Customer Ratings & Reviews

This 16” Omen MAX laptop is a powerhouse. Powered by an Intel Ultra 9 with 32GB RAM and a 5070 Ti GPU, I was happily able to go ultra graphics with ray tracing on some of my favorite games and it didn’t flinch. The anti-glare 240hz 2K OLED screen produces beautiful color with inky blacks and is a joy to look at. As a high end media and gaming machine it’s fantastic, but think of it more as a portable gaming/media machine than a carry everywhere daily laptop. It’s hefty at 6.5 pounds and at over 1” thick, it isn’t very compact by today’s standards. Sure, it’ll fit in most backpacks but I wouldn’t want to lug it to class everyday. The powerbrick is hefty too, but for a serious gaming machine, that generally means it’s high powered and that’s a great thing. Maybe not for your utility bill, but the performance is worth it. And while it’s top notch in most performance areas, I was really surprised by how average the speakers sound. Or maybe it’s a software issue? I’m not really sure anymore, but playing Forza Horizon 6 and Cyberpunk 2077, the speakers didn’t get nearly loud enough and the imaging was mediocre, if not muddy playing Forza. Even web browsing and streaming YouTube, they sounded lackluster. But then for some reason Diablo IV sounds great. Take that for what you will. That said, it’s still a powerhouse and works great with my headphones. I’ll emphasize again, as a portable gaming machine it’s incredible, but it leaves a few things to be desired as a daily laptop. And it’s really just personal preference here, but I find the keyboard a bit hard to type on. The keys feel too close together and the flat shape makes it hard for my fingers to discern what keys they’re on when typing. I’m sure I’ll adapt to it, but it's worth noting. On the bright side, there’s a full number pad and it has the most gorgeous RGB lighting I’ve seen on a keyboard. I also really like how the illumination shifts to the function keys when I press Function (love little details like this). Open the supplied OMEN app and you can customize the lighting, change performance levels, monitor temps, and even overlock the laptop. However, in Balance performance mode I was able to play Forza Horizon 6 on ultra + ray tracing graphics in 2K and still averaged 65 FPS without frame generation (87 FPS with frame gen at 2x). I didn’t feel the need to turn it up for Cyberpunk or Diablo IV either, which is a testament to how high of a performer this machine is. Should you get this powerful behemoth of a gaming laptop? If you want a serious gaming machine that you can nearly max out the graphics with and plan on keeping mostly stationary, then yes. The screen is beautiful and it’s a beast of a machine. You likely won’t need to upgrade in a long time and it’s fantastic to play games on. But it is the exact opposite of an ultra portable if light weight and long battery life are your priorities. If you can, get a cheap one of those and spring for this for the home. Your back and eyes will thank you. And maybe some of your family too. PROS - Powerhouse gaming and media laptop - Responsive and snappy - Beautiful 2k OLED anti-glare screen - Forza Horizon 6 in 2k @240hz with Ultra+RT graphics at 65 FPS (no frame gen) - Cyberpunk 2077 in 2k @240hz with Ray Tracing: Medium graphics @ 71 FPS (no frame gen) - NVIDIA RTX5070 Ti is a beast - Intel Ultra 9 CPU handles it all - 32GB DDR5 RAM - Huge power supply - Full keyboard with number pad - Factory overclockable - The power of a desktop in the body of a laptop - Customizable RGB lighting looks great - Easy to switch performance modes - Ethernet port CONS - Heavy - Sound volume is low and lacks oomph (except in Diablo IV) - Portable in the way that heavy, thick gaming laptops are portable (not ideal for class or the park) - Battery only lasts a few hours at most - Keyboard spacing is compact - No camera lens cover - Not many ports

I had bought this for my mechanical engineering classes as well as gaming and have found it suitable for both. I would not recommend buying it at full price, but at just under 3k when I bought it, I love it.

I was incredibly excited to check out this Omen HyperX system. It has insane specs from top to bottom. This is a machine that's truly set up for gaming and HP didn't hold back on what they've included. If you want a portable gaming system (or an overly competent general laptop), you would be doing yourself a favor by considering this amazing machine. Where to begin... Let's start with the display. This is a 2K OLED display with a gloss finish that makes colors just absolutely beautiful. The depth of color is really unbelievable. The contrast levels are ridiculous with blacks being absolute and shadows letting you still see what's waiting in them. It's also capable of up to a 240Hz refresh rate that makes first person shooters like DOOM The Dark Ages play as smooth as butter. I don't think I've played on a more amazing display. I know some people prefer a more matte finish on a display to keep the reflections down, but I've always been a huge fan of the gloss displays. The colors just pop so much more, and I tend to play in a dimmed room anyway, so reflections aren't a problem for me. Resident Evil Requiem looks nothing short of phenomenal. All the shadow effects combined with the flashlight beam is really amazing. The shadows and lighting effects give this game a truly creepy feel. Of course a lot of this is also due to the Geforce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card. This is a card that can handle all the video and display options on high! Seriously, I went into the DOOM display settings, and whatever wasn't already maxed out, I maxed out. The game still played fast and smooth. I noticed no tearing or glitching or studdering at all. This card comes with 12GB of onboard RAM and had no trouble at all living up to my expectations for the video quality of this machine. This is an air cooled system and the fans made me think I was going to see guy start hovering off the desk. The fans spin up to ridiculous speeds. At that point, the HyperX is not at all quiet, but if it was I'd be suspicious. The air flow through this case