HP seems to have finally gotten its act together with its new Omen 16 2023 laptop. By that, I mean that the brand has ensured that the machine’s internals are up-to-date with the latest components the current market has to offer.
Armed with the latest AMD Ryzen 7000 Series APU, as well as the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU among other performance delights, I got a chance to see what else HP’s gaming laptop has to offer, in terms of graphical delights.
Specifications
Design and Functionality
As far as design and aesthetics go, the Omen 16 doesn’t deviate too far out of the sphere of wondrous imagination. In fact, I think HP is doing the sensible thing by mimicking some of the better features of other laptops.
Of the lot, it takes a page out of Lenovo’s own Legion laptops, as evidenced by the Omen 16’s use of the protruding spine design. Granted, it’s a lot thinner looking than its rival and it doesn’t have a lot of ports – there’s only a USB-A, LAN, and an HDMI port here. I mean, not even USB-C – but it does help in keeping any major cables away from the side, as most laptops traditionally install said access to peripherals.
Healthy but not a bountiful amount of I/O ports.
There is a bit of clever design with the ports, though. Take the USB-A port on the right side of the Omen 16 – it’s been positioned right up to the edge of the rear, and it’s for the simplest of reasons: if you’re using a wired mouse, then the connection doesn’t get in the way of my wild mouse motions.
There is one aspect of the Omen 16 that baffles me slightly, and it is HP’s choice of storage capacity and its configuration. Rather than give it a full 1TB of PCIe 4.0 storage, there are two 512GB M.2 SSD sticks inside this machine, and they aren’t even in any form of RAID mode. This choice alone means that I was left contemplating which game title I needed to install, and on which of the two drives they would populate. It’s all highly unnecessary and I think that HP simply did this to populate both M.2 slots inside the laptop.
The base of the Omen 16 feels solid, despite it sounding hollow whenever I tap the bottom half of the keyboard or when I’m typing out an essay or this review on it. On that note, there is a very slight amount of bowing if you press down on the middle of the keyboard but to be fair, it only happens if you actually make a concerted effort in doing so.
The keyboard itself is full-sized but surprisingly doesn’t feel cramped. However, and as I’ve said in past reviews of other laptops with such a keyboard, there is still an acclimation process to it, especially if you’re the kind of person who prefers a tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard.
Moving on to another issue, if you’re thinking about prying open the base of the laptop, I do wish you luck. The cover at the bottom of the Omen 16 is so tightly sealed on, and by that, I mean even with the screws removed, there is no gap
Performance and Battery Life
Despite its 16.1-inch panel, the Omen 16’s display isn’t a 16:10 but 16:9, not that there is anything wrong with that. The viewing experience is actually pretty solid: the colour palette feels a little more saturated than I like but on the upside, visuals are crisp and sharp, and with that 140W RTX 4070 inside, all my games ran at comfortable average frame rates above the 45 fps mark.
Decent gaming with random sluggishness throughout the review.
That isn’t to say that there aren’t any performance quirks of deficiencies to the Omen 16. With just 16GB RAM, the laptop tends getting a little snippy with loading times and more often than not throughout the review process, I find myself having to reboot the laptop on occasion. Simply because it takes forever for the laptop to execute the simplest of task: opening up the file explorer or a web browser. And in this state, God forbid if you should try and fire up a benchmark program or a game.
Then there is the portability of the Omen 16. Yes, it’s a laptop, and laptops are designed to be carried around to wherever you are, but at 2.37kg, it’s far from the lightest machine that I’ve ever had to carry around
As I mentioned, the full-sized keyboard takes some getting used to if you’re coming from a TKL and in my case, I actually find myself physically shifting my entire body to the left of the Omen 16, just so that my hands could type properly. On another note, the trackpad feels equally as solid but in my opinion, it is perhaps a little too sensitive in its galvanic response to touch: sometimes, the ball of my thumb grazes it and if it isn’t disabled, I’ll suddenly begin seeing windows switching or closing, when that clearly isn’t what I want or was intending to do.
The acoustics on the Omen 16 are some of the best that I’ve heard from a gaming laptop. Even when under stress – playing a graphically demanding title, running a benchmark that stresses out the CPU. Those sort of things – the cooling system always sounds composed and controlled. It never gets or sounds violent like a sports cars with a heavily modified exhaust that really isn’t as cool as the owner thinks it is.
Very serviceable battery life, thanks to the large battery and 7940HS.
The legs on the Omen 16’s battery are quite long, which isn’t all that surprising, seeing how the CPU is a Ryzen 9 7940HS. It’s the same CPU used in other AMD-powered laptops, such as Razer’s current iteration of its Blade 14 or ASUS’ ROG Zephyrus G14. I average between eight and nine hours using the laptop as my daily driver, and there are times when I manage to stretch that longevity to 10 hours.
Competition
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16
ASUS’ ROG Zephyrus G6 is an obvious contender to the Omen 16, even if it isn’t rocking all the same components beneath the hood. Specifically, the laptop runs on Intel’s 13th Gen Core i9-13900H, and the top-specced model ASUS Malaysia brings is only fitted with an RTX 4060 discrete graphics. That said, it does come with double the amount of RAM at 32GB but it is DDR4 and not DDR5.
The display itself is 16-inches too but unlike the Omen 16, it’s a 16:10 aspect ratio, as well as a 240Hz refresh rate panel. Its maximum resolution is QHD+ as well. Lastly, it retails from RM6,999 but it should be noted that the highest-tier SKU costs will set you back RM8,999.
MSI Stealth 16
The highest tier MSI Stealth 16 features nearly similar hardware to the Omen 16, and is actually a little more customisable. First announced back during CES 2023, the laptop runs off an Intel 13th Gen mobile CPU, a 16-inch display that can either be a FHD+ 240Hz, QHD+ 165Hz, or UHD+ 120Hz panel with a 16:10 aspect ratio.
Additionally, this particular model is equipped with an RTX 4070 105W discrete graphics, as well as up to 64GB DDR5-5200 RAM. Price-wise, the Stealth 16 retails from RM10,999.
Razer Blade 16
The Razer Blade 16 is perhaps one of the interesting alternatives to the Omen 16, especially if you’re into the whle Dual Mode Mini LED display it has going on for it. In my review, the unit I tested had a 16-inch display that could switch between being an FHD+ 240Hz or 4K 120Hz panel.
Internally, the unit I had was kitted out with an Intel Core i9-13950HX, and NVIDIA RTX 4070 but it should be noted that the Blade 16 has SKUs that can go all the way up to an RTX 4090. Other specifications include 32GB DDR5-5600 RAM, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD, and a massive 95.2WHr battery. Regarding price, this SKU is more than double that of the Omen 16 at RM16,999.
Conclusion
It is good to see HP back on track in the gaming laptop circuit with the Omen 16, especially after playing catch up in offering modern and up-to-date machines for the last few years. At RM8,999, though, it’s not the cheapest gaming laptop on the market but considering its competition and the prices they’re charging, and for an RTX 4070 no less, it’s far from unreasonable.
At the end of the day, the Omen 16 is a serviceable laptop, sporting a decent and power-efficient Ryzen 7000 Series CPU, a moderately powerful NVIDIA GPU, a better-than-average QHD+ display with equally impressive refresh rate, and a large battery that contributes to its endurance. On top of that, it’s got a clean, no-nonsense chassis that still manages to look slick.
Photography by John Law.
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