4th of July SaleEnds Sunday. Limited quantities. No rainchecks.Shop now

Skip to contentGo to Product Search
Main Content

Customer Ratings & Reviews

4th of July Deal
Loading...
$1,659.99
Save $390
The comparable value is $2,049.99
Deal ends in 2:01:07

Customer reviews

Rating 4.7 out of 5 stars with 10 reviews

Rating Filter

Pros mentioned filter

Cons mentioned filter

There aren't enough negative mentions yet.
90%
would recommend
to a friend

Customers are saying

Customers are impressed with the product's excellent build quality, strong graphics performance, and quiet operation. They also appreciate how well the computer manages heat, staying cool even during intensive use.

This summary was generated by AI based on customer reviews.

The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.
Page 1 Showing 1-10 of 10 reviews
  • Pros mentioned:
    Build quality, Graphics performance, Heat dissipation
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    Solid Performance Across the Gaming Board

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    I’m taking a different approach with this review and skipping the usual looks and hardware intro to give HP some well earned kudos on their packaging. I’ve reviewed a lot of computers and devices over the years, and I honestly can’t recall another moment when I opened a box and genuinely thought, “Wow.” That said, the HP OMEN 35L makes a strong first impression - its streamlined Panda White profile, clean exterior, and neatly arranged interior all signal thoughtful engineering. The lower 16 inch stance and well executed design give it a sharp, purposeful presence in any environment. The HP OMEN 35L with the Ryzen 5 8400F and RTX 5060 is an impressive mid range tower, delivering solid real world performance and convincing 3DMark scores (pictured below), backed by smooth, reliable power and remarkably quiet operation. Hardware Notes • AMD Ryzen™ 5 8400F - 6 cores / 12 threads, Zen 4, 4.2 GHz base, up to 4.7–5.0 GHz boost, 16 MB L3, 65 W TDP, no NPU • Samsung MZVL81T0HFLB 00BH1 - PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD • NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5060 Ti — 8 GB GDDR7 • Kingston HP60U40S8HA 16FRE 16GB DDR5 6000 expandable to 128 GB • RealTek RTL88552BE Wi Fi 6 (802.11ax) - upgradable to Wi Fi 7 • Cooling - The system stays impressively cool during sustained gaming sessions, a clear sign of efficient, well managed airflow. • RGB - Controlled via OMEN Gaming Hub A capable, solid performing mid range gaming platform built around a modern GPU and enclosed in a well designed, visually appealing, upgrade friendly chassis. AMD’s Radeon RX 5060 produces consistently smooth frame delivery, delivering excellent 1440p Ultra results and surprisingly capable 4K performance with ray tracing engaged. “Brilliant out of the box performance, needing little to no tuning to shine.”

    I would recommend this to a friend
  • Pros mentioned:
    Build quality, Graphics performance
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    HP Omen 3SL Performs Beyond Great Expectations!