is powerful. You'll feel it blowing out the back and both sides. I really like that the case is quite raised up to allow for adequate air flow. I think a lot of other machines fail in that respect. But the HyperX has a significant amount of space underneath it, which is where the fans draw from. The Intel Core Ultra 9 processor is about as good as it gets. I don't think anyone will have any issues running any game with this beast. This machine is fast! What helps out in the speed department is the 32GB of DDR5 memory. So many machines come with a standard 16GB these days, it was really refreshing to see the HyperX came with 32. I'm not sure if it's possible to upgrade the amount of memory even higher. There doesn't seem to be any provision for a user to be able to do that. No access door underneath, but I can only imagine a scenario or two where you may want more. Heavy video editing maybe or building code. But this is a a gaming machine first and foremost and what it comes with is plenty for even the most demanding games. If I was forced to pick something that could be improved on, I guess I would have to say that it would have been nice to include a 2 or even a 4TB drive. But now I'm getting into the wish list category. The included 1TB drive is sufficient. As far as the deck is concerned, I like the keyboard, the keys are short throw and responsive. The track pad is large but the left and right buttons suffer from the same mushiness as most track pads do. It's not a big deal and if you like to play games with a mouse (as I do), it really isn't a concern. Each key is has a really nice translucent border that shows it's outline without the annoying inconsistent light bleed that most keyboards suffer from when you look at them from different angles. Each key can be individually color controlled so you can setup different key highlights for different games and save the setup in different profiles. You also have control of the light strip under the front edge of the machine which is a cool look. You can monkey around with fan settings and overclocking right from the Omen Gaming Hub as well. As far as the connectivity is concerned, you have the dedicated power entry on the back, along with an HDMI 2.1 jack and an Ethernet (RJ-45) jack. There are two 10Gbs USB-A jacks. One on the right and one on the left. There's two Thunderbolt type 4 jacks on the left side (with 40Gbps rate and USB PD 3.1 capability). And last but not least, a combo audio jack. You also get a 1080p front facing camera and decent sound system (although I've never really raved about the sound quality on any laptop I've used), but these are adequate. All in all, this guy is an absolute beast and a joy to game on. With machines like this, you pretty much get what you pay for and the price tag on this machine will not be for the faint of heart, but quality specs come at a price. And if you're considering a machine of this caliber, the price won't shock you. And make no mistake, this is guy will not show up in the “bargain” section. It's built for serious gamers who can justify spending money for a quality build. A beautiful machine, no question about it.

The HP HyperX is a total beast that can handle basically anything you throw at it, from heavy gaming to running complex AI models. HP is now using the HyperX name for all their gaming gear, which helps separate these high-end machines from their basic office laptops. It’s definitely a top-tier gaming rig, but with the full number pad on the keyboard, it could also work as a main computer for anyone, really. Just keep in mind that all that power comes with a few trade-offs. The i9 processor is fast, the 5070 Ti GPU is impressively fast, come with 32GB of RAM, and only a 1tb ssd. You can certainly add/change the ram and storage,but thanks to the AI mania, components are expensive right now. I’m impressed with the new cooling system—it keeps the laptop from overheating, and the fans stay surprisingly quiet even during full-tilt gaming. You can play for hours without any lag, though you’ll want to make sure you don’t block the air vents on the bottom if it’s sitting directly on your lap. The 16-inch OLED screen looks incredible, and the 240Hz refresh rate ensures that gaming feels fluid and smooth. It’s bright and colorful, but the screen is very glossy and reflects a lot of light, which makes it tough to use if you’re near a window or outside. As for the battery, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a gaming laptop: you can get a few hours of web browsing, but if you start gaming without the charger plugged in, the battery dies pretty fast. Since this is a serious gaming machine, it’s quite heavy, and of course, the power brick is huge. I like the design details, like the backlit keyboard and LED bar on the front. There's an HDMI port and power plug on the back, though I wish it had a DisplayPort too. You also get an ethernet port and some USB ports, but it feels a bit light on connectivity if you’re planning to use this to replace a desktop. The keyboard and mouse situation is a bit hit-or-miss. The keys feel great to type on, and the lighting is bright and easy to customize. However, because they squeezed in a number pad, the main part of the keyboard is off-center. This isn't a surprise for a gaming machine, but for super-fast typing, you will probably make more mistakes than you are used to until you adjust to the crowded array of keys. The speakers are probably the worst part of the laptop—they sound thin and quiet, so you’ll definitely want to use headphones (yes it has a headphone jack still). The trackpad is also a letdown. It’s made of plastic and feels a bit cheap compared to the glass ones on other laptops, and it’s impossible to click if your finger is near the top of the pad. A haptic trackpad would be very much appreciated on a machine of this caliber and price. In the end, even with the mediocre speakers and trackpad, I’d still recommend it if you need raw power. It’s a nice machine that does exactly what it promises, even if the price is a bit high for the specs right now (June 2026). I would easily recommend it and plan on keeping it for many years to come!

