I have been looking for a laptop that could compete with my Helios 300 for the price, and man have I found it! It's slightly more expensive, however, it's also an 8core/16 thread CPU.
Here are my thoughts:
Packaging-
Pretty standard box, laptop comes wrapped in a plastic sheet with the power supply in a small compartment next to it and the usual manuals and warranty card. Nothing exciting or flashy here.
Thermals-
This laptop's cooling system is phenomenal. I have been playing Far Cry 5, max settings, 60fps+ and the highest temp it reached was 90c on the CPU, and 74c on the GPU. Dying Light max settings 75c on CPU and 72c on GPU. I am absolutely shocked by these temps, my Helios which has the 9750h/1660ti configuration AFTER repasting with coolermaster maker pro, STILL reaches 97c-99c on CPU playing just World of Warcraft(which by the way stays at high 70s on CPU on this laptop) I did run AIDA64 on max fan settings and the CPU did hit 103c, which was rather scary, after much digging around, I found out that it's an AMD boost clock issue, and can be easily fixed by disabling the boost clock. There are plenty of videos on youtube on how to do this. Now I understand most people want something that works out of the box and trust me, this does perfectly. You'll never reach those high temps under normal circumstances unless you buy a laptop just for stress testing 24/7 ;p . By the way, the fans are whisper quiet, max fan settings are a little loud but not distracting.
Screen-
The screen is 144hz, not sure about the ms because HP does not disclose it. This particular model has Freesync(40-60hz range), you need to enable it as it's disabled by default. My panel doesn't have backlight bleed or glow but that varies from panel to panel.
Battery-
I use it plugged in as it doesn't make much sense to game on battery.
Keyboard-
The keyboard is phenomenal. It has 4 zone RGB. They keys feel nice when pressed and there's a satisfying feedback. They don't feel mushy at all like a certain competitor with the G and a number 14. >_> The lighting is also perfect and uniform. It doesn't have a side numeral keypad, but that's not a huge deal for me. It has a dedicated key for the Omen Command Center software which is pretty neat. The power button is interestingly located next to the F12 key and in between a delete key. There's a little section on the side with the insert key/home/pg up/down/pause/end/print etc.(one key for a calculator shortcut o.O I actually like this one)
Software-
It doesn't come with a ton of bloatware, just the usual suspect, vpn, mcafee(dear God), dropbox and some HP software. I normally get rid of the OEM software but these are pretty useful, you can update the drivers/bios etc. It also comes with OMEN Command Center, this thing is pretty neat. You can control the RGB keyboard through here, manage fan profiles. Overclock the system, keep an eye on vitals such as temps/utilization etc. It also has a pretty neat rewards tab that gives you rewards for literally just playing games. Think sweepstakes or $5 BK gift cards etc for things such as playing Call of Duty for 30mins.
Speakers-
The speakers on this thing are beastly.
Uses Bang & Olufsen speakers, the sound is perfect. It's pretty loud and fills a small room.
Upgradeability-
8 screws to remove bottom panel, (4 big screws on the back, 4 small on the front). You can use a guitar pick to undo the latches on the edges and remove the bottom panel. Here you have 2 sticks of DDR4 3200mhz RAM. Not soldered from what I saw(yay:D) Your wifi 6 module, battery and 2 nvme slots(which by the way, they each come with their shields to prevent overheating!)
Port Selection-
4 USB ports in total.
3 USB Type 3.1 type A ports(1 on left side, 2 on right side towards the side of the screen)
1 USB Type 3.1 type C port
1 HDMI Port
1 Headphone jack
1 Mini display port
1 SD card reader
Overall build quality-
Build quality is pretty good. It's a budget laptop and that reflects on the material. Not that it looks cheap or anything, but it uses a lot of plastic. Lid, bottom cover, palm rest are plastic, keyboard area is aluminum. You're not getting CNC aluminum for the price here. It looks and feels very nice. Speaking of the lid the logo is different and more subtle now. Very minimalist. By the way, the color is supposed to be Mica Silver, but it's closer to a light shade of black than silver.
-Conclusion
This year there's plenty of good laptops out there, there are several offerings from intel and AMD. This one's a pretty solid one, I'm surprised it's not getting more press. I've already went through several other mainstream brands and they've been nothing but trouble, whether it's a mushy keyboard with pretty bad back light and a screen that randomly goes black, or a device that you could fry an egg on top because the temps are outrageous and the fans sound like jet engines. I think this one is a pretty good compromise between price and performance. The 1660ti is a very capable GPU, please don't think that because it's not some 2070 super or 2080 you won't be getting awesome frames because it's simply not true. You're missing out on raytracing which is honestly overrated, that's it. Thanks for reading and if you do buy this one, I hope you enjoy it!