Much of the time at Ars, we look at laptops that tend toward the thinner and lighter end of the size and weight spectrum. These smaller laptops are great for portability, but they all tend to give up a little, and sometimes a lot, when it comes to raw performance. HP's new Omen gaming laptops tilt things much further in the performance direction, and they manage to do so while still offering decent portability, competitive pricing, and, refreshingly, looks that aren't too gamery: turn off the red backlit keyboards, and they won't look too out of place as capable workhorses, as well.
Shipping on July 10, $899.99 will get you the 15.6 inch 1920×1080 IPS screened 4.6lb laptop with a quad-core Skylake Core i7-6700HQ, 8GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 950M GPU with 2GB dedicated memory, and a 1TB 7200rpm hard disk. Spend a bit more and you can go up to a GTX 960M with 4GB dedicated memory, 16GB RAM, and add a 128GB SSD alongside the spinning disk. All the systems have 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 2 USB 3 ports, wired gigabit Ethernet, and a full-size HDMI output. The keyboards make full use of the 15-inch form factor, sporting a full number pad alongside the keys—something that we know many of you look for in these larger laptops.
For $1,029.99 you can get a 17.3-inch 1920×1080 IPS screen in a 6.3lb package. This has the same processor and 8GB RAM as the 15-inch system but a faster Nvidia GTX 960M GPU with 4GB dedicated memory and a 128GB SSD alongside its 1TB hard disk. Pay for options and you can get a 512GB PCIe SSD, 16GB RAM, a GTX 965M GPU, and a 4K screen. The larger laptop has all the same connectivity and networking options as its smaller sibling and even adds an integrated DVD burner.
While these are positioned as gamer laptops, with their fast processors, discrete graphics, full-size keyboards, and surprisingly decent speakers, their branding is relatively understated, albeit rather red. The keyboards are backlit and glow ominously, but with that turned off, they really look pretty ordinary. We don't mean that as a knock, either; while some of the more outlandish and more obviously styled gamer systems have their appeal, we're glad to see systems that are capable of gaming but don't draw too much attention to themselves at the airport or in a coffee shop. They're gaming laptops, sure, but they're also working laptops that just happen to be good for gaming, too. Under more modest workloads the battery life will range from six to ten hours, depending on the exact model and configuration.
One particular aspect of their gaming design is more widely welcome; these are designed to be comfortable to use even when under heavy load, and to that end, they vent their heat out the back, rather than down toward your lap. While we only had the briefest of hands-on time, they did appear to remain cool on the bottom even when working hard. The keyboard and touchpad seemed sound, too.
Around about August, HP is also releasing an Omen-branded gaming desktop. There's no price or other information available about this just yet, but specs should be pretty solid: up to a Core i7-6700K, with overclocking enabled in the firmware, up to an Nvidia GTX 1080 Founder Edition or AMD Radeon R9 390X, as much as 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD, and with optional liquid cooling. The Omen desktop is a little more overtly gamerish: the front is lit up with LEDs, and while it defaults to red, it can show a whole rainbow of colors, should you choose. The system is designed to surpass the needs of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets and is certified as VR ready by HTC.
For those who prefer more traditional monitors, HP also has an Omen-branded display: a 32-inch 2560×1440 screen that supports FreeSync, AMD's technology for adaptive refresh rates to allow for high frame rates without tearing.
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