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    I have planned, built, and configured many gaming rigs in the past and highly appreciate a well-designed, well-built and well-performing desktop or tower computer, especially one built for the budget conscious gamer and one that is highly upgradeable. Fitting the bill, the HP OMEN - 35L Gaming Desktop Model # GT16-0414 PC is configured with an AMD Ryzen 5 8000F Zen 4 (4nm) Architecture with 6-core / 12 Threads running at 4.2GHz to 4.7GHz at boost with 6MB of L2 Cache and 16MB of L3 Cache, with disabled integrated graphics and is unlocked for over-clocking. This CPU is the budget low-end of the AMD AM5 Socket CPU lineup, but still has the power, power efficiency, and performance to run high-end games at high frame rates while relying on a high-end discrete GPU for its video capabilities. The Graphics card that this OMEN 35L rig relies on is the highly-respectable NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 5060 with 8 GB of 28 Gbps GDDR7 memory, featuring 3840 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, 48 ROPs, 30 raytracing acceleration cores and supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate, ensuring that all modern games will run. The RTX 5060’s display outputs include: 1x HDMI 2.1b, and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b. As for the OMEN 35L’s DRAM, this rig comes with one 288 Pin stick of Kingston 16GB DDR5 6000MHz Desktop UDIMM (Unbuffered, non-ECC) RAM Model HP60U40S8HA-16FRE which is fully sufficient to support gaming and all standard business and school applications. Storage is provided by an excellently performing Samsung MZVL81T0HFLB-00BH1 1TB (953.8GB) NVMe m.2 Solid State Drive which provides a great balance of capacity, response speed, and reliability. All of this is amply powered by a 600W PSU (Power Supply). When I received my new OMEN – 35L, I went through the normal Windows 11 64-bit Home setup and then made sure to run all the Windows updates. After that, I opened the HP Support Assistant provided with the PC and ran updates from HP. These updates included the latest UEFI BIOS update for this model. (I highly suggest making sure that the latest BIOS and component drivers are installed to ensure you have all the latest features and bug fixes.) Once updates were completed, I went into the OMEN UEFI BIOS in the BIOS SETUP > F10 Advanced BIOS section, I initiated HP’s OGH which is designed to automatically ‘optimize, customize, and elevate your gaming experience on OMEN…PCs.” in addition to downloading and setting up the ‘OMEN Gaming Hub SDK Package’ through HP Support for the ‘OMEN 35L Gaming DT GT16-0014 PC (A75W8AA)’ page under Utility-Tools. This utility allows you to set power modes, to monitor system vitals, to tweak cooling profiles, to perform Advanced Performance Tuning, to set Lighting Options, to use Network Booster to increase your Bandwidth when running online gaming to run HP’s System Benchmarking, to set key assignments on your keyboard and more. Using the utility, you can even use AI to tweak your system (with caution as it in Beta.) Then using the OGH BIOS setting, I did bench-marking on all components using UserBenchmark. UserBenchmark reported that the unit’s GPU was “Performing above expectations (78th percentile) overall with the AMD Ryzen CPU performing “way above expectations at the 89th percentile with a ‘Great’ score of 105% out of 110%, and stating that it tested with a single core out of 6 cores, this “CPU is the cat’s whiskers: It demolishes everyday tasks such as web browsing, office apps and audio/video playback. Additionally, this processor can handle typical workstation, and even moderate server workloads. Finally, with a gaming score of 105%, this CPU’s suitability for 3D gaming is outstanding.” The RTX5060 GPU performed above expectations at the 84th percentile with a ‘Good’ 3D score of 66.3% stating that this “GPU can handle the majority of games at high resolutions and ultra detail levels”. The Samsung SSD came in at an exceptional 305% score, making this drive “suitable for heavy workstation use, it will facilitate fast boots, responsive applications and allow for fast transfers of multi-gigabyte files.” The Kingston 16GB DDR5 6000 performed ‘Great’ at 92.9%, but below expectations with top XMP profile needing to be enabled in the BIOS. In all, the OMEN 35L’s results were very impressive and will be better with some more tweaking. As for upgradeability, this OMEN 35L is thoughtfully designed to allow for installation of more and/or better components. HP put together a very comprehensive downloadable “Hardware Reference Guide (for the) OMEN 35L Gaming Desktop PC” stating that “This guide provides information about components, power management, security, backing up and more.” It goes over all the computer’s features in detail and gives step-by-step instructions on how to identify, disassemble, access, install or replace everything from the System DDR5 RAM, to the SSD m.2 drives, to the 600W Power Supply, to the Graphics Card, to the CPU and more. This is an awesome guide and really shows you how-to upgrade all these components when you are ready. This guide is downloadable from the HP site which can be accessed through the HP Support Assistant application. HP has gone above and beyond designing, building, configuring and supporting this OMEN 35L budget-conscious, high-performance and readily upgradeable gaming desktop. I highly recommend this desktop to any serious gamer who is on a budget or to anyone who wants a great performing computer in general.

    I would recommend this to a friend
  • Pros mentioned:
    Build quality, Graphics performance
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    Smooth & Fun

