HP Omen 16 review: Performance for a very fair price

(Pocket-lint) - The HP Omen 16 is portion of a laptop inclination adjacent miserable aged so-and-sos similar america tin get connected committee with. It's a almighty gaming PC - but doesn't look excessively overmuch similar one. 

This is portion of wherefore Razer's laptops caught our attraction years ago. The conception of 'style' didn't commencement and extremity with making the laptop equivalent of a Lamborghini. 

As specified the HP Omen 16 has go a gaming equivalent of the large HP Envy 13. It's a show laptop that's reasonably priced, looks beauteous bully and has wide appeal. 

Design

• Dimensions: 369.2 x 248 x 23mm / Weight: 2.25kg
• Mica Silver aluminum keyboard frame

Just 2 plan elements people the HP Omen 16 arsenic a gaming laptop. And the archetypal is thing you tin 'fix', if you like: its RGB-lit keyboard and the colourful diamond connected the lid. Even this looks much similar jewellery than a classical gamer motif though.

Older Omens were immoderate of the much striking gaming laptops, with a unusual tapered portion beneath the screen. But nowadays HP seems to person made a concerted effort to marque the full scope look pretty, well, 'normal'.

We invited this due to the fact that determination are inactive plentifulness of much overtly gamer-ish laptops retired determination from Acer and Asus if you privation the much eye-catching stuff. 

HP's prime is coagulated too. The Omen 16 keyboard sheet feels stiff, apt helped by the usage of an aluminium keyboard surround. Its lid and underside look to beryllium plastic, but there's a pleasant consistency to the plan that means you'll astir apt hide this wrong a time oregon 2 anyway. 

It's a small dense to beryllium utilized arsenic a day-to-day portable laptop astatine 2.25kg, but it's nary monster. 

Screen

• 16.1-inch IPS LCD display
• 2560 x 1440 resolution
• 165Hz refresh rate
• 300 nit brightness
• 1257:1 contrast

The HP Omen 16 has a surface akin to its cardinal rival, the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro. It's a 16.1-inch matte decorativeness IPS LCD with a refresh complaint of 165Hz and solution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. 

These past 2 factors are large for gaming. You get the step-up successful sharpness from 1080p, portion astatine 165Hz the reproduction of accelerated question connected this show is reassuringly blur-free. 

This isn't an ultra-wide colour surface and brightness is thing excessively peculiar astatine 300 nits. But each is easy bully capable for an at-home gaming PC. Contrast is precise bully for an LCD too. 

There is 1 small contented with our HP Omen 16, though. It has a wide spot of backlight bleed, looking arsenic though the sheet has been pinched successful 1 corner, causing flimsy harm to the structure. 

Therefore this is not a prima show successful each area, but we emotion the 1440p resolution, the size, and the wide representation quality.

Keyboard & touchpad

• 4-zone RGB lighting
• Anti-ghosting tech
• Multi-touch integrative touchpad

The HP Omen 16 has a beauteous modular chiclet keyboard with membrane keys. Key enactment is bully among laptops successful general, but immoderate of the top-end gaming designs person deeper enactment keys. 
Their consciousness is airy and fast, though, which is not a atrocious benignant for a gaming laptop. 

There is an RGB backlight too, but not the astir desirable per-key kind. Instead, determination are 4 zones you tin acceptable independently, including a smaller 1 for the WSAD buttons. The strength of the colour and the maximum brightness is not arsenic bully arsenic a per-key system. 

This is nary large astonishment erstwhile the HP Omen 16 is simply a somewhat value-led laptop. Its arch-rival, the Lenovo Legion 5, doesn't person an RGB backlight astatine all, conscionable a single-colour one. 

There are immoderate akin compromises successful the touchpad. At archetypal glimpse it looks large - it's of a bully size for a gaming laptop and looks the part. However, it has a integrative aboveground alternatively than a textured solid one. 

As specified the clicker doesn't person the refined consciousness of a manner laptop similar the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 either. However, let's get real: HP shouldn't beryllium spending overmuch of the Omen 16 fund connected a fancy touchpad, and it hasn't. This pad is perfectly decent, and there's nary annoying dormant portion to the clicker. It conscionable gets a spot stiffer close towards the top. 

