HP 15-CE198WM 15.6″ FHD Gaming Laptop review

HP 15-CE198WM 15.6″ FHD Gaming Laptop review

HP 15-CE198WM 15.6″ FHD Gaming Laptop review

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Go on, turn up the settings. With this kind of power, theyll be running scared. Includes 8th Gen Intel Core processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics for championship performance. Every detail is in your sights with the Full HD display, and 4 zone Dragon Red backlit keyboard. Key Features and Benefits Windows 10 Home 8th Gen IntelCore i7-8750H processor 15.6-inch diagonal Full HD IPS anti-glare WLED-backlit display (1920 x 1080) 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 1TB 7200RPM SATA hard drive + 256 GB PCle Solid State Drive NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5) Audio by Bang and Olufsen with dual speakers 2x2 802.11ac WLAN and Bluetooth Front-facing HP Wide Vision HD Webcam with integrated dual array digital microphones Product weight 5.77Lbs Dragon Red backlit 4 zone keyboard with full-size directional arrow keys and illuminated WASD keys for instant recognition OMEN Command Center software minimizes latency for a smoother online experience Walmart Protection Plans [sold separately] for laptops covers accidental damage like cracked screens and liquid damage, as well as battery, mechanical and electrical failure from normal use.

FORGreat overall and graphics performance
Solid display
Decent keyboard
Good sound

Great 1080p gaming
Comfortable keyboard and touchpad
Relatively light for a gaming laptop
Bright, vibrant G-Sync displayAGAINST
Chunky, plastic chassis
SSD a bit sluggish
Below-average battery life

Worst battery life we've ever seen
4K display is useless, detracts from user experience
Slow 5,400RPM hard drive
Bloatware galore

CPU	Intel Core i7-8750H
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060
RAM (Memory)	16 GB RAM
Screen Size	15.6 inches (39 centimeters)
Screen Resolution	1920 x 1080 pixels (1080p FHD)
Weight	10.8 lb (4.9 kg)
Brand	HP
Series	HP Omen
Model Number	3VT96UA

The HP Omen 15 offers great performance, a colorful 144-Hz display and a comfortable keyboard, but its screen could be brighter.

The HP Omen 15 we’re reviewing represents one of the higher-end configurations available.
CPU: Core i7-7700HQ
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q
RAM: 16GB DDR4/2400
Storage: 2TB Seagate 5400rpm hard drive, 256GB Toshiba NVMe M.2 SSD
Wireless: Intel dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2
Display: 15.6-inch 3840x2160 (4K) IPS with G-Sync
Ports: 3x USB 3, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, Mini-DisplayPort, SD card reader, ethernet, microphone jack, headphone jack, lock slot
Weight: 5.76 pounds, or 7.74 pounds with power brick
Dimensions: 15.3 x 10.85 x 0.98 inches
Webcam: 1080p IR webcam with dual-array digital microphone (supports Windows Hello biometric authentication)

The specs largely align with what you’ll find in many gaming notebooks, delivering plenty of prowess in gaming and productivity alike. The upgraded webcam includes an infrared sensor to support Windows Hello biometric authentication. Like I said: It’s a smart, solid all-around gaming laptop. A few puzzling hardware choices in this model leap out, however—like the decision to include a pokey 5,400rpm hard drive alongside a speedy, yet small 256GB NVMe boot drive. Talk about a night-and-day performance difference!

Another puzzler: HP’s configuration page lists the graphics card as a “6GB GeForce GTX 1060,” leading you to believe it’s the full-fat mobile GPU. But a quick dive into the Windows device manager shows the hardware is a GTX 1060 Max-Q part, instead. Nvidia’s Max-Q tech tunes hardware and software to create more energy-efficient versions of their namesake GPUs, albeit with some loss in performance. Happily, as we’ve discovered in the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (and will see later in this review), the Max-Q version of the GTX 1060 trails its beefier cousin by only a few frames and stands as a damned fine 1080p gaming option. Still, this potential confusion is worth pointing out. We asked HP for clarification, but the company was unable to provide any.

The Omen 15’s 15.6-inch IPS panel is a stunner, dishing out wide viewing angles, vibrant colors, and a luminous 314 nits of brightness. The display includes Nvidia’s G-Sync technology as well, which synchronizes the refresh rate of the GPU and panel to provide buttery-smooth gameplay free of tearing or stuttering. It’s great!

