HP Omen 16 Review

The new Omen 16 from HP’s Omen brand is another great gaming laptop. This model has Intel Core processors from the 12th generation and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, which can run almost any game, even on this very sharp Quad HD screen. The cooling system also helps with this, and it can move a lot of air around. However, when it’s going full speed, it can get a little noisy.

HP Omen 16 Specs

I like the way the Omen 16 looks, too. It’s not light or thin, but it’s sleek, with a body that’s all black and doesn’t have much in the way of style. So, you can use this laptop in public without drawing too much attention to yourself.

HP Omen 16 PROS:

1. A solid gaming experience
2. Adult Appearance
3. Comes With An Additional M.2 SSD port
4. Numerous ports

HP Omen 16 CONS:

• Unclean touchpad
• Webcam in 720p

Price

In May of this year, HP announced a new Omen line for 2022, and it came out a few months later. If you want the most choices for how to set it up, you can buy it directly from HP and pick the specs you want. You can also find some combinations at Best Buy and some other stores. The Omen 16 starts at $1,299.99, but the price varies a lot based on the setup you choose. The one HP sent me has a Core i7 chip and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, which is the most powerful GPU choice for this laptop. This setup costs $2,299.99 right now, but you might be able to find it on sale.

Display

The Omen 16 starts to feel old to me when it comes to the screen. This high-end model has a quad HD screen with a frame rate of 165 Hz. When you look at the stats, you probably don’t need much more than this for games. This GPU isn’t good enough for 4K gaming, and while some action games might be better on a screen with a higher refresh rate, 165 Hz is still very smooth. The first problem I have is that the format is still 16:9. This is still the most popular aspect ratio for gaming, and brands like Razer still use it.

However, laptops like the Acer Predator Triton 500 SE and the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro show that manufacturers are moving towards 16:10 panels, which are great for both gaming and work. When you look at the huge gap below the screen on the Omen 16, it’s even more annoying. This frame had so much room for a bigger screen. HP made the laptop higher, probably to make room for a bigger keyboard and give you more space for your wrists, but it could have used that space for the screen instead.

Design

The Omen 16’s sleek look was the first thing that caught me by surprise. Yes, it’s quite big, but if you didn’t know that, you might think this is just a regular laptop. Only the big fan vents give away the fact that this is for gaming, but even those are made to look beautiful. This laptop looks really nice and is something I wouldn’t mind taking out in public. To help keep the Omen 16 cool, it has very big rubber feet that raise the air intake holes above the surface by a lot. This lets more cool air get in. Also, there is a metal grid on the bottom of the laptop that helps get rid of heat from the frame. The quality of the build is fine.

The piano deck is made of aluminium and feels sturdy. We are in the middle of winter, and when you first touch it, it feels very cold. On the back of the laptop, there are even a few ports, including two Thunderbolt 4 ports for your docking station or an external monitor, an HDMI port, and a charging connection that is unique to the laptop. The previous version had a mini-DisplayPort port, but this one has a Thunderbolt port instead, which can do the same thing.

Performance

HP comes with the most powerful GPU you can get with this laptop. Not only this in this laptop, you can update the CPU, RAM, and storage. HP made some big changes to the cooling system by adding more blades to the fans and making the exit vent bigger. This makes the computer run more quietly and with more airflow. This setup seems to work. When the laptop is working hard, it blows out a lot of hot air, and it can get a little loud, but it’s not that bad. Normal use is very quiet, so I don’t have anything to say about that. At full speed, the fans make a small whine, but it’s not a big deal.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Omen 16 has one of the best, if not the best, laptop keyboards I’ve ever used. In terms of the layout, HP decided not to include a number pad. Instead, they gave all the keys more space to breathe and made the arrow keys bigger, which is helpful for games. There are some good reasons to include a number pad, but I like the shape HP chose, and it feels like a desktop keyboard without the number pad. It has a lot of space and feels pretty normal. It also feels great to use.

This keyboard has keys with a lot of movement that are very easy to press. It might be my all-time favorite keyboard to type on because the keys move quickly and are easy to press. Small changes to the actuator force could have helped, but they wouldn’t have made a big difference. Since it’s a gaming laptop, it has to have some kind of RGB effect, and this model has great-looking per-key RGB lights.