Hey, hows it going guys? This is dave 2D
and this is a video on the 2016 HP Omen.
So instead of an internal spec bump like a lot of companies did this year.
HP did a full redesign in the Omen now right off the bat it's a more
traditional design instead of that edgy trapezoid shape from last year
it's a more standard rounded rectangle the top surface has the soft touch
rubber coating on it.
I like soft touch materials when they're new and this one looks pretty nice. It
has this diagonal weave pattern on it but if you bang it up or you scratch it
the finish doesn't look very good so keep it protected with a case or sleeve.
The build quality is ok. It's a plastic build last years Omen had a nicer
overall finish because it had more metal but this year's version is still decent.
It just doesn't feel as premium. The bottom panel is plastic with some
venting grid but there's no soft touch finish on this.
The screen and the chassis have a bit of flex but it's nothing too bad.
The hinges are a little tight it's not easily open with one hand and I think
the overall build quality is a step down from last year because it's just not as
much metal used in the construction process.
The good thing is that when you don't use as much metal the overall price
comes down so this year's Omen starts at nine hundred dollars. Opening it up the
screen on this model is a 4k IPS panel.
It's not a touch screen but it's bright at around three hundred and thirty
minutes.
It has pretty good color accuracy, good viewing angles, contrast could be better
but overall I would consider this to be a pretty good screen. Now this is the
upgraded panel. It's an extra ninety dollars.
I've seen the 1080p screen on the base model and it's so much worse.
It's really dim around 200 minutes at max brightness and the color accuracy
was surprisingly bad. I highly recommend spending the money to upgrade to the 4k
panel.
The Webcam is a standard HD Webcam. It looks ok. There is an option to get a
real sense 3d camera if you want to use Windows hello.
The keyboard area has the same diagonal pattern as the lid, but instead of that
soft touch finish
it's just a smooth surface. At the top of this are the speakers.
They have bang & olufsen branding again but like most laptop speakers in this
price range
they don't sound particularly good. It's loud and it's position nicely but it's
not a balanced sound is very obvious deficiency and bass
even if you use the software adjustments the keyboard and the trackpad or the
same ones as the HP pavilion. At least I think they are. They feel very similar.
The keyboard has red back lighting now.
It's a decent keyboard relatively short stroke but there's nothing i really
dislike about it.
The keyboard is shifted over to the left again because of the number pad and the
up and down arrow keys could be bigger or positioned better but overall the
typing experience is enjoyable. The trackpad feels small, its wide but it's
not roomie from front to back so doing gestures feels a little cramped. Tracking
works fine i didn't notice any skipping or anything
the buttons need a bit more force to trigger that I'm used to but yeah
nothing I really dislike about the trackpad either. When it's closed up
it's less than an inch thick so it's a little thinner than your average 15 inch
gaming laptop as reports on this side there's an Ethernet HDMI an SD card slot
and one of the two USB 3.0 is the other side has a second USB 3.0 and USB 2.0
there's also your standard audio jack but there's no thunder bolt three so
there's no external GPU option.
The Omen comes in several graphics card configurations. The nine hundred dollar
base model has a GTX 950m and you can upgrade that for thirty dollars to a GTX
960m the one I have here is the top-spec GTX 965m.
I wouldn't get the 950m. it's an ok card but for an extra thirty dollars
that upgrade to the 960m is so worth it.
The 960m will do 60 frames per second for light games
even on ultra settings pretty easily and moderately demanding games will still
hit 60 frames per second at medium or high graphics settings.
I've reviewed a lot of laptops with that card so you can check those out for more
details.
The 965m is actually a noticeable step up in performance
depending on the game and screen resolution its rounded twenty percent
improvement and frame rates over the 960m. Again this is highly dependent on the
game and the graphics setting, but it is a noticeable boost. Thermally the 2016 Omen
runs relatively cool the fans do a good job in keeping the system cool but in
terms of fan noise
the Omen is slightly louder than the average laptop just by a few decibels
but it's more of a reason to put on headphones if you're playing games.
The 7200 RPM hard drive has a pretty average performance you can configure
some models to include an SSD and the performance on the factory SSD isn't
very good either.
Fortunately it's easy to open up and upgrade them you just remove the screws
on the bottom
pop off the keyboard and you can see that the Ram is upgradable there's two
slots to work with. The two storage bays are also upgradeable there's two and a
half inch SATA Drive and also room for an m2 pcie stick the battery down here
61.5 water battery takes around two and a half hours to charge up and I'm
getting around four hours of battery life with screen at around eighty
percent brightness.
My guess is that the 1080p panel would be closer to five and a half six hours.
All right the 2016 HP Omen soft touch finish build quality is respectable for
a plastic build the 4K screen is bright reasonably color accurate an a highly
recommended upgrade over the 1080p option.
The keyboard is decent, back lighting is bright and overall an enjoyable typing
experience. The trackpad can be a little taller and the buttons are harder to
press but
it's a very usable trackpad. Inside, the Skylake i7 in the GTX 965m are
great performers and they're very well cooled by fans that are a little bit
louder than I'd like. The Ram in the storage are easily accessible and
upgradeable and the battery will give you around four hours of regular use if
you're using the 4K screen now last year's Omen was a more premium product. It
was a little more
expensive. It had better build quality and it looks very unique. This year's
Omen
it's a little more generic looking the build quality has come down and the
price come down with it, which is cool.
Now there's nothing about the Omen that it excels at. It's kind of very good
across the board
If you get the 4K screen, I think you're getting a little bit better value than
the average laptop in this space but yeah if you like the brand or if you
like the way that the laptop looks
I think it's a good pickup. T hat's the end of this video, hope you guys liked it.
Thumbs up if you liked it.
Subs if you loved it. It's been nice. See you guys next time.