* It is critical to know that this review was done when RAM and SSD prices were ludicrously overpriced. Where when I compared my Desktop PC’s RAM and that same ram now it was increased by 468%. As for the SSD I bought it is increased by 308%. How that is legal, I’m not sure. But that’s another discussion. * With the above said, its hard to not feel like I’ve been robbed. As, a machine at this price point, and their “halo tier” product should be coming with probably a top-of-the-line 2 – 4 TB Gen 4x4 SSD (7,000 Write and 6,000 Read with DRAM cache). Instead, you get a middle of the road Gen 4x4 SSD (4,900 Read, 4,000 write WITHOUT DRAM cache). It should come with 64 GB of DDR5 RAM at 5600. Instead you get 32 GB. Last, a 5080 or 5090 laptop variant graphics card. Instead you get a 5070 TI laptop varaint. Which previously would cost about $1,200 – $2,000. But that is the cost of doing business right now. Now with that said, this is still an awesome machine that, that offers extremely good performance for the specs, and also comes with a lot of really nice things that help “justify” the inflated cost. And if this comes down to a more reasonable price in the future is an easy yes. The rest of the review I’ll try and avoid these two asterisks and just judge it based on current specs for the most part ignoring the price. At a normal price I’d give this an easy 5/5. But with the current price and hit you’re taking due to the market I think 4/5 is more reasonable. SCREEN 10/10: Is awesome. It’s pretty hard for me to use those words these days. But this is by far the best OLED screen I’ve seen on a laptop. It is colorful, bright, with punchy colors. The text is very crisp and easy to read. I kept brightness around 30 – 70%. Usually I have to have it at 70 – 100% (usually 100) with my other OLED screens. HDR content had great highlights and very accurate colors. It looks like I’m looking through a window instead of a screen (all the time). Seriously, its like I can reach out and touch it with a 3D effect. Usually due to the pixel layout OLED screens aren’t as sharp for reading text. But this is phenomenal. Super sharp with excellent contrast. Also, gaming with this is a real treat. As you have very low input lag and latency. If you haven’t tried OLED for gaming, it’s a game changer. Especially, at 240 Hz. Which is variable if you want. TRACKPAD 5/10: Not a fan. It’s a diving board style, not glass or haptic. My finger sticks to the material, making fine adjustments difficult. It’s also rather small, though that might be to avoid palm touches while gaming. Gestures and clicks work fine, but it lacks a premium feel. KEYBOARD 9.5/10: I actually love this keyboard. I think it is the best one I’ve tried on a laptop period. As it feels like a mechanical keyboard with low profile keycaps. Which I think it actually might be. As this has a unique feature where it supports 1,000 Hz (where most other laptop keyboards are 250 Hz). Which makes it a lot more responsive for gaming (which I noticed when playing on it). Spacing is good, each key is full size (or nearly). The arrow keys are almost full size. Shortcut keys are well thought out. Has FN lock. Also, when you press FN it highlights those keys with secondary actions which I like a lot. Even if the lighting is turned off. Each key is RGB. Which is accurate, bright, uniform. But not the “best” I’ve seen. It comes in bright, dim, off mode. Num Lock, Power, Caps, FN all have a dedicated light to notify you they are on (which stay on even if keyboard lights are off. It also feels like PBT doubleshot plastic. With good grip and I haven’t noticed any grease or anything on the keycaps themselves. Making me think they should wear well. It also has a numpad attached. This paired with the OLED screen makes for writing essays, doing research, and doing actual work very pleasurable. Along with elevating gaming. If only they nailed the trackpad!!!! Speakers 10/10: This actually shocked me. These speakers are surprisingly good. Like almost on par with my MacBook Pro 14”. Where it trades blows. Which is a massive compliment. It is easy to understand people talking, music sounds pretty good (that’s probably where it struggles the most), and gets plenty loud. Can hear them over the fans. GAMING/PERFORMANCE 10/10: Put simply. This thing is a beast that performed really really well. The Intel Core I9 290 HX Plus is a monster. Essentially a desktop CPU in a laptop. Which also means it runs kind of hot. As it is meant to essentially go up to it’s thermal limit (105C). I was averaging about 90 – 100C in most “demanding” tasks. That was with the fans going hard (which is loud, about 53 – 70 dB. Which turn on semi-often regardless of what you’re doing. If just doing light work web browsing, emails, writing, watching videos they are usually off). The 5070 TI is actually a great sweet spot. Where it still gives you a lot of performance, but at less power and heat. It actually outperformed my older gaming laptop with a 4080 laptop variant in it and 13900HX CPU across the board. The 5070 TI laptop variant was usually like 60 – 80 C. The overall combo (CPU, GPU, RAM, OLED screen, cooling) all allow for essentially maximum performance of anything you’ll throw at it. Gaming at High to Ultra settings (with DLSS) at 1600p (which is the laptops resolution) at greater than 60 fps for pretty much every single game out there. Probably closer to 100 fps. Along with most games at 4K at greater than 60 fps as well. And when I was doing normal work and floating between things everything was very responsive and quick. I didn’t notice any hang ups at all or where it felt like it was lagging. Which I typically do as I use keyboard shortcuts for things all the time. * All games tested at max settings, DLSS OFF, Ray Tracing OFF unless specified. Format: FPS (CPU Temp / GPU Temp) Laptop Display 2560x1600: Escape From Tarkov: 92 fps (87/61) Halo Infinite MP: 155 fps (83/73) Halo Infinite SP: 155 fps (92/71) Stalker 2: 89 fps (81/73) Witcher 3: 83 fps (88/78) Resident Evil Requiem: 90 fps (83/79) Cyberpunk 2077: 124 fps (91/76). Full Path Tracing: 39 fps (83/80). External Monitor 3840x2160 (Note: External monitors boost frames): Escape From Tarkov: 73 fps (95/69) Halo Infinite MP: 116 fps (79/70) Halo Infinite SP: 121 fps (97/70) Stalker 2: 146 