HP OMEN - Mindframe Prime Wired Gaming Headset for PS4, PC, and Mac - Black

Amazing product and excellent customer service very pleased with this product

Unboxing This headset is secured quite well into its box. Four twist ties hold it to a piece of cardboard and the front is shrouded in plastic for display on store shelves. Once you get everything open and uncovered, you’ll find the headset, Omen stickers, and normal paperwork with warranty information inside. I love the way this headset looks. The all black with red accents is sexy. The Omen name comes with the reputation of quality and this headset is no different. While mostly plastic, manufacturing clearly has tight tolerances as there is no creaking whatsoever in the mic or headband, even when stretched beyond normal. Headband Speaking of the headband, it’s definitely one of the features of this headset that make it so great. The headset that I swapped for this guy is lighter, but hurts the arch of my head so badly after brief (30-60 min) gaming sessions. The HP Omen Mindframe Prime is a very heavy headset, but you don’t feel that weight when it’s on your head. The suspension system distributes the weight evenly and I have gamed for 6+ hours straight without needing to make any adjustments. FrostCap Technology The other big selling point on this headset for me was the FrostCap technology. What does that mean exactly? FrostCap actively cools the plastic mesh inside the headset, drawing heat away from your ears during use. There are no fans blowing this cool air around, so its effects are subtle, but substantial during long use. With my old headset, my ears would sweat. Yes, I agree that’s gross. But again, with the HP Omen Mindframe Prime I can do longer 6+ hour gaming sessions without any of that. Other Features Other features found on the headset include a flip-to-mute mic with a light at the tip that illuminates red when muted and a volume wheel. The flip-to-mute mic is a feature in a headset I didn’t even know I needed. When I’m gaming and someone comes into my room to talk, I can simply flip my mic up instead of fumbling back to Discord in order to mute myself. This is a great feature and can spare your friends from hearing awkward family conversations. Behind the right ear cup, you will find a volume wheel that does what you’d expect - changes the volume on PC in increments of two. Pretty standard, but feels robust and a nice feature while in the middle of a game, movie, or song. Sound Quality I am impressed by the sound quality of this headset. Voices are clear while chatting and the 7.1 virtual surround allows you to hear directionality within games. This headset could be used for jam sessions with solid bass and crisp mids and highs. Omen Command Center The first time you plug the HP Omen Mindframe Prime headset into your computer, the Omen Command Center app will be downloaded. Once you agree to a little data collection, the app gives you the ability to adjust audio levels, activate/ deactivate 7.1 surround sound and environmental noise cancellation, play with the equalizer, change the LED color on both ear cups, adjust the amount of cooling, and enable/ disable the flip-to-mute mic feature. There’s a lot of functionality here in a simplified layout. Something I really appreciate is that the app does NOT have to be running in the background for the changes you’ve made to be saved. Other gaming mice that I have used, for example, will not maintain the color you have chosen unless the app is still running. The Omen Command Center does not have this problem. Make your choice, close the app, and it will stay that way until changed. Overall Impressions All-in-all, I really like this headset and it will obviously be my go-to while on my PC. Despite being heavy, it is built well and comfortable with the suspension headband and FrostCap cooling technology. With the ability to customize almost every aspect of the headset, what isn’t there to love?

