I started looking at laptops after seeing a daily deal on an MSI laptop that had an RTX 2060 for $1100. I thought to myself that it would be all I would want in a laptop. Seeing as how I have 2 gaming desktops at home and I'm very anti laptop, this isn't something I'd normally purchase. However, I've been away from home a lot the last 3 months, and my Nintendo Switch was starting to bore me.
After hours of reading and considering what I wanted, I decided to purchase this HP Omen 17 laptop. I admit, I still have concern that it's a Hewlett Packard. I've been a home PC user since the 80s and at no point would I ever thought I'd buy an HP. I've owned 2 DELL computers, but I'd avoid HP like I'd avoid Compaq.
So why buy an HP laptop? Well, take a look at the price vs Asus, Acer, MSI, or Dell and it's obvious. What we have here is package that other brands would sell for about $3000. Laptops with an i7 9750H and an RTX 2080 video card are not cheap. So did HP cut corners? Kind of.
The backlit keyboard isn't that bright and doesn't stand out in a decently lit room. There's also the problem with the color accuracy of the lighting isn't that good. You can either get a dim red or a bright pink. Change the shade a little and you'll get orange or purple. You can either get bright green or a greenish white. Yellow comes out mostly greenish. It does blue rather well, but like red and green, it only has about 2 shades despite the sliders that suggest better tweaking. White is in the bright blue spectrum. They feeling of the keyboard is fine. I find it easy to type on which is more than I can say about my Logitech Orion Spectrum. But the lighting on that is superior.
The screen obvious doesn't compare to my two Asus ROG 4K HDR (PG27UQ) monitors, didn't expect it to. There is some light bleed in all 4 corners, but I only notice it on completely dark screens like when Windows is booting up. Sensitive people might lose their minds though. It's a 1920x1080 resolution screen that seems to allow HDR video (not gaming or apps) and HDR does show up on Netflix, but I see no indication of it actually doing anything. I'm most satisfied with the color, and according to expert review sites, the screen is about as good as the 1080 laptops at higher prices. At 144hz, the RTX 2080 video card will have its work cut out for it!
The i7 9750H does run hot, but it's a laptop and laptops just don't have desktop level cooling. I've seen temps at 100*C while the CPU runs at around 4000 to 4300 GHz. Idle temps running around 45*C. Most users suggest undervolting and that's exactly what I did. After a -120mV drop the high temps are more or less around 85*C. Idle temps don't go down unless you you change the power mode to BETTER or enable an option for the CPU to lower the processor speed. It will idle around 35*C if enabled, but there's a performance hit while gaming. There's also suggestions to redo the thermal paste, but I'm not read to go that far yet. I do have a cooling pad, but I see no evidence that it helps.
The RTX 2080 video card turned out to be the video card I would have wanted. An RTX 2060 wouldn't have given me the performance I want. Let's be clear that this is NOT the lame Max Q version. This is a real RTX 2080. I've read it's likely running 150W. The Asus ROG runs a 200W 2080, but has 2 power supplies. Benchmarks from various websites show almost no difference between the HP Omen and the Asus ROG. According to MSI Afterburner, my RTX 2080 hits about 1920 MHz on the core. I can run Metro Exodus on the highest settings with VSync at half (72hz) and it's a smooth experience. Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark hits 70 to 72fps with everything turned up and using TAA and VSync disabled. I expected more from the RTX 2080 seeing as how I have 2 RTX 2080 Ti cards and it only takes one to hammer out 4K/60hz/HDR. So the 2080 is what you want for the best settings in 1920x1080 gaming. At medium or high settings I can see using an external 4K monitor, but certainly not ultra. On the note of temps, the 2080 has not gone higher than 70*C which really makes me happy.
This model comes with a Samsung 256GB m.2 NVMe drive and a 1TB WD Black drive. There is also a second m.2 slot available with this model. If you've got a ton of money to throw at it, you could toss in 2 2TB NVMe drives and a 4TB SSD for a total of 8TB of solid state drive space.
The Omen laptop does obvious come with some HP software installed. I was having constant blue screen errors. Page Fault in Nonpaged Area. Looking at the error reports, it seems HP's disk checking software was having issues with an SD card or Microsoft Game Pass games installed on a drive other than C. After disabling and uninstalling, I haven't had any problems.
The case and keyboard are fingerprint magnets. Looking at the keypad, it's obvious what keys are pressed for the Windows 10 login. It might take some clean wipes to clean. Unless you wear gloves, expect it look like somebody was eating while using the computer.
Overall, I'm happy with this laptop. Yes, it has some issues out of the box and I obviously can't upgrade it like I could a desktop. What I wanted was a gaming laptop that would handle 1080 gaming with the same quality settings of my desktop PCs. This laptop does exactly that. I didn't pay the premium that comes with other RTX 2080 laptops, and I got it while it was on sale. If you're PC savvy and need a gaming laptop instead of a desktop for some reason, the HP Omen should be on your list.