fps (95/68) Stellar Blade: 54 fps (100/70). DLSS: 76 fps (85/70). DLSS Perf: 100 fps. Apex Legends: 116 fps (86/68) GTA V Enhanced: 161 fps (78/68) Cinebench 2026 (10 min Performance Mode): GPU: 75,372 | CPU Multi: 8,454 | CPU Single: 555 Network Testing (WiFi 7 network/router, 2500 Mbps plan): Ethernet: 2369 Down / 2363 Up WiFi 5G: 1459 Down / 1678 Up WiFi 6G: 1989 Down / 1989 Up BATTERY LIFE/WEIGHT/PORTABILITY 3/10: This is a laptop you buy to always be plugged in. As this thing is HEAVY. At like 6.5 lb. It’s also thick. And it vents on the bottom to uptake air that it pushes out the side and back. It’s not meant to be used on your lap or be highly portable. But with that said I got about 3.2 hours with “balanced” profile. And with me trying to save as much battery life as possible (screen 30%, speakers 30%, low profile mode, 5070 TI off) doing web work, emails, writing. I got about 4.8 hours. Which actually is pretty terrific considering the power of this machine and it not being built for that. For reference, during my while plugged in GPU was pulling 140 watts and CPU up to 100 watts. The MacBook Pro pulls between 5 – 25 watts for most tasks on battery. Which means there will be a decrease in performance while on battery or else you would have like 30 minutes of battery life. It also decreases your SSD speed. STORAGE 5/10: As mentioned, this comes with a middle of the road Gen 4x4 SSD that clocks in at 4,900 MB/s Read and 4,000 MB/s Write and comes without a DRAM cache. Which is disappointing. However, it comes with 2 upgradable SSD slots that support Gen 5x5 (due to the intel processor). I did upgrade both my primary slot and my secondary slot. And I would rate difficulty at 10/10. As you need to remove the back cover (easy). Then you need to remove the shield (moderate, just simply because there are a ton of screws and being afraid you’re removing something important). Then you need to remove the entire fan and cooling of the PC to get to the primary SSD slot. Which means you also need to reinstall thermal compound to the GPU and CPU (hard). Like what?! Thankfully, I was able to kind of slide it out without taking the cooler off. Just kind of moved the fan a bit. The second SSD slot is very easy to get to (just under the shroud). So is easy to upgrade. But I’m not sure what they were thinking with the first slot being UNDER the cooling. RAM 7.5/10: As mentioned, this comes with 32 GB of DDR5 RAM at 5600 MT/s. Which is the highest speeds that are stable for RAM. As astonishingly this is removable (which limits speeds), which means, it is upgradable (2 user-upgradeable SODIMM slots). Which means while I was complaining about not getting 64 GB due to pricing, in the future when RAM is back to being a reasonable price, you can upgrade this machine. I do think that 32 GB is the sweet spot. As 16 GB for a premium gaming/editing machine is too low. While 64 GB would rarely be used except for niche cases (editing, photo editing, 4K gaming while doing other things, AI workloads, etc.). In all my testing (mainly gaming) I was constantly >16 GB of RAM and got up to about 28 GB. CONCLUSION: This is an awesome laptop. I like it a lot. I really look forward to getting on it and just doing things on it. As it is a very pleasurable experience as holistically, they nailed this device. Great performance, great screen, great keyboard, great sound, great appearance. And while the current pricing due to the market is egregious. Once I’m using the machine, I tend to forget about that.

Let's talk about a laptop that’s trying to completely blur the line between portable machines and full-scale desktop rigs: the HyperX OMEN MAX 16. Right out of the box, this machine makes a statement without screaming "gamer." HyperX wrapped it in an incredibly clean, minimalistic Shadow Black finish that completely skips any obnoxious, flashy plastic accents. It’s mature, feels exceptionally sturdy, and sports a premium aesthetic that easily fits into a professional workspace or a dedicated gaming setup. But what’s going on inside this chassis is where things get wild. We’re looking at a massive step forward in mobile design, packing the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX processor, a mobile NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti, 32GB of RAM, and a fast 1TB SSD. The big story here is the architectural redesign under the hood. HP and HyperX engineered this chassis with a massive 300-watt total platform power capacity alongside their updated cooling system. In the past, laptops always had to take a significant performance hit compared to desktops due to restricted airflow and severe power constraints. But with this new layout—featuring a massive vapor chamber, advanced liquid metal compound, and a critical third internal cooling fan—it pushes sustained, realistic gaming performance that is in some eyes measurable to a high-end desktop gaming rig without needing any external liquid cooling attachments (and again it’s portable!). To test that desktop-class claim, I put it through its paces with brutal modern AAA titles like Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition and Alan Wake 2 with ray tracing cranked up. Thanks to that 300W headroom and DLSS, the OMEN MAX 16 handles dense, visually intensive environments with amazing stability, completely eliminating the micro-stuttering you usually expect on a notebook. Heavy-hitting, texture-intensive world streaming in newer titles like STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl and Black Myth: Wukong ran beautifully with outstanding frame pacing and near-instant asset loading. On the competitive front, I spent hours testing it in Counter-Strike 2. For tactical shooters where tracking, visual clarity, and raw input latency dictate everything, this setup is phenomenal. The frame rates stay incredibly high and tightly locked, providing a buttery-smooth experience that makes micro-adjustments and tracking moving targets feel completely natural and responsive. It coordinates perfectly with the HyperAction keyboard, which offers a crisp, tactile response that feels instantly rewarding when executing tight movements. And a massive bonus for the overall ecosystem: the built-in HyperX wireless transceiver lets you sync up compatible peripherals directly to the laptop