Hey, how's it going Dave 2D here. This is the 2018 HP omen
so, when they first came out with the original omen gaming laptop in like 2015,
I liked it, did a good review on it
And then they did two years like the 2016 version and the 2017 version were just ehh
I just didn't recommend them. I did reviews on them. I just told people honestly not to buy them
2018 model kicks ass. Straight up, this is such a big improvement over the previous generation
That, well, I'm pretty excited to do this video. Okay
So the design of this thing is very OMENy still. It's got the red face, and the classic red accents for HP omen
But the design is a little bit different from before.So the whole chassis is a little bit smaller
It's a little bit more compact and they've redesigned this whole product. The bottom half of
This laptop has an aluminum keyboard deck and a plastic bottom panel both well-made both quite sturdy
But the top half of the laptop isn't as sturdy. It's still well built
It's just there's a little bit more flex to the materials and stuff. There's just no aluminum on the top part of it
So the screen has a little bit of flex and I also don't love the hinge. Some companies do this hinge really poorly
They didn't. And HP actually has and like there's no clicking or there's no like weird tension or anything like that.
But we've seen some companies in the past put hinges close together like this and they develop some weird play that just causes the hinge
To fail over time. I don't think that's gonna happen on this one. It just feels actually like a good hinge.
Okay, this whole device isn't an ultra premium super thin laptop, right?
It's built pretty well considering the price but there are a lot of plastic components and it starts at
$800 if you get the base model that's with the i5 and in gtx 1050
But even fully specced out,. I think it hits like eleven maybe twelve hundred dollars in amazon
that's with the gtx 1060 and I feel like that's really
reasonable for what you're getting.
and I think the biggest change this year in terms of the aesthetics is actually the screen. It used to have really thick bezels and
It's no longer a member of the thick bezels club. It's got a nice and thin top and side bezel
The screen uses a 144 hertz panel, excellent for games and pretty usable for a color accurate work
Now this model is running the gtx 1060
It's not like the fastest GPU out there but a very respectable card even right now in
2018 despite this GPU being a couple years old
It still delivers really good performance for most AAA titles. Another big change
This year is the thermal performance . The 2016 model and the 2017 model had
Not great thermals to the point where I just didn't recommend those devices
2018 model has significantly improved. I'm not seeing thermal throttling under benchmarks
Now the temperatures still run hotter than I'd like, but at least we're not seeing thermal throttling. That being said
I don't love the fans
So for one, on idle, this thing doesn't run silent and that's something that is important to me
Not everyone cares about that stuff. But when this thing's not doing anything if I'm just like browsing the web, I don't like that
I can still hear the fans they're quiet but it's still audible and that's with the
Kind of default profile. If you go for the more aggressive profile, it's even worse
The other thing is even when this thing's running full tilt in games the fans don't get super loud
But I wish there was more thermal Headroom
Honestly, if they'd given more granular control with the fans like being able to just ramp it up manually
I think that would have solved it alone. But yeah the fans maybe they can fix this with software
So I will say that but in its current state, I wish the fans were a little bit better. The keyboard is pretty good
It's comfortable, lighting in zones, not individually lit
But it's a good layout and I think most people can get used to it quickly the trackpad
However is something that I don't like it doesn't use windows precision drivers
I really wish they did because so many manufacturers are using Windows precision drivers nowadays. It just feels like a bit of a miss
It's not the tracking. It's more the gestures like, sometimes it won't pick up whatever you're doing with your gestures, and that's a driver thing
Port selection there's a handful of them located on the back
Including a thunderbolt three port, and you get some usb on the sides as well as an SD card slot. The speakers
They're located on the side like the bottom side. So they're not in the best position, but they sound pretty good
Not bass-heavy or anything like that, but considering that this is kind of like mid tier gaming laptop
I'm happy with the speaker's. The internals
These are really easy to get into. It's a handful of Phillips screws and you have access to both of your drives
RAM, Wi-Fi card, and you also have your battery.
So this battery is a reasonably large one at 70 watt hours, but I'm not getting amazing battery life looking at four
Maybe four and a half hours. It's still respectable. But because this is a relatively compact 15-inch laptop
I think a lot of people are looking at as like a daily driver they bring to school or for work
And for most people that are doing that you're going to bring the charger to last the full day
Overall thoughts on this device though. I really like it. It's so much more improved compared to the 2016 and 2017 models like those ones
I did not recommend. This one, I highly recommend
So, yeah. One last thing. The mouse that I used when I was playing games on this thing was actually the HP omen
Reactor mouse. So here's the tale.
This thing was sent as a demo for me to kind of check this the whole thing out with and
Usually when computer companies or computer manufacturers make mice they're not great
But I saw this thread on reddit where a bunch of people were praising this thing
I was like really? Is it? Is it actually legit ? And
It's a really good Mouse. It looks weird
If I'm being honest, this is totally not my design aesthetic but people love the performance the cables wrapped in this metal braid
Which prevents fraying. It's got optima mechanical switches and optical sensor and this height adjustable air for the back where your palm goes
It's a strange-looking Mouse, but the performance is good
I understand why other people that have picked this up loved it because it says
Unconventional Mouse like 'HP mice' who would ever thought that it'd be a good mouse, but it's a good mouseI Okay
Hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. See you guys next time