HP Omen 15 best mid-range gaming laptop?

Calneon

Calneon

Calneon

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Hi, it looks like the HP Omen 15 is a bit of a no-brainer for a gaming laptop in the £1000-£1500 range, though options and availability is very limited in the UK at the moment.

  • It is reviewing very well, and seems like a major step up from HP's previous offerings.
  • AMD 4800H is a much better value proposition than any Intel chip.
  • 2060 version incredibly well priced compared to competition. It seems OcUK is the only place to get this variant in the UK right now (other places either have the 1660Ti or 2070 version).
  • Looks great, no garish 'gamer' aesthetics.
  • Only 8GB RAM but OcUK says it has capacity for 16GB so that's great.
In terms of other options at this price/performance point, there's:
  • Lenovo Legion 5i - Much worse Intel i5 CPU, less drive space, and my gut says HP > Lenovo though I am not sure what I am basing that on. It is a bit cheaper though. I am mainly put off by the CPU.
  • ASUS Zephyrus G14 - Reviews well, aesthetic is nice, but you're looking at >£1500 for the 2060 variant.
  • ASUS TUF A15 - Hasn't reviewed as well, some citing poor thermals (haven't done much research though). It's the 'cheaper' variant of the Zephyrus line but still significantly more than the HP Omen 15.
  • MSI/Razer - Haven't looked much into these, but from first glance the price is too high compared to the other options.
So, if the HP Omen 15 was in stock right now I would buy it, but it's on pre-order for the 7th August from OcUK and not available in that configuration anywhere else in the UK that I can see. I am not too familiar with pre-order items on OcUK, does that date mean if I order it now, it will be shipped on the 7th? What's the chance of it being delayed? Is there a pre-order queue, and is there a chance I might have to wait for a restock even if I buy now?

Thanks!
 
You can get the Legion 7i for 1599 and that reviews very well.


  • Intel Core i7-10875H Octa Core Processor
  • 15.6" Full HD IPS 144Hz 100% Adobe RGB Screen
  • Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit
  • 16GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM
  • 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD
  • Dedicated GeForce RTX 2060 6GB Graphics
  • USB 3.1 Type-C | HDMI 2.0 | Bluetooth 5.0 | Thunderbolt 3
  • RGB Backlit Keyboard
  • Nvidia G-Sync + Nvidia Optimus
  • 81YU001QUK
Part No: 81YU001QUK
 
I picked up the Omen 15 2020 with a i7 10750, RTX2070 and 1TB NVMe before any reviews were out and I am very happy with it.

  • Yes there is flex in the screen but I don't feel like its going to break and once its opened its not like its constantly flapping back and forth, everything else is solid.
  • The thermals when gaming are fantastic, I have not seen the CPU much higher than 80C and the GPU above 65C and I have yet to undervolt.
  • The screen is excellent, bright, fast and after my Spyder calibration for Lightroom use it achieved 100% sRGB no problem.
  • It is not silent when used for general office work, browsing etc but its still very quiet in my opinion, but manual fan control in the Omen Command software would be nice (option is there but doesn't seem to actually work).
  • I bought this for work and they paid, so the fact its aesthetics don't scream "gaming laptop" was the huge plus for me.
 
Got an email from OcUK saying the HP Omen 15 2060 variant is delayed a month due to AMD supply issues. It's a shame, but since I can't wait a month I will buy the 1660 variant from the HP store I think, I only really miss out on DLSS possibility which I don't mind since this is only an auxiliary machine and I have my desktop for proper gaming.
 
Slight deviation but a positive for HP customer support, if anyone here did buy the HP Omen 15 2020 prior to them adding the 3 year care pack in for free (like me), just email customer support they have given me the 3 year care pack for the grand total of £0.01.

Pretty happy, all I did was email them saying I purchased the laptop upon release and noticed they had quickly added in the free, 3 year care pack and asked if I was eligible.
 
JDR82 said:
Slight deviation but a positive for HP customer support, if anyone here did buy the HP Omen 15 2020 prior to them adding the 3 year care pack in for free (like me), just email customer support they have given me the 3 year care pack for the grand total of £0.01.

Pretty happy, all I did was email them saying I purchased the laptop upon release and noticed they had quickly added in the free, 3 year care pack and asked if I was eligible.
Click to expand...
I got the free care package when I ordered yesterday, thought that was nice.

However, device arrived today (great delivery time!) and the diamond accent on the front was severely scratched below the surface:

TczSxeJ.png


Needless to say I requested a replacement. Hopefully their support has a quick turnaround.
 
chipps101 said:
That is not a good omen :D
Click to expand...
Hah, nice.

New Omen arrived yesterday and no issues with it that I can see! Some initial impressions:

  • Build quality is fantastic, feels very solid and the finish is very nice.
  • Didn't come with too much crap pre-installed, was easy to remove stuff I didn't want (McAfee trial, Office trial, etc).
  • Screen is wonderful, and I haven't calibrated it yet. Took a while to find and disable the adaptive brightness which was incredibly annoying when in a dark room (since the amount of white on screen would cause the ambient brightness to increase, causing the screen brightness to increase). It ended up being 'Vari-Bright' in the Radeon control panel.
  • Keyboard feels very nice to type on. Some keys are in un-optimal positions, such as the backslash to the right of the keyboard instead of to the left of Z, and # below backspace instead of the top part of the enter key. No big deal though.
  • You can hear the fans whine even when idle, which isn't great. I knew this was a known issue before purchasing but it is a bit more irritating than I thought it would be. Not a deal breaker though.
  • Audio seems slightly worse than my previous laptop (from ************) but that one did have particularly good speakers. Not expecting anything special here.
  • Haven't played any demanding games on it yet but can't forsee any issues with the 1660 at 1080p.
 
I don't think you'll be disappointed with the 1660ti, it's very capable and probably the best value laptop gpu atm.

I have it in my A15 and am really happy with how it performs.
 
Update: Internal speaker stopped working yesterday. Seems like a hardware problem, as a full Windows reset, BIOS rollback, didn't help. Requested a refund again.

I think I'll order a custom laptop from 'the-place-that-shal-not-be-named' instead of trying a third time for an Omen. I did like it a lot, but a combination of having to return two of these laptops, the slightly annoying idle fan noise, keyboard layout, and poor audio (ignoring the internal speaker failure, some YouTube videos were clipping at high volume which annoys me), makes me not want to order another one.

@chipps101 definitely not a good Omen :D
 
:( I'm sorry that the laptop hasn't lived up to expectations, we need as many good choices as possible to keep prices competitive.

For all the bad press it's had I have to say I am happy with my A15, but I did know its bad points in advance and went to see it first before buying and compared it to the msi gf65 and acer nitro 5 at the same price and walked out the store with the A15.
 
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