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    I'm very, very new to PC gaming but I am happy so far with my experience with this HP Omen. I have a Mac and do not need another computer for productivity tasks. This machine is being solely used for gaming, and although I'm just dipping my toes into the water - wow. I've been out of the console world (save for a Nintendo Switch) for awhile now and it's insane the detail of visuals in cinematic scenes AND gameplay that exists even in games that are a few years old. So far, I've been playing Warframe, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, Where Winds Meet and Sims 4 on Steam and everything runs wonderfully. I'm not a pixel peeper with games, but I am particular about image quality in general. I like my movies in Dolby Vision and I know a good image when I see it. I'll be the first to admit that I don't even know what all the in-game display settings mean on some of these menus, but I cranked everything up on Warframe to the highest setting and saw zero lag or hiccups. The only issue I have run into is that for some reason I am getting some cut outs when using HDR on my TV. This is a little confusing to me. The set is a Hisense U8 and has never given me any issues when using an AppleTV or running Dolby Vision or HDR movies and shows. I used the exact same HDMI cable, connected the Omen to my monitor, which is older and not as nice of a panel as my TV (but does have HDR support), and... zero problems. So, not sure what's going on there but it might be a me problem vs. a machine problem. Will have to do some research on that front. The machine itself is REALLY. nice looking, imo. I love the materials and the grate like holes. Where the lights run, if you look at it from the right angle the holes almost make the lights look like they're approximating an 8-bit retro look. Kinda cool. I love the window into the computer, even if I'm currently terrified at the idea of opening it up and ever changing anything. (I'll get there some day, ha. Baby steps.) It's just cool to see what's going on in there and nice to know that attention is being paid to design. Will I get tired of those RGB lights? Maybe. But you can easily turn them off or change their pattern in the Omen app. Speaking of, if you like to tweak things or monitor stats, you'll probably like that app. I will dig around it in more, but gotta say... it's a little disappointing but not unexpected to see ads in there. I've also been running Amazon Luna to play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Hogwarts Legacy and a few other games at no additional cost beyond my Prime subscription. My wifi connection is not the strongest in the room where the Omen is at the moment, but things are definitely playable and look great - though I have notice a little stutter here and there. I think that's the difference between streaming and playing off a download. Excited to try out the included free trial of Xbox Gamepass and see what all I can play there. Beyond that any frustrations I've had with this PC have solely been because of the Windows experience. So many pop ups. Also, this computer does not come with a keyboard or mouse and your life will be a whole lot better if you have a WIRED set of those two things laying around, because set up was a pain without them. All that said, I was up and running in a fair amount of time and it's been happy gaming ever since. The last PC I owned was an HP laptop and it was rock solid for a number of years. I'm hoping that will be the case for this Omen and that upgrading it over time will only be a pain in my wallet!

    I would recommend this to a friend
  • Pros mentioned:
    Build quality, Graphics performance
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    Stylish Chassis but it’s what’s Inside that Counts

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    While HP brand products are far from my first choice (not for a good long time), I am well-acquainted with their home office electronics, having owned many of them over the years, and for the most part, they have served me quite adequately. That being said, every time I visit my local Best Buy and find myself wandering through the computer section of the store, my gaze invariably strays towards the HP Omen Gaming Desktop on display. It just looks so cool! But what matters are the parts which comprise the PC itself, and of course, how good (or bad) it performs. So, I finally got my hands on one. Okay, okay … the Omen isn’t all about having clean lines and a stylish looking chassis, or those flashy RGB lights on the inside. No sir, the components are pretty impressive too; good enough for my gaming needs, at least. And it’s a definite upgrade from my gaming laptop, which I love so much (not an HP). Onto the usual Windows setup. All went well. During the process, I found myself eager to finally “get in there” and test this bad boy out. However, gotta do all those Windows updates first. Then came connecting my peripherals to the many available ports. Also, the removal of certain undesirable ‘pre-installed’ software. I do, however, recommend and use NVIDIA GeForce App, AMD Software Adrenalin Edition, as well as, the HP Omen Gaming Hub which allows you to customize fan lighting, check CPU/GPU performance, etc. Notable specs: Panda metal tower - ceramic white/shadow black, showcases a sweet, visually appealing, contrast Glass side door to view all those lovely RGB’s on the fans and memory stick AMD Ryzen 5 8400F NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 Kingston Fury Beast 16gb DDR5 RAM, upgradable, with 3 more expansion slots 1TB SSD, which imo, should be the bare minimum for any and all gaming computers Oodles of Ports, including key ones up top towards the front of the case Multi-display capable, for those wanting to set up more than one monitor Now, onto how this HP Omen performs. I admit it, I’m a Ryzen girl. Not that I don’t still appreciate Intel. But AMD has come a long way over the years, since I began gaming on PC. The games I currently play include - Where Winds Meets, World of Warcraft, Diablo IV, FFXIV, and various other less graphics intensive Steam client games. For the most part, I was able to play most of my games on medium (and sometimes high) graphical settings. They ran at optimal fps, loading fully on screen with no noticeable lag or pixelation. The fans were whisper quiet, even during extreme graphics intensive battle sessions. Gaming on this machine is truly fun. Oh, one other thing I wanted to mention … The packing box and inside materials were made from extra sturdy cardboard, which was good since the unit is heavy but it needs to be for what this desktop PC is, especially as the chassis is made of metal not plastic. Yet the computer was easy enough to get out of the box, even without help. Final thoughts - I’m actually really pleasantly surprised by my new HP Omen 35L Gaming Desktop PC. It’s been fun fine tuning the PC settings, and playing my favorite games on it, knowing that I’ll likely not be needing to think about an upgrade any time soon, for the foreseeable future. I’d recommend this HP Omen model for those wanting a solid low to mid-range prebuilt gaming computer.