The decision to include a 4K, 60Hz display as an option feels weird with this laptop, though. The GTX 1060 Max-Q inside realistically can’t game beyond 1080p resolution in modern AAA games, and with so many pixels crammed into a modest 15-inch display, HP automatically scales text, apps, and other items up by 250 percent to make them legible, negating 4K’s benefits in most day-to-day uses. G-Sync and 4K resolution each impose a massive penalty to battery life as well, as you’ll see later.

The 120Hz, 1080p G-Sync display option that HP offers might be a better fit for the Omen 15’s capabilities, though we haven’t tested it directly. It’s cheaper, too.

SPECS

GENERAL
Packaged Quantity
1
Manufacturer
HP

PROCESSOR / CHIPSET
CPU
Intel Core i7 (8th Gen) 8750H / 2.2 GHz
Max Turbo Speed
4.1 GHz
Number of Cores
6-core
Cache
9 MB
64-bit Computing
Yes
Features
Hyper-Threading Technology, Intel Smart Cache, Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0

CACHE MEMORY
Installed Size
9 MB

STORAGE
Interface
PCIe

RAM
Memory Speed
2666 MHz
Configuration Features
2 x 8 GB
Technology
DDR4 SDRAM
Installed Size
16 GB
Rated Memory Speed
2666 MHz

MEMORY
Technology
DDR4 SDRAM
Speed
2666 MHz
Form Factor
SO-DIMM 260-pin

DISPLAY
LCD Backlight Technology
WLED backlight
Resolution
1920 x 1080 (Full HD)
Widescreen Display
Yes
Monitor Features
Full HD anti-glare
Type
LED
TFT Technology
IPS
Diagonal Size (metric)
39.6 cm
Display Resolution Abbreviation
Full HD

AUDIO & VIDEO
Multi-GPU Configuration
1 single GPU card / integrated GPU
Graphics Processor
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 / Intel UHD Graphics 630
Video System Features
NVIDIA G-SYNC
Sound
Stereo speakers, dual array microphone
Features
Bang & Olufsen Audio

HARD DRIVE
Type
SSD
SSD Form Factor
M.2
Capacity
256 GB
Hard Drive Features
NVM Express (NVMe)

INPUT
Type
keyboard, touchpad
Localization & Layout
US
Features
4-zone illumination, N-key rollover, gesture function, multi-touch touchpad

HARD DRIVE (2ND)
Type
HDD
Interface
Serial ATA
Capacity
1 TB
Spindle Speed
7200 rpm

COMMUNICATIONS
Wireless Protocol
802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0
Wireless Controller
Intel Wireless-AC 9560
Wired Protocol
Gigabit Ethernet

OPTICAL STORAGE
Drive Type
no optical drive
Type
none

PROCESSOR
CPU Type
Core i7
Processor Number
i7-8750H
Generation
8
Manufacturer
Intel
Clock Speed
2.2 GHz

CARD READER
Type
card reader
Supported Flash Memory
SD Memory Card

BATTERY
Capacity
70 Wh
Cells
4-cell
Technology
lithium ion

AC ADAPTER
Input
AC 120/230 V (50/60 Hz)
Output
200 Watt

CONNECTIONS & EXPANSION
Interfaces
HDMI
Headphone/microphone combo jack
Microphone input
Mini DisplayPort
LAN
Thunderbolt 3/DisplayPort 1.2 (Sleep & Charge)
USB 3.1 Gen 1 (Sleep & Charge)
2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1
Memory Card Reader
Yes (SD Card)

HEADER
Brand
HP
Product Line
OMEN by HP
Localization
English
Country Kits
United States
Packaged Quantity
1

NETWORKING
Data Link Protocol
Bluetooth 5.0, Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n
Wireless NIC
Intel Wireless-AC 9560

MISCELLANEOUS
Color
carbon fiber pattern (cover), sandblasted hairline keyboard frame finish, shadow black
Features
MU-MIMO technology
Included Accessories
power adapter
Theft/Intrusion Protection
security lock slot (cable lock sold separately)
Security Slot Type
Kensington security slot

MONITOR
Diagonal Size
15.6 in

SYSTEM
Notebook Type
Gaming
Platform
Windows
Hard Drive Capacity
1.256 TB

DIMENSIONS & WEIGHT
Width
15.3 in
Depth
10.8 in
Height
1 in

MANUFACTURER WARRANTY
Service & Support
Limited warranty - parts - 1 year
Technical support - phone consulting - 90 days
Type
1 year warranty

ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS
ENERGY STAR Certified
Yes

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Weight
5.71 lbs

OPERATING SYSTEM / SOFTWARE
OS Provided: Type
Windows 10 Home 64-bit Edition
Type
HP 3D DriveGuard, HP Audio Switch, HP Connection Optimizer, HP CoolSense, HP JumpStart, HP OMEN Command Center, HP Recovery Manager, HP Support Assistant, HP ePrint, McAfee LiveSafe, Netflix, VUDU

VIDEO OUTPUT
Discrete Graphics Processor
Yes
Multi-GPU Configuration
1 single GPU card / integrated GPU
Graphics Processor
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 / Intel UHD Graphics 630
Graphics Processor Series
Intel UHD Graphics, NVIDIA Geforce GTX
Video System Features
NVIDIA G-SYNC

VIDEO MEMORY
Technology
GDDR5 SDRAM
Installed Size
6 GB

INPUT DEVICE
Numeric Keypad
Yes
Backlight
Yes

INTERFACES
USB-C Ports Qty
1
Comment
Sleep & Charge

DIMENSIONS & WEIGHT (SHIPPING)
Shipping Width
2.7 in
Shipping Depth
13.6 in
Shipping Height
23.5 in
Shipping Weight
8.71 lbs

SERVICE & SUPPORT
Type
1 year warranty

SERVICE & SUPPORT DETAILS
Type
limited warranty, technical support
Service Included
parts, phone consulting
Full Contract Period
1 year, 90 days
GENERAL
Manufacturer
HP

While these features make for an overall awesome gaming laptop, I found some flaws. These include a sluggish SSD and below-average battery life. Overall, though, the Omen 15 is a winner.

Configuration Options

HP sent us the model of the Omen 15, which comes with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, a 2TB 5,400-rpm HDD, a four-zone backlit keyboard and a 1080p, 144-Hz display.
, which gets you a Core i5-8300H CPU, a GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB of VRAM, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, a 1TB 7,200-rpm HDD, a two-zone backlit keyboard and a 1080p 60-Hz screen.
, which comes outfitted with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, a 1TB 7,200-rpm HDD, a four-zone backlit keyboard and a 1080p, 60-Hz panel.

Each configuration also comes with the option for a 4K panel, which jumps the price an extra from the base model.

Design

The HP Omen 15's hood is like a war zone of style, where the glossy Omen logo sits comfortably out of the fray as the brushed aluminum and carbon fiber collide to form a crimson crosshair. And it doesn't just look good -- my fingers tingled as they brushed across the lid.

Opening the Omen 15 reveals two small hinges, which almost make the slim-bezel display look like it's floating. Combine that with the black-and-white keys backed by four-zone RGB lighting, and you have a gaming laptop look that's incredibly refreshing.

The only flaw that the Omen 15 suffers from is that it's built with thick, chunky plastic; the system weighs 5.4 pounds and measures 14.2 x 10.4 x 1.0 inches. Its competitors, the Alienware m15 (4.8 pounds, 0.7 inches), Asus ROG Zephyrus S (4.6 pounds, 0.6 inches) and MSI GS65 Stealth Thin (4.1 pounds, 0.7 inches) all have slimmer and lighter chassis made from aluminum.

Visuals are only part of a solid multimedia experience, though. The HP Omen 15’s Bang & Olufsen speakers produce clear, loud audio that sounds nice whether you’re watching movies or blasting through Cabal hordes in Destiny 2. There’s very little bass however, and while the lack of punch isn’t a major detractor to the overall experience, you definitely notice it during action-heavy sequences. You might want to snag a nice gaming headset to toss in your travel bag, but I wouldn’t consider it a must-have.

Ports

There are a solid variety of ports on the Omen 15 for all your gaming and streaming needs.

Display

The Omen 15's 15.6-inch, 1080p panel looks a little dim, but it offers solid colors and delivers smooth animations via its 144-Hz refresh rate.

As I forcibly made my way through the jungle in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the sun revealed the lush greenery surrounding Lara and I could almost feel the warmth of the distant star overwhelm her face. Although the display was sharp enough to capture the adorable monkey in the trees far across from me, the panel was just dim enough to make getting out of the darker parts of the jungle slightly annoying.