without taking up a valuable USB port. Of course, dumping up to 300 watts of power through a 16-inch frame creates an immense amount of heat. While gaming on full performance mode, the CPU and GPU does get quite warm. The fans definitely work overtime to keep it manageable, which means you’ll be dealing with a noticeable, loud fan when the machine is pushed to its limits. My standard recommendation always applies here: elevate the laptop with a laptop cooling pad to help the system dissipate heat. HyperX introduced a great engineering solution to the ultimate silent killer of gaming laptops: dust. They partnered with Intel to introduce a self-cleaning fan technology called "Fan Cleaner." Between gaming sessions (never during gameplay), the fans will automatically reverse their spinning direction to blow out and expel any accumulated dust through the vents. Although it doesn’t completely eliminate dust, it does do a nice job with helping the fans stay clump free from dust buildup. And I can't overlook the display. The 16” 2K OLED panel is an absolute masterpiece. If you’ve never gamed on an OLED before, the infinite contrast and deep, rich blacks will completely spoil your eyes. The screen does feature a glossier coating than traditional matte panels, but the benefit is a picture where colors appear jaw-droppingly sharp and saturated. If there’s any minor downside to point out, it’s that the stock software out of the box can be a bit over-aggressive with its default fan curves during basic, casual workloads. A couple of minutes tweaking the custom fan profiles in the control software easily balances out the acoustics for everyday use. And keep in mind, this beast is quite heavy and bulky. All in all, the HyperX OMEN MAX 16 is a spectacular piece of tech. It’s a true portable powerhouse that doesn't compromise, delivering genuine desktop-level muscle and smart, self-maintaining cooling tech in a beautifully stealthy chassis. If you have the budget to splurge on a premium machine that masterfully handles high-end gaming, work, and content creation all at once, this laptop will absolutely fit the bill.

There's a lot to like about the HyperX Omen Max, which is an HP laptop with their HyperX gaming livery. What jumped out to me right away was the heft of both the laptop itself and the supplied power brick. This lets you know right away, this laptop will NOT be held back by power or thermals, it is meant to draw up to 460W which is what its power supply provides and also dissipate it with its thick, angular body design with tons of intake and exhaust vents and beefy heat sink. I'll go ahead and list out what I liked a lot and what I didn't. + The 2K OLED screen (2560x1600p at 240Hz) is fantastic and just about perfect at 16" for a gaming laptop in both resolution and also aspect ratio (16:10 instead of 16:9). It doesn't try to push too many pixels and is well matched to the included hardware. It has a SUPER GLOSSY finish, which looks slightly warped with no image, but when gaming it is stunning and everything looks super high contrast and pops. If you have a bright light behind you however, you will get some glare. Overall this is a great looking screen and with DLSS and multi-frame generation on Nvidia Blackwell, you can easily achieve 240Hz in most games at this resolution. With OLED response times there's no ghosting or smearing. + The 5070Ti mobile uses the GB205 which is actually the same chip as the desktop RTX 5070 and not the RTX 5070Ti. This isn't the worst thing in the world because the GB205 is actually less power hungry and performs very close to the GB203-based RTX 5080 mobile. I have both and I was surprised how close the 5070Ti mobile comes to the 5080 mobile which comes down to power and cooling. The main downside however is it only has 12GB of VRAM instead of 16GB, however, this 5070Ti still performs better in actual games than the 5080 mobile. You can see how it compares to all the various laptops and desktop GPUs I've owned or tested. + The Intel Ultra 9 290HX Plus is technically a last-gen chip that has been refined; it is Arrow Lake based and not the latest Panther Lake chipset, however, it is surprisingly fast and also less power hungry than its non-Plused predecessor. Intel improved gaming performance as well by decreasing memory latency and these Ultra 200 chips were always solid for productivity. With this CPU you get 24 CPU cores in the form of 8P cores and 16E cores with no HyperThreading on any of the cores. + The build quality is overall very good with a metal body. As mentioned the star of the show is the cooling which you can tell is super hefty and backloaded. The fans are audibly loud under full load, but not annoying or high pitched like some other laptops I have used. There are tons of Inputs along with full HDMI output, 2x-USB-A and 2xTB4 ports. It also supports very fast Wifi7 connectivity with a MediaTek chipset and it also has a full 2.5GbE Realtek RJ-45 ethernet port as well. The download speeds I got on my 2Gig internet on a Wifi7 mesh network were almost maxed at 200MB/s speeds. Awesome! + This laptop has 32GB of RAM which is great in this day and age and something you will want for a gaming laptop that you also use for productivity. 16GB is just very restrictive and with RAM prices what they are now, you will want to get more if you can so you don't have to worry about upgrading and paying more later. Not everything is great however with this laptop, here's some things that were a bit weak on this unit. - Only 1TB SSD and it is a slow Samsung that was only getting 3700/4000MB/s sequential Reads/Writes. This is almost back to PCIe3.0 speeds, where a good PCIe4.0 drive is doing 7500/7000MB/s and a PCIe5.0 drives are doing 14000-15000MB/s speeds. For the price I would expect 2TB and/or a faster drive too. Luckily, you can easily add another drive if you can afford it. - HyperX tried to squeeze a full-size keyboard on a 16" laptop and worse part is, they smushed the numpad keys and also did NOT include any spaces. In addition, the trackpad is now closer to where your right hand is placed on the keyboard (because it is closer to the middle of the keyboard) so you are more likely to palm touch the keyboard. The numpad is pretty much useless because it is compressed and awkward, and there is no space