    I would recommend this to a friend
  • Pros mentioned:
    Graphics performance
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    Gaming on something beautiful

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    First things first. All the PC basics are here, including the occasional free trial, but even right out of the box there isn't a lot here to be worried about or click on the skip or next button just to get over it. I'm letting the computer break in and warm up and then eventually I'm going to take it to geek squad and for them to do there strip and rip magic so that I can get more productivity out of it. And I'm thinking about adding another 16 MB of RAM on top of the already 16 in place. I was thinking that before I took it out of the box and then I began to play with it. Have fun with it and now I'm wondering do I even need it. I activated my steam account and downloaded the most beautiful version of Tetris. I think anyone on this planet owns. I did the right thing of course with a 3.1 HDMI top end cable coming out and into my my Republic of gamers monitor right running at 144 HZ. All these things helped and played an important factor into my Tetris. The classics never died. They just get prettier and with this high performance machine if it made Tetris look like something out of a cyberpunk neo infused Utopian gorgeous future then I can't wait to see what it does with the rest of my games. I always start small because it's the little things that matter, it's the big thing that always seem to come so easy. This PC is gorgeous in the box out of the box and functional. See about getting one as fast as you possibly can.

    I would recommend this to a friend
  • Pros mentioned:
    Noise level
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 3 out of 5 stars

    Basic entry level gaming PC priced too high

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    Clocking in at 20lb+ (entire package was 33lbs), the HP OMEN 35L is a 35 Liter (hence the name) desktop packed in a no frills box with zero flair or bonus items inside. My box held my desktop unit and that was about it. For the price maybe I expected a bit more and it will show in this review. The PC itself is stylish enough if spartan in design and packing the bare minimum level of components. A 650 series (not 850) low tier Asus OEM MicroATX board packing a lower tier AMD 8400F CPU, single stick of HP Fury 16GB DDR5 6000 ram, basic 1TB M.2 SSD with no heatsink and an HP OEM single fan 5060 8GB all powered by a CoolMaster 500w non modular PSU with a total of three fans and a CPU cooled by a single fan RGB AMD air cooler that looks and is built like the stock box cooler provided by AMD. Once turned on, RGB is provided by the CPU air cooler, single stick of DDR5 and the three case fans. Looking inside, the wiring is passable if not spectacular. I don't really get the feeling of a luxury, aesthetically pleasing build from the 35L. It has a no frills feel about it but it is functional. Prepare for many updates upon start up and once on the desktop, there is the normal smattering of bloatware including McAfee AV, Dropbox and a rash of HP custom software. I've seen plenty of prebuilts with much more bloatware included so this was a pleasant surprise. Nonetheless, it will be receiving a clean Windows 11 Home install to eliminate all unneeded bloat. Once to the desktop, I ran some basic diagnostic/benchmarking software and the memory was not set properly to EXPO and was running at 5200. A quick trip into the BIOS was easy enough to set to 6000 and off we went. I am unsure if this was set improperly at the factory or a Windows Update may have updated the BIOS. Either way, make sure to check. Not that it impedes performance in a single slot config, but the memory stick wasn't installed in the customary second slot from the left but was instead in the first slot in the front. I adjust it accordingly after running all my tests. The 35L passed all my stress test / benchmarking software for memory, CPU and GPU with flying colors. While gaming, it was not too noisy at all which is always welcomed. The included 5060 had zero coil whine but the electronics/SSD on board do have a small bit of whine during general use depending on what you're doing. So how does it perform? Well enough if 1080p is your target resolution. The 5060 8GB is a tad paltry in the VRAM department and the 8400G is a lower tier AM5 CPU for gaming with neutered cache. I played a few hours of World of Warcraft Midnight and Fallout 76 on it. I'll admit I'm jaded since my primary desktop is top shelf and well tuned but I do play at 4k on that one. The performance was choppy even for 1080p in both games and I had to dial back the graphics settings even at 1080p to get a consistent fps play experience especially in World of Warcraft Raids which are very CPU dependent. Performance tanked a bit in there. VRAM was definitely maxed out and DDR5 usage was high. This may have been part of the problem only packing 8GB and 16GB respectively. This is clearly targeted for entry level 1080p gaming with maybe the rare dip into 1440p depending on the game/settings. I really find myself on the fence with the HP OMEN 35L.The problem I have is the corners cut while pricing is high. From the 500w PSU that really limits your GPU upgrade path to the lower tier AM5 8400f with the most basic of air coolers, basic 650 chipset motherboard with limited I/O, bottom tier audio chip, potentially weak VRMs and lastly the single stick of DDR5 on the motherboard. Maybe for the "2025" price being initially marked as MSRP, I was expecting more for this price range if not by tier of hardware than at least the quality level of components and ability to upgrade meaningfully. If this PC was two thirds of the asking price I might not be so jaded, but even in the current hardware pricing times, you're not really getting much for the price being asked. I shopped around at other well known pre-built makers and my suspicions were confirmed. If I opted to build one myself, I could get a lot more for the price. I will end up putting this in the corner and using it as a basic streaming PC for my main rig and when my nieces and nephews visit they will use it to play Roblox. I would wait and catch this on sale or potentially shop elsewhere. In the end, this is a budget, entry level PC asking a mid level price. If you can catch this on a good sale, it is a solid buy as a entry level gaming PC but as is? I can't recommend it.