I have been gaming both PC and consoles for many years and I have never had a pair of truly “gaming headset”. I have always had high-end stereo headphones that I thought were more than sufficient for gaming. I knew they were not 7.1 but I did not believe that virtual surround sound was that big a deal…BOY WAS I WRONG!!! OMEN kills it with the 7.1 virtual surround. IT IS JUST amazing just how dynamic and engrossing the sound canvas is!!! While playing a very popular 1st person shooter game, one of the maps in the game has a bookstore in Piccadilly Square. When I went in to that I was taken aback by the ambient music in the book store. I thought for a split second it was in my house and I took off the head phones to check. Really Cool! Then I noticed just how much better my gameplay was when I truly could hear the other players near, far, upstairs, in another building …down the street, It really puts you into the action like I have never experienced before! I feel sad that I have gone this long in gaming an not experienced it until now!! Better late than never. I also told the other players I had a new head set and asked if they could hear me and multiple players in multiple game sessions commented on my voice quality and clarity. The next thing that blew me away was the ear cup cooling system. This thing is magic! So after just about an hour of game playing I touched the metal cooling coil (or what ever it is) and it was COLD to the touch!!! Not cool….COLD! That feature isn’t just a “cool” gimmick it really makes a difference in the comfort level of extended game playing. It’s not an air vent or fan trick…It’s cooling coils of some sort that make your ears feel nice and cool and comfortable! After about an hour and a half of constant wear and game play, cool comfort was the end result! With my other headphones after an hour or so of game play my ears were hot and sweaty and my ears felt like they had a fever!!!! I didn’t like that but never knew there was a fix to that…I guess there wasn’t until OMEN invented it with these bad boys! Amazing tech! I also really like the OMEN Command System Software. It was super easy to change the LED colors on the ear cups and the level of cooling (Minimum, Medium and Max) cooling coils will give you. You can also turn on a slight “beep” feature when the boom mic is muted and unmuted. The red light on the tip of the mic when it ’s muted is a nice touch! You can also adjust all the EQ’s as well and use enhanced footsteps and FPS setting as well. It also has the ability to turn off the 7.1 surround sound and an Environmental Noise Canceling system. These headphones are kinda of heavy but for the cooling trade off and and the sound quality, it’s a fair trade for the weight. Despite being a little heavy they are comfortable. I wore them for an hour and half to two hours without any discomfort! The headband set up does a good job of offsetting the weight. Overall Incredible headphones and the cooling…I’m telling you….Magic! The 7.1 surround sound really put me in the game and increased my gaming ability especially in the FPS! AWESOME OMEN MINDFRAME PRIME!!

There’s a lot to like about the Mindframe Prime. The cooling built-in does work, it’s well built, and the sound quality is good. I do have some minor issues with it, but overall I think it’s a good buy and a solid all-around headset. My initial impressions during the unboxing were very positive. The headset is somewhat bulky, but feels like it could take a lot of abuse. The plastic feels solid throughout and doesn’t flex where it shouldn’t. It fit on my head perfectly thanks to the elastic headband, something I particularly appreciated since I’m the kind of person who needs to make sure the adjustment notches on other headsets are even on either side. Though it did fit perfectly, my fat head pushed the band to pretty much its maximum adjustment, so if you have a big head like me it might be worth trying it on first. There’s a knurled metal volume knob on the back of the right earcup that is just great, though there are no microphone controls besides the raise to mute function on the mic boom. The design is nice and matches the Omen PCs well; it’s just a tad too gamer-y for me, but my personal preference is the understated look and I think what HP did here walks that line as well as it could. The braided cable is attached on the left earcup and is a bit over 6ft long (probably 2 meters I’m guessing), which feels like a comfortable length to me. I do think that the cable that runs between the 2 earcups is just a little bit too long though; you end up with these little cable nubs sticking out on each side of the headset. It doesn’t affect the usability at all, but it’s kind of weird looking. Getting into actually using the headset, I found the sound quality to be good, though I would not recommend turning the virtual 7.1 option on; it is turned off by default. There were certain scenarios where the virtual 7.1 does seem to improve the immersion slightly, but mostly it tends to just turn most audio into an echo chamber. I have been using another headset with Dolby Atmos for Headphones - I was hoping to enable that for this headset as well, but it doesn’t appear to be compatible. Still, the standard stereo sound is very good and has a good amount of clarity and fullness to it. The microphone also sounds good and the sidetone option pipes a bit of your voice through the headset so you don’t feel like you’re talking with earmuffs on. There are LEDs on both earcups that can be changed to any color in the Omen app and I turned them off, though again my personal preference skews towards the more understated look. The headlining feature of this headset is that the earcups are actively cooled. It DOES really work and if you reach in and touch the metal grilles it’s ice cold, though in practice the cooling effect on my ears was very subtle and it was hard to tell if they were doing anything unless I really pressed my ears into them. I don’t typically sweat much around the ears with other headsets anyway, so maybe I’m not the best judge of its effectiveness. I wouldn’t call the Mindframe Prime my favorite headset, but I’m still very happy with them overall. If the cooling was the only thing they had going for them I would not recommend them, but I’d still be happy with them even if they didn’t have it.