at all between the numpad and the keyboard portion. Lastly, the home keys of F and J are barely noticeable so its really hard to find your home keys quickly. I highly recommend using a keyboard you prefer and connecting it via BT or USB dongle, this keyboard is pretty miserable and it doesn't feel great either as the key caps are rubbery and the presses do not have a ton of travel and feel kinda smushy anyways. They do have RGB and you can change the settings, but only with the HP Omen Gaming Hub and Light Studio plugin. - There's a decent amount of preinstalled bloat in terms of software that I would uninstall right away, such as McAfee AV, a bunch of HP software, and Copilot. The Omen Gaming Hub is a bit overwhelming but does a nice job of letting you control all the advanced settings on the laptop. - The same thing that makes this laptop awesome for gaming is also a negative. It is HEAVY, especially with that 460W power brick which I would liken to a driveway paver/trick. I'm not even kidding its that big, maybe 2/3 the thickness but probably as heavy. So while you can definitely carry it around, I wouldn't want to carry it around every day or for long distances. This is more like....I am traveling for work or going to the beach and you can set it up for a week once you get there kind of thing. Not a took it to the library to play a few hours of gaming just to walk 2 miles with this in your backpack. The last thing I will say is with the crazy prices on memory, storage, and GPUs, just make sure to do your homework on pricing. This laptop has a crazy stick price for its "Comp. Value" but already I can see there is a much less pessimistic price currently, which I think is much more fair especially given the performance and overall build quality of this unit. I still took a star off, mainly because this keyboard is terrible in design and execution and a few other more minor negatives like the storage and MSRP convinced me to keep it off, but I really do actually really love this laptop from a gaming perspective as the performance and OLED screen are fantastic.

I'll start by saying, if you're a gamer and wanting a desktop replacement that will play your entire Steam/Epic library, then you are at the right place. The HyperX Omen Max is an incredible laptop for gaming and literally anything else you want in a PC. In 2026 we are in the heart of AI ruining the computer parts market so price to performance compared to the past is awful (* see later notes). In the box is a very well protected Omen laptop and a massive power brick with cord. To me, this laptop lacks portability and is meant to just be a desktop replacement. Why you ask? Power. With great high end parts means extremely large power requirements. You are going to need to have it plugged in all the time or get no battery life unless you tone down every single setting making gaming nigh unplayable. Ports are plentiful for this Omen, 2x USB A on both sides of the laptop, 2x Thunderbolt 4 USB C, headphone/mic combo, full size ethernet port, power and a full size HDMI 2.1. While setting up Win 11 and downloading about a hundred updates I noticed that HP is notorious for adding so much bloatware and the worst offender of the all, McAfee. Clearing out all that will free up a lot of diskspace in an already small 1TB hard drive. Ok enough of my complaints and on to how it performs. The 16" OLED is just drop dread gorgeous. 2560 x 1600 resolution makes gaming and streaming pop at a great 240hz refresh rate. Blacks are blacks and colors shine. Now I actually turned down my brightness to around 50-60% as the screen can get SUPER bright. This paired with a 5070ti (mind you, this isn't a TRUE 5070ti, it is a mobile version with a performance cut from an actual desktop 5070ti) still made playing games feel good. I've been obsessed with Subnautica 2 (greatest horror games ever lol) and easily get over 140+ FPS with all graphics maxed out. All in all, the HyperX is a beast of a gaming laptop and will easily play everything thrown at it. *Unfortunately with AI ruining everything, the price to performance is really bad. Almost 4k for this is a hard bullet to bite, BUT at the time of this review, the OMEN is on sale at a far more attractive $2800. Pros Build Quality Top of the line Intel Ultra 9 290HX 5070 Ti (mobile) 32GB DDR5 RAM Super beautiful 16" OLED Really good desktop replacement Room to add on or replace RAM and NVMe Cons Battery Life Heat Fans are LOUD and ramp a lot, even when idle Price when not on sale 1TB SSD at this pricepoint (should be min 2tb imho)

Honestly one of the best laptops I've had the chance to use - Keyboard is excellent, build quality is excellent. Screen is excellent. and I don't hand out the word excellent on things often. For the price - you get what you pay for. Pricing is definitely way too high for what I would want to spend on a laptop, but in this current market this is easily the best laptop you can get. It is heavy however - and of course gets hot like any other laptop, however the heat is generated away from the keyboard - keeps your hands from getting hot while gaming. Heat is a serious issue however. Running any heavy game seriously brought the CPU to 100c within 5 minutes. To be expected with a gaming laptop however. The best part to counter this was the HP Omen Gaming app that allowed full control within the different modes, the Unleashed mode allowed me to in real time undervolt the CPU and control its the different power levels (PL1, PL2, PL4) and other options and I was able to get the laptop to run a bit cooler under heavy load. The app is seriously a maze and is annoying to find your way around and sometimes bugs out though. Has alot of bloatware but can be removed of course. Performance is really excellent however. Its the first laptop that actually performed as good as my gaming desktop, matching its ability to deliver high framerates consistently and with little to no hitching that Ive seen with other laptops. It is heavy but just light enough to be bearable with travel and compact enough to comfortably be used in tight environments. If the software was way better and the price was way better - it would be an easy 5 stars. TLDR Fantastic laptop for a very high price - but you wont be unsatisfied with the quality or the performance whatsoever.