    No, I would not recommend this to a friend
  • Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    A solid gaming computer

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    This gaming PC is great! It runs smoothly on different games that require quick processing. I’ve used the PC for different games such as BeamNG, Asseto Corsa, and Forza Horizon 5. While using it, it can easily withstand some of the highest graphics requirements or specs for those games. The PC also does a great job at maintaining its temperature and doesn’t heat up the room with it. I’ve used the PC to process many games to play with my sim racing rig and I would highly recommend it for anyone who is looking for a gaming rig. The storage on the computer is very sufficient ito being able to have all of my games in my library at one time without having to uninstall or reinstall anything. The PC was very easy to set up and is a great option for anyone looking into wanting a high performing gaming PC. When using the PC, it performs very well with minimal sounds. This PC is a great upgrade for anyone looking to get into a higher spec or more performative PC that can handle whatever you throw at it. PC does very well multitasking. The processing power is incredible and can load things a lot quicker than different older gen systems. I would absolutely recommend this PC and have not had any troubles with it at all. The PC also has a very sleek design that isn’t too flashy and looks very clean—you can customize the LEDs if that’s your thing. It also has plenty of room for expansion in the case.

    I would recommend this to a friend
  • Pros mentioned:
    Build quality, Heat dissipation
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 4 out of 5 stars

    OMEN Review

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    The HP OMEN - 35L Gaming Desktop - AMD Ryzen 5 8400F - 16GB DDR5 Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 - 1TB SSD - Panda Metal is an polished desktop computer that looks nice when displayed. Your able to see inside and provides sleek design. What I love about it is that is has a smaller size build and has enough room for a larger size graphics processing unit (GPU). It's a great entry level mid gaming personal computer. You have the ability to add an additional solid state drive because of all the room inside. It has 4 Random Access Memory slots for up to 128 gigabytes. It can handle most 1080p gaming at frame rates reaching 144, stable at 1440p 60 (frames per second) fps, and some games with Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) on at 4K 60 fps. Your able to change RGB lighting through OMEN Light Studio. The computer stays relatively cool even under stress. PROS: Clean, Sleek Design, Capability of upgrading the desktop. CONS: None at this time. Yes, I would recommend this desktop to my friends who love gaming. Overall, I would purchase this for myself and/or others. Thanks for the opportunity to review this product.