In the heat of battle, the last thing you need is a distraction of sweat running down the back of your neck and your ears are hot because your headphones do not breathe. This problem is the one that HP has solved. Presenting the Frostcap enabled HP Omen Mindframe Prime gaming headsets. A mouthful of words, but it works. Technology: What is Frostcap? In layman terms, it is HP’s implementation of when the headphone ear cups cool down when plugged in, and feeds a cooling effect to your ears inside the headphone, giving the feeling of cold to your ears lobes. For the technical minded, the Peltier effect is driven by a perforated metal plate in the middle of the ear cup. Voltage is applied across the thermoelectric module (a semiconductor) and heat is removed on one side and thus cools down on the inside of your ear cup and it warms up the outside metal plate of the headphone. Peltier effects are used in various products and are solid-state and in this scenario should last a very long time. There are several situations where a Frostcap headset would come in handy. From LAN events to everyday gaming, to these strange times where one works from home, the use of headphones that can prevent you from having sweaty ears is a godsend. The cooling effect makes wearing the headphones quite comfortable. I pulled out my FLIR camera to get a few pictures and noted that the coldest part of the headphone was about 23.2C (74F), with the center being 25.4C (77F), with my office being exceptionally warm at 83F. This cooling feature works, and works very well! To adjust this cooling feature, one must have the HP software installed. Build Quality: The build quality of the headphones is very good. I enjoyed the fact that I could wear it for hours and not have headphone fatigue that a lot of headphones create. The suspension band on the headphones help balance the weight, and it is effective, as these are over 1 pound in weight. The outer ear cups are made of a breathable cloth layer, which is cushioning and yet sound-insulating. It's quite thick and comfortable and keeps the ears from sweating. The built-in microphone is clear and works well for games and applications like Zoom on a video conference call. The microphone came with a foam pop filter, but that kept falling off (I need to find a better way to secure it), the microphone has a neat on/off feature, when you flip it down or up - however, the LED light at the tip is reversed, it should be “red” when on but seems to light up when muted. I also appreciated the extra-long wire-wound USB cable, which makes access to the distant USB port easy. Software: The audio interface is USB only, and frost caps controls are within the software. In fact, without the software, these headphone’s abilities are limited. Thankfully Windows 10 1903 automatically downloads the OMEN Command Center and drivers when the device is plugged in. The headphone looks like it uses the C-Media CM6206/CM6210 chipset, which is a pretty decent sound chip in its own right. So if you don’t want to use the built-in audio chipset on your laptop or desktop, this headphone can handle all the output you require. The software has lots of options, from lighting adjustment, to sound effects (7.1 surrounds, equalizer). I found the software requesting approval for the privacy policy before it opens the first time, which is odd for a software driver interface. Evidently HP is using some online components to this, as it does have other options like “remote play” and “My games”, which require the use of HP Omen Services. The software works without signing in, however, I found it irritating, that an interface has a package of privacy and data collection disclaimers. I did not get to dive into what kind of data it sends back to HP if any. Sound Quality: First off, these are not “noise-canceling headphones”. Now that is done with, I should say that the sound quality for these headphones is very good out of the box. However, if you need to tweak it, you will need the software to access the equalizer. These headphones require a bit of equalizer adjustment. The default sounds are a bit lacking. I found the flat option is good to bring out audio excellence while listening to music with dark passages that are crystal clear, but even then I felt it was a bit lacking in a bit of clarity. Adjusting the sliders made quite a change, but on the lazy side, using “Rock” worked rather well in improving quality. The microphone has a neat trick when turned on in the software. When enabled in “environmental noise cancellation” (do not confuse it with noise cancellation of the headphones) - it uses both microphones on the wand to noise cancel the surrounding voice. It worked rather effectively during zoom conference calls. I also liked the “sidetone” feature, which is like zero-latency audio feedback of the microphone input on your headphone, so you can hear yourself. Since this is a gaming headphone, and I have been stuck working from home. I have been playing a lot of my old favorites including, “Counter-Strike Global Offensive” (incidentally a free FPS game). I appreciate the positional sounds when using 7.1 surrounds in the gaming mode. It really gave my gaming abilities a boost. I could quickly hear gunfire direction to join the battle. My beat-up old headphones did not have this positioning ability in surround mode. Misc: I found it funny that HP’s manual had 35 languages in its folder. It’s one product that is sold worldwide, and it is worth having it in all those languages, cause this is a fine product. I also liked the little omen design logo everywhere on the packaging and on the headphones. The added Omen stickers were kinda nice. I found that this headphone works on a Chromebook (Chrome OS), Mac OS (Catalina 10.15.2) - you need to define the sound output in the audio panel, and on Linux Ubuntu 16.04 (needs a bit of tweaking, it detects it but you need to manually define where the sound output goes). Pros: * The ear cooling works, but after a while, its effect is kinda moot and you don’t feel it. * Sound quality is great - by default, 2 channel, and one can turn on simulated 7.1 surround * The equalizers work great, the various sound options work, it requires a bit of equalizer to be turned on in the software * The microphone works well, clear communication and good for recording a narration to videos if needed. * Windows 10 - 1903 automatically downloads the OMEN software when plugged in * Uses USB and has a C-Media chip for its sound - excellent sound quality Cons: * The Environmental Noise canceling on the software should not be confused with “noise-canceling” for the headphones, it makes changes to the sound recorded by the microphone by eliminating background noise. * When you change brightness on the software panel, the color is white. You lose color at its brightest setting. * Mic gain controls are in the software controls, with no physical dial like the volume. The LED on the mic wand is lit when muted vs. when lowered.