Product is extremely good value at the price I paid for it. Display looks great, very snappy, and plays games smoothly. I was also surprised by how long the battery lasted. Great overall.

Don't be fooled by all the positive reviews. This laptop is not worth 3K plus on sale. It was shipped with software issues / conflicts. I contacted HP support and they wanted to charge me 60 bucks for the support and subscription. I explained to them that I performed a factory reset multiple times and on 2 different laptops from BestBuy and still had the "Failed Attestation Status" on COD BO7 and they didn't care. They just wanted to upcharge me on their bogus service. I even ran the CODSecureAttestationWizard and passed, but still receive an error message when trying to play anything other than NukeTown 24/7. Another thing to take into consideration is that if you ever want to replace the included 1TB SSD, you will need to remove the entire cooling solution including the both fans to get the M.2 drive which is sandwiched in between the board and heat pipes. This is insane. Also, the track pad feels like plastic which is unforgivable at the price point.

The Omen Max is definitely maxed out on everything: 5070 Ti, 16 in OLED screen, 1 TB SSD. The OLED panel is beautiful. Colors are deep and contrast is excellent, with true blacks that make a real difference in darker games. At 2K resolution it's sharp without being so demanding that the GPU struggles to keep frame rates up, and the high refresh rate keeps fast paced titles feeling smooth. Coming from a standard IPS panel, this was a noticeable upgrade for both gaming and general media use. Performance wise, the 290HX handles CPU heavy workloads without much fuss, and the RTX 5070 Ti is plenty capable for 1440p gaming at high settings, with DLSS giving extra headroom in newer, more demanding titles. HP's cooling setup, with the vapor chamber and liquid metal on the CPU, does a solid job keeping thermals in check even during longer sessions. Fan noise does ramp up once you push into Unleashed Mode for extra performance, so a headset is recommended if you're gaming in a quiet room. Build quality feels sturdy, and the Shadow Black finish looks understated rather than flashy, which I appreciate since I’m not in college any more. At 16 inches it's not a small laptop, and battery life is what you'd expect from a gaming rig in this class, meaning you'll want the charger nearby for anything beyond light use unplugged. Important to mention, the power brick is quite substantial, so take into consideration not just the weight of the laptop but the brick as well if you’re planning to lug this around. One nice touch worth mentioning is the Instant Pair feature for HyperX peripherals. If you already own a HyperX headset, mouse, or keyboard, pairing them to the laptop is quick and doesn't require digging through Bluetooth menus or installing extra software, which is a small thing but a genuinely convenient one if you're already in that ecosystem. Overall this is a strong pick if you want a high end gaming laptop with a great display and enough power to handle modern titles comfortably, just go in expecting the size, fan noise under load, and price that match the high end specs and components.

The HP- OMEN MAX HyperX gaming laptop is quite the powerhouse all wrapped up in a tiny bundle. It delivers insane game performance while also being at least half the weight of other gaming laptops I have owned. It has a 16" OLED screen, and HP has packed quite a bit of tech into this machine. Out of the box, everything is very straight forward. Just the laptop, the charging cable and brick, and a bit of paperwork. I charged the laptop up first before starting it up to set up windows. The charging cable is pretty long, and the power brick is about 9"x3"x.75". It is one of the more sleeker power bricks I have seen with gaming laptops. None the less, it is still a bit chonky to carry around. Opening up the laptop, it comes with a nice removable felt like material between the screen and keys. I keep these and use these all the time with every laptop after I had an issue on another laptop with the keys scratching into the screen. They are very handle to protect your investment. On this laptop, the IO is on 3 sides. The left side has USB, 2 USB-C, and headphone jack. The right side has another standard USB only. The rear has the power port, the HDMI out, and ethernet plug in. To me, the IO flows nice. The only thing I wish it had is a SD/Micro SD port. I have to use a usb adapter to read the sd cards from my camera or dashcam. The keyboard layout is quite comfortable to use and has a modest sized touchpad. I do use a wireless mouse, but I use the laptop keyboard and enjoy typing with it. The keys feel solid to touch and have a nice shape to them. They do not have a mechanical feel to them in any way so if you like your keyboards with the mechanical feel you will want to get a separate one. The LED colors look really cool with these keys. There are several function keys that are nice to have. Fn1 brings up your power settings window, and lets you choose between ECO, Balanced, Performance, or Unleashed mode. Fn2 brings up your OMEN gaming hub. Fn10 is a quick windows lock if you need to leave the computer quick, and fn11 deactivates the touch pad. The camera is 1080p 60hz resolution and takes very clear video. It has my favorite thing; a physical shutter that can be opened and closed when wanting to keep privacy. There is a white cover with black stripes on it that slides over the lens. The microphone also works very well and is very clear to others listening from Teams calls. Startup and set up is pretty straight forward as with any new computer. This computer does not come with much bloatware, although HP has included a bunch of their software. This does include HPTV+, which is kinda cool to have on a computer. It is free tv programming or movies that stream. There is not a really fantastic collection, but if you are on a trip and bored, it can help keep you entertained during flights or waits. The Omen Gaming Hub is where all of your performance functions and computer LED functions are going to be. You will need to download the OMEN Light Studio within the app to make changes to the LEDs. In the hub you can also see and configure any other HP devices you might have connected, like monitors, mice, headsets, etc. You can do some pretty cool stuff from here, like set up overlays that give you PC info like temps, fan speeds, ram and cpu usage, FPS counters, etc. You can turn on hardware boosters, and some games can utilize OMEN AI, which monitors your game play and adjusts your settings to give the most FPS in a game, based