    I would recommend this to a friend
  • Pros mentioned:
    Graphics performance, Heat dissipation, Noise level
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    Performs really well

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    After a week of regularly gaming and testing the HP OMEN 35L, I can happily say it performs really well! The 5060 performs exactly as expected, which is to say that it runs most demanding games on high/ultra settings at a solid 60fps, even at 1440p. A little testing showed that while it does run smoothly at 4k resolution, I either had to sacrifice quality settings or frame rate. For a gaming rig at the high end of mid-range, it does a very good job. You will definitely want to make use of the 5060's ability to run NVIDIA's DLSS and frame generation settings for best performance, though. The computer is dead silent, keeps a low temperature, and hasn't given me any serious issues just yet. The included 1TB NVME SSD is fast and reliable, but you might want to consider adding another drive as time goes on (the second NVME slot is located under the GPU, for the record). My one and only complaint is that it only ships with 16gb of RAM, DDR5 or not. RAM is expensive nowadays, but it really is worth the money if you have any trouble running games/software at steady frame rates. Another note is that you will only get the advertised 6000 megahertz speed of the DDR5 RAM it ships with if you enable overclocking in the OMEN Gaming Hub app, otherwise it will run at the standard 5200 megahertz speeds. This could lead to unstable performance, but seeing as most DDR5 ram is intended to be overclocked nowadays, you shouldn't see any issue. I haven't personally! The case has plenty of room and the motherboard is capable of easy upgrading. Overall, I think the HP OMEN 35L is a very good choice for average gaming, and with easy upgrading it should be perfectly capable of running most games for some years to come.

    I would recommend this to a friend
  • Pros mentioned:
    Build quality, Noise level
    Tech Insider Network Member

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    A True Tower of Power

    |
    Tech Insider Network Member
    Posted .
    This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.

    We picked this HP Omen mid-tower as an upgrade for our son who is an avid gamer. While he is comfortable working on his HP Omen laptop, this will provide him with the hardware and resources to really expand his skill set. First, the unboxing. It was very well packed, as one would hope, and I really appreciated how the cushioning unfolded to make it easier to stow in the recycling bin. Upon lifting the tower out of the box, I was very surprised at the weight, especially given how empty it seemed to be through the absolutely awesome window in the side of the case. A quick-start guide and power cable were the only other items in the package, and that's all that was needed. Let's talk about the tower itself, and that window. The case is very substantial, and the white color provides a fresh and modern feel without bringing back memories of that grayish-tan color of the original home computers. Buttons are minimal, which is great; the only one we needed during setup was the power button. With the power off, you can still see the interior of the tower, and it only goes to remind you how far things have come. A couple of fans, some ribbon cable, and that's pretty much it. I really liked how many expansion bays there are, as it provides a feeling of security knowing that there will be lots of room for updates and upgrades instead of needing to purchase an entire new unit. On the top of the case are several USB slots and a mini-RCA for connecting a set of external speakers. This seemed relatively sloppy compared to everything else, as I personally prefer to hide all my cables and have a very slick, clean, setup. However, for setting up new equipment, or testing things out, it does make it a lot easier than having to reach the back of the tower. The illustrations and quick-start show dual fans through the front grill, but on power-off, they are hidden, so, again, it doesn't have that industrial look and maintains the clean lines. Power up the unit, though, and wow! The LEDs installed in the case look absolutely fantastic. They cycle through the color palette, with each color highlighting something else about the hardware that's installed. No matter where you place it, it definitely gives off gamer vibes. When I was getting things set up, I really had to think hard about which side to display: do I do a traditional front view, or do I display that Lexan window? Do I think purely performance-oriented and set it up for maximum cooling? Do I turn it so that the cables and expansion bays are easily accessible? In the end, I put it at an angle so that the window is visible, but there is a mostly unobstructed cooling flow. Initial startup was how you would expect. I went through several personalization menus and downloaded as many updates as I could find, and we were up and running within an hour. Hooking up a mic, external speakers, and dual monitors, didn't faze the unit at all. It found everything, and everything is working as intended. The fans are extremely quiet, and we don't hear them, even with the tower located as it is next to the desk. There is a noticeable improvement in the gameplay experience as well. Motion is much smoother, and the lag has significantly decreased. Our son loves the upgrade, and he still randomly thanks us for it. Finally, getting it registered was as smooth as the gameplay. Just a few moments on the HP site, and it's fully protected. Overall, we've never had a bad experience with the Omen line, and so far this tower seems to be just the next evolution in gaming performance, short of building something custom. The unit is powerful and quiet, and there is a lot of room in a mid-size tower that doesn't take up much space at all. The custom touches, like the window into the electrical world, only add to the gaming experience.

    I would recommend this to a friend