I have an Omen Obelisk desktop and this is the perfect addition to it. The styling, function, and lighting fit with the rig. Setup -- it's plug and play. As soon as you plug it into a USB port, it works great with just standard features. However, to get the full benefit of this headset, you really have to set it up in the Omen Command Center. I like how the settings are integrated into the Omen Command Center app -- it's a logical place to put it, and you get way more than you do with the standard Windows sound controls. That feature does require some driver downloads, but it was fairly straight-forward to install the drivers through Windows Update. Once you have it set up in Omen Command Center, you get awesome features such as noise cancellation, EQ settings, surround sound, and lots of custom settings specifically for gaming. It would be nice if you could sync the lighting settings with the desktop lighting settings. I have not tried it with my other computers, so I don't know how it would work outside the Omen environment. Performance -- it helps immerse you in the game. I was pretty skeptical about "surround sound" with headphones, but you really can "hear" the location of your friends or followers footsteps behind or next to you. The sound quality is really good. There's a volume dial on the headset, not just buttons, so it's way more intuitive to adjust the volume than any other headset I've used. Maybe they could have put the dial on the left ear, not the right ear, because I need my mouse hand when I'm in combat! I guess it depends on the game… Versatility -- this is a great time to have a headset. I've also been able to use it on video calls. Again, the sound is good… I wish the video call apps could pan the participants' voices on the call according to their position on the screen -- that would be awesome. I really like the positive feel of flipping the mic boom up to go on mute. Great idea. Comfort -- for such a heavy headset, it is surprisingly comfortable. For me, it hugs my head gently, so I was worried it would be loose, but it really stays put. I enjoyed hours of gaming without sore ears. This is an awesome headset. For sure this is worth it if you have an Omen desktop.

Omen by HP Mindframe Prime Wired Gaming Headset - Black is a beautiful, comfortable, with great bass, midrange, and high's sound quality that would make every user/ gamer fall in love with this headset. Design: this headset design follows the OMEN by HP industrial black and red design lines and provides a very sexy looking headset that is all black with the OMEN logo on each side of the headset that illuminates its frame in red when the headset is connected to a PC. the USB wire is black, and the wire connecting the right and left headset is red. The microphone works when you pull it down close to your mouth and the tip is dark. meaning the mic if on, when you push it back up to the side of the headset the tip goes goes red meaning its off. volume dial is a dial which is way more practical for my personal preference than a button up and down as it might be confusing when using the headset. Comfort: the headset is extremely comfortable and my ears fit completely inside the headset which won't cause any strain over long use, and the headset top band rest is very balanced and comfortable in distributing the weight of the headset for comfortable long time use. Volume: the volume is more than satisfying and high while keeping the sound quality very good at high volumes for a headset with this price range. distortion is minimal and I was able to enjoy the headset while gaming, listening to music, and during skype/ zoom calls as well. Price: I think the OMEN headset is priced right. its not too expensive, and its a brand you can trust the quality of. I strongly recommend the HP OMEN MINDFRAME PRIME headset to anyone who wants a great quality product that is not extremely expensive.

I have a wireless headset that I'm comparing this to. The Omen sounds great although I did have some initial issues as it installs the Omen command center app on windows 10 that causes some games to crash (did uninstall and got it working). Overall this is the best sounding headset I've used, and the noise canceling is good too. The voice quality is also really good. My main issue is that the headset is pretty heavy. It's comfortable, but to get the sound it is heavy compared to some lighter ones I've used. The cord is also somewhat short, so I wasn't able to run it around my desk. Still a good headset with a few little issues that are more my preference.