on the computers specs. You can turn this on or off. For performance, it allows you to use "Unleashed" mode, which is advanced manual controls of your power and thermals for overclocking. It also has a neat "Fan Cleaner" feature, that helps blow any dust or dirt out from your computer and keep it cool and clean. It has other features like a disk cleaner to help keep your computer files in order and keep out junk, and also a network booster that you can give priority to wifi to make sure your computer is getting the most network. The OMEN Gaming Hub is very handy and is very easy to browse and make changes. I think they did a good job with it. Now to the meat and potatoes of this beast of a laptop. This laptop has a Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus CPU. It is a 24 core processor, rated up to 5.5 Ghz with overclocking. It is accompanied by an Geforce RTX 2070ti, which has 12gb of processing power. With these 2 things, I have been able to run most games at ultra settings performing well over 60fps just in performance mode. Even higher when running unleashed mode, with a lot of games averaging around 85fps or higher. This system also has 32GB of RAM, operating at 5600Hz. This gives plenty of memory to operate multiple programs at once with out bottle necking. Although it does seem to use quite a bit of memory on base Windows operations. While observing, it has been at about 14gb of use. I still need to investigate this and see what is drawing so much memory. It does come with a 1TB SSD for storage, which is a bit lacking in my opinion for a gaming PC. On top of that, it only comes with 1 SSD expansion slot, which is suprising to me, as most gaming laptops I have had come with at least 2 expansion slots. This is where I would have to give this laptop its lowest remarks. For the pricing, it could have included more here. The screen is OLED and has a resolution of 2560x1600. It uses GSync and has a 240hz refresh rate. It comes with HDR which looks absolutely stunning on this display. The overall picture quality is amazing and looks miles better over a standard LCD panel. Overall, this laptop is a real winner. It is pretty light compared to its competitors, it feels very well built. It comes with a lot of features that make gaming fun and does a great job at cooling itself down. Besides it needing more storage, I would absolutely recommend this laptop. It is quite the powerhouse under the guise of a standard laptop.

So just to get it out of the way I’m going to start off with the few complaints I have with this laptop. The first one that kind of irritated me the most was some of the preloaded software that came installed out of the box. Nowadays I feel that just configuring the laptop to use Microsoft’s defender for antivirus is miles better than what they did here which was install “McAfee” which will only work for 30 days until it starts asking you to pay them money. On a laptop at this price point I think that was kind of a bad decision on HyperX’s (Omen / HP) part. Luckily, I was able to easily remove that software without much hassle so it’s not the end of the world but for someone who may not be as tech savvy it’s not great. My only other real complaint is that even at this price point they only include a 1tb hard drive with this build. I would have also liked to see 64gb of ram, but it only has 32. The ram is workable and not “bad” but only having a 1tb hard drive especially on a machine that is meant for gaming is kind of insane especially in the day where modern AAA games can take up as much as 200gb or more of disk space. You can add a second hard drive (there is an open M.2 slot at least in this configuration) but be warned, getting the bottom off to get to that area is a bit of a challenge. Now all that said this review is during a period where both Ram and SSD prices are very high so I understand that plays into the configuration a bit but still at this price point I wish they would have at least gone with a 2tb SSD instead of the 1tb. Alright now with the complaints out of the way let’s talk about all the other stuff. So, this configuration I have is a 5070-ti laptop GPU and the intel core ultra 9 290hx plus CPU and let’s just say I will be using this as my daily gaming machine for the foreseeable future. Even not having the ultra-top end 5090 mobile version I was able to play most of the games I play at decently high settings. I think being able to use the most recent versions of Nvidia’s DLSS also helps in that regard. Performance is very good in a decently sized laptop. It’s not the most portable or thin, but I intend to use it as a desktop replacement so for me it works great. I also don’t mind the extra thickness because it allows them to provide a cooling system that can keep the system cooler than most “thin” laptops I’ve used that are less performant than this one. The fans can get a bit loud when under heavy use but that's most laptops these days, and if your using headphones it's almost not noticeable so I feel it is acceptable. Now for the physical and visual stuff. For a laptop keyboard it is actually pretty good. It feels good to type on, and the backlighting is great. It's also nice to have a number pad and normal sized arrow keys. The display being an OLED is great. It’s a great resolution and its super clear and crips and the colors look amazing. If I had one thing about the input and visual stuff that I’m not as big of a fan of is the touch/track pad. I feel there is enough room in the chassis that they could have included a slightly larger trackpad. As far as using the trackpad and click and that sort of thing is fine, I just wish it was slightly larger. On another follow up note. If you do attempt to put in a second SSD and manage to get past the final boss, that is the bottom case lid, it was nice to see that everything inside is labeled. This made it super easy to know which screws I needed to remove and where I needed to look to put the second SSD, also it’s nice that if in the future I wanted to purchase upgraded ram (let's say if the prices came back down) both slots are easily accessible so I can swap out what’s in the laptop now with something new fairly easily. That’s a nice touch nowadays where most systems are starting to come with non-upgradable soldered on ram. Overall, I think the system is maybe a bit pricy, but part of that is the market for memory (both ram and SSD) right now and it’s possible it could be cheaper in the future so I’m not really going to hold that against it in my overall rating. The performance and build quality are great and I believe this will be a laptop that will last me a decent amount of time before I get the itch to upgrade to something new.