extra sense within the base mannequin than in upscale configurations.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

One space the place the Omen 16 excels is connectivity. Every flank holds a few ports, with a number of extra round again. On the left flank, you may discover a USB Sort-A (5Gbps) port, an Ethernet port, and a headphone jack, with two extra 5Gbps USB-A ports on the correct. On the rear are the ability connector, an HDMI monitor port, and two 10Gbps USB Sort-C ports with energy supply.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

Testing the HP Omen 16: All-AMD Outclassed by Intel and Nvidia

As talked about, our overview unit combines an AMD CPU and GPU, although that is not the case for all fashions of the Omen 16. Let’s again up and begin with the bottom mannequin: For $1,299 (on sale for $949.99 on HP.com at this writing), you get an Intel Core i5-12500H processor, 16GB of reminiscence, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, and a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD) in addition to the complete HD 144Hz show.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

Our unit is a few ticks larger, listed at $1,579.99 (on sale for $1,229.99 at press time). As talked about, it options an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H CPU, 16GB of RAM, an AMD Radeon RX 6650M GPU, a 1TB SSD, and the bottom show. It could scale even larger, with fashions that embrace a twelfth Technology Intel Core i9 and GeForce GPUs as much as the RTX 3070 Ti. Relying on sale costs, they are often significantly higher offers.

To price the Omen 16’s efficiency, we pitted it in opposition to a batch of comparable midrange gaming laptops with a mixture of Intel and AMD processors, listed right here.

The 17-inch Acer Nitro 5 and 16-inch Lenovo Legion 5 Professional Gen 7 match the Omen’s processor however depend on Nvidia GPUs. The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE and Dell G16, in the meantime, observe the extra acquainted Intel-plus-Nvidia recipe, with the previous being the highest-priced system within the group. We must always be aware that some laptops with thirteenth Gen Intel CPUs are within the wild, however we have up to now seen these processors solely in top-of-the-line programs, so none seem right here. Comparable thirteenth Gen Core i5 and i7 laptops ought to arrive shortly.

Productiveness Checks

The primary benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 simulates quite a lot of real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows to measure total efficiency for office-centric duties comparable to phrase processing, spreadsheeting, internet searching, and videoconferencing. We additionally run PCMark 10’s Full System Drive check to evaluate the load time and throughput of a laptop computer’s boot drive.

Three further benchmarks give attention to the CPU, utilizing all obtainable cores and threads, to price a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a fancy scene, whereas Geekbench 5.4 Professional by Primate Labs simulates in style apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease instances are higher).

Our closing productiveness check is workstation maker Puget Methods’ PugetBench for Photoshop, which makes use of the Inventive Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to price a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia functions. It is an automatic extension that executes quite a lot of basic and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving photographs to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.

Their PCMark 10 scores confirmed that every one these laptops are overkill for on a regular basis apps like Phrase and Excel. However that benchmark does not stress programs as a lot because the others, so we began to see extra separation within the multimedia assessments. As we have come to anticipate, Intel’s twelfth Gen CPUs pulled away from their AMD rivals, although the hole wasn’t too vast for essentially the most half. The Omen 16 hung fairly near the Triton and Dell, exhibiting itself effectively fitted to gentle to reasonable content material creation and media modifying if you’re not taking part in video games. Should you plan to make use of your system primarily for such duties, you in all probability wish to take into account a stronger laptop computer or cell workstation.

Graphics and Gaming Checks

We check Home windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Evening Raid (extra modest, appropriate for laptops with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Two extra assessments from GFXBench 5.0, run offscreen to permit for various show resolutions, wring out OpenGL operations.

As well as, we run real-world gaming assessments utilizing the built-in 1080p benchmarks of F1 2021 and Murderer’s Creed Valhalla. These signify a mixture of simulation and open-world action-adventure titles. We run Valhalla twice at totally different picture high quality presets and F1 with and with out Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing.

Nvidia GPUs are inclined to dominate these assessments, so the Omen’s Radeon RX 6650M confronted an uphill battle however remains to be an appropriate possibility for 1080p gaming. For essentially the most half, it could grasp with or beat the RTX 3060 programs, whereas trailing RTX 3070 machines. Aggressive multiplayer video games like Rainbow Six Siege will profit from the high-refresh show, and demanding open-world titles like Valhalla will clear the 60 frames per second goal.

Battery and Show Checks

We check laptops’ battery life by taking part in a domestically saved 720p video file with show brightness at 50% and audio quantity at 100% till the system quits. We be certain the battery is totally charged earlier than the check, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

For an goal have a look at laptop computer screens, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Home windows software program to measure a show’s colour saturation—what proportion of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 colour gamuts or palettes the panel can present—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per sq. meter).

Merely put, the battery lifetime of this laptop computer is mediocre, notably for a system with chassis room for a bigger energy pack that is not pushing the highest-end, most power-hungry elements. The Omen will work away out of your desk or on shorter journeys, however its unplugged runtime is unimpressive even by gaming laptop computer requirements. Its show, in the meantime, is fairly brilliant and about common for colour protection. The extra premium laptops on this house are the place to search for massive enhancements, notably within the latter metric.

Verdict: A Cheap Midrange Gaming Possibility

The HP Omen 16 is a largely passable bundle total, delivering midrange 1080p gaming at an affordable value. Its all-AMD elements, whereas an honest worth, do not fairly match the efficiency of comparably priced Intel and Nvidia rigs, nevertheless. These programs typically present both extra CPU or GPU energy and typically each, so we won’t discover a specific motive to suggest the Omen regardless of its lack of main flaws. Should you notably like this unit’s fashion or AMD allegiance or discover it on sale, it will serve you effectively, nevertheless it will not get you a lot bragging rights.