HP’s various Omen line of gaming PCs come in a variety of models and years, and 2023 is no exception – even though they (as of last year) started flirting with AMD in earnest.
You can get a lot of different versions, and some models are only available in a few stores, which is a bit confusing, but on the other hand, there are also tons of different versions.
What you’ll usually find in stores is the 13700HX, 32GB DFDR5, 1TB NVMe and RTX 4070 version for £1,300. Our test build had an RTX 4080. They all come with IPS displays, but some only have 1080p/165Hz. There’s also a 1440p/240Hz version, which has an extra 1TB of space (our review copy had it), and a similar 1600p version.
Before that, however, we need to talk about the elephant in the room. That chin guard – why? All other 16:10 format computers can remove it, so why keep 16:9 and ugly borders? It’s ugly and distracting and shouldn’t exist in 2023. Additionally, I found the touchpad on the machine to be very plasticky, and there were too many pre-installed software. Additionally, it appears that instead of the 175-watt version of the RTX 4080 card, a 145-watt version will be used.
On the other hand, there’s connectivity galore; Ethernet, two Thunderbolt 4 USB-Cs, ro USB-A, and HDMI 2.1, among others. It’s what you’d expect, it covers everything.
On the software side, there’s…a lot. many. I counted at least 12 preinstalled programs that I didn’t really need. Additionally, the UI is littered with offers for various subscription services, and more importantly, these services sneak into the Omen Gaming Hub, your central control software – something I find hard to forgive in any way. Also, I find it strange that their “booster” mode doesn’t really have any impact.
The screens are pretty good, some better and some much worse. This is a 3ms 240Hz IPS 1440p display, which is great for gaming. This is what all laptops should come with – 1440p at 240Hz is just right for screens up to 17 inches when you’re sitting that close. However, I found it hard to believe that the color accuracy was very good, and I struggled to find an official DCI-P3 rating for the monitor, and indeed HP’s website is, as usual, very sparse.
The webcam is okay, not great, but much better than many other cameras. The 2.44kg weight may be a bit heavy, especially since the design otherwise looks modern and streamlined, but high-end PCs tend to be heavy. On the other hand, the lighting and keyboard are pretty good for everyday use.
Battery life is long but not impressive at just over four hours, and for some reason it uses 83 Whr instead of 99.9 Whr like most other batteries.
The heat is a bit of an issue as you can feel the heat when you press it, especially on the left side of the keyboard where your fingers are. The CPU reaches 100 degrees and the GPU reaches 75 degrees. And it’s also very noisy. This also means that we will reach 58dB noise during operation.
Then there are the benchmarks
3D Benchmarks
- Time Spy Supreme Edition: 8239
- Port Royal: 10640
- 1080p: 52, 89 ray tracing ultra high, no frame generation
- 1440p: 36, 81, 56 ray tracing ultra high, no frame generation
- 1080 points: 83,26
- 1440 points: 56,17
Cyberpunk 2077
“Assassin’s Creed: Hall of Valor”
Red Dead Redemption 2
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Far Cry 6
I have mixed feelings about this. The HP Omen 16 2023 Edition has a nice screen, keyboard, and webcam, and I like the design, but raw performance and especially the price, high heat, and very high noise levels are a drawback. Competitors can do it better for the same or the same price, cost less, make less noise and heat, and all the annoying extra software already installed only complicates the situation – I can’t imagine spending the money in 2023 It takes half an hour to clean this junk off your new computer.
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