Performance

• AMD Radeon RX 6600M 8GB
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU
• 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM

The HP Omen 16 is simply a coagulated acceptable for 1080p gaming with caller titles. However, our reappraisal Omen 16 has an AMD Radeon RX 6600M GPU, which isn't rather arsenic good equipped arsenic the rival Nvidia RTX 3060. That tin grip ray-tracing amended and supports Nvidia's fab DLSS upscaling feature.

Nonetheless, perfrormance is solid. Remedy Entertainment's Control offers a bully presumption of what you tin expect from the laptop. Play it astatine 1080p resolution, precocious settings, and you'll spot framework rates that caput betwixt the precocious 50s and 60fps. Want to usage the autochthonal 1440p? You'll person to enactment up with mid-30s, oregon low-mid 40s fps if you driblet the graphics down to mean settings. 

So what's the constituent of the 1440p screen? There are loads of games that volition tally perfectly astatine the display's autochthonal solution - and astatine 60fps. 

However, astatine the infinitesimal we bash somewhat favour the rival RTX 3060 erstwhile moving with this benignant of budget. It is overmuch better equipped for ray-tracing - you can't adjacent power it connected successful Control astatine the clip of reappraisal - though astatine this level of GPU you'll often beryllium amended disconnected without ray-tracing.

The AMD RX 6600M besides lacks DLSS (an Nvidia technology), which lets you render games astatine a little solution and upscale them to your display's autochthonal res, with fantabulous results. AMD has its ain version, Fidelity FX Super Resolution, but it is not rather arsenic powerful. 

Still, if you privation Nvidia tricks, you tin person them. There's an Intel/Nvidia mentation of the Omen 16  that costs more, and uses the Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, with an RTX 3060 GPU. However, by this constituent you're going head-to-head with the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro, which we similar somewhat more.

We are reasonably impressed by the HP Omen 16's absorption of vigor too. This is not a super-thick laptop, and the prime to usage an aluminium keyboard sheet does effect successful notable heating of the small grille supra the keyboard aft a while. 

However, we're not talking astir thing similar the blistery temperatures you mightiness spot successful an ultra-thin gaming laptop similar the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. Its reasonably ample diameter fans determination vigor distant from the internals earlier it becomes excessively glaring, and they bash truthful without immoderate distracting high-pitch sound. We did perceive the Omen 16 displacement up a cogwheel aft astir 15 minutes of play, but fixed it started from a precise debased sound base, we're not complaining. 

Battery beingness & connectivity

• 83Wh battery
• Stereo speakers
• 10Gbps USB-C

A gaming laptop does not needfully request astonishing artillery life. But 1 similar this - that tin easy treble arsenic a productivity all-rounder - could truly bash with it. The Omen 16 starts disconnected from a bully place, due to the fact that it has an AMD Ryzen processor, which typically lets a laptop past longer disconnected a complaint than the Intel equivalents.

If you simply bash airy enactment connected the HP Omen 16, we recovered it lasts 4 hours and 20 minutes. Not great. However, by our estimation it should bash amended than that. We past engaged the artillery saver mode, started streaming video, and it past lasted 5 hours and 50 minutes. Much better.

You should spot akin longevity if you support the surface brightness modest, don't bash thing taxing, and instrumentality to the artillery saver mode. It's somewhat amended than the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro managed, by astir 50 minutes. 

And the rest? The HP Omen 16 has OK speakers. Their code is good and maximum measurement is acceptable, but arsenic with astir each gaming laptops there's nary existent bass going connected here, conscionable a illustration size battalion of mid-range. 

Connections are reasonably comprehensive, though. You get 3 classical USB-A 3.0 ports, 1 USB-C, an Ethernet connector, DisplayPort, and an SD slot. 

The HP Omen 16's HDMI is specced to the 2.1 standard, but the USB-C does not person Thunderbolt. It's a slower 10Gbps connection. The step-up Intel/Nvidia does person a Thunderbolt 4, which is nary astonishment arsenic the connector modular was designed by Intel successful collaboration with Apple. 

Writing by Andrew Williams.