According to our colorimeter, the Omen 15's panel covered a solid 111 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which is just one point above the mainstream gaming laptop average. The Zephyrus S was only a couple points ahead (113 percent), but the Alienware m15 and Stealth Thin both rocked the spectrum with 150 percent.

At 266 nits, the Omen 15 had the dimmest screen of the bunch while also falling below the 276-nit category average. The Alienware m15 and Stealth Thin were decently bright, at 284 nits and 293 nits, respectively, while the Zephyrus S banged out an awesome 335 nits of brightness.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Between the soft plastic palm rest and the evenly spaced keys, my fingers tap-danced all over the Omen 15's keyboard in immense comfort, but the keys were a little mushy and had slightly lower travel than we'd like.

The inclusion of the four-zone RGB backlighting is a nice touch, especially because the lights are vibrant. I've never been a fan of the boxed WASD keys, however -- the fact that it has its own zone of lighting is enough.

I banged out 69 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is just over my 66-wpm average. The keys travel 1.4 millimeters and require 71 grams of actuation force (we prefer 1.5 to 2.0 mm of travel and at least 60 grams of required force).

The 4.0 x 2.1-inch touchpad is smooth to the touch and comes with two discrete buttons that were plenty responsive. The only issue I had was that the left button was just a hair lower than the right button, which drove me a little crazy. We reached out to HP about this issue and are awaiting a response. Despite that, Windows 10 gestures like two-finger scrolling and three-finger tab switching worked well.

Like the rest of this laptop’s design, the HP Omen 15’s touchpad and keyboard deliver a solid core experience. The touchpad isn’t quite as fluid as the gold standard set by the MacBook Air or Surface devices, but it’s responsive (if slightly draggy-feeling) and responds well to gesture commands. It has physical left- and right-click buttons too, which I always prefer. The keyboard travel is limited, but it still feels nicely crisp and clicky. I enjoyed using it for gaming and plowing through emails even though it’s not mechanical. The keys’ lettering is virtually impossible to read unless you have the red keyboard backlight active, though, because HP decided to use red type on black keys. Overall, the Omen 15’s input experience excels compared to many gaming laptops.

The overall design of the notebook is strong but also makes some small missteps. Even though HP sticks to the black-and-red aesthetic common on so many gaming laptops, it looks damned good—it’s “gamer” done right! I just wish the Omen 15 used more consistent materials. The surface around the keyboard is crafted from gorgeous brushed aluminum, yet the lid itself consists of plastic designed to resemble brushed aluminum, as is the heavily ventilated bottom of the laptop. It’s a bit jarring.

Audio

Bang & Olufsen impresses once again inside the Omen 15. These speakers blasted Post Malone and Swae Lee's "Sunflower" across a small lab area, causing even my co-worker to start humming along. The drumbeats in the beginning were a little muddy, but as the vocals picked up, everything else sounded very crisp and sharp. However, I did eventually notice a buzzing sound when the audio got too loud.

Bang & Olufsen speakers impress once again inside the Omen 15. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the mud slapped right into Lara's face, and I practically felt it.

When I drove straight down a hill in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the mud slapped right into Lara's face, and I practically felt it. Even in a room with a couple of co-workers disassembling a desktop, Lara's voice was clear as she talked herself through her bad decision-making. As I began looking for my gear, the jungle was filled with the sounds of life, from birds chirping to frogs croaking. It was almost annoying, but incredibly atmospheric.

The audio software, Omen Audio Control, was actually tremendously useful in helping me find a good audio balance, especially with its full equalizer. However, the only presets it offers are Music, Movie and Voice, leaving Games out completely -- I mean, come on.

Gaming, Graphics and VR

The Omen 15's GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU with 8GB of VRAM ran like a charm. Shadow of the Tomb Raider played at a smooth 45 frames per second on the Highest settings at 1080p as I stabbed an eel with a knife I inexplicably pulled from an airplane rudder.

On the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Very High, 1080p), the Omen 15 nailed 50 fps, which was smoother than the 34-fps mainstream gaming laptop average. It even got ahead of the Stealth Thin (44 fps), the Zephyrus S (46 fps) and the Alienware m15 (49 fps), which are equipped with a GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider pumped out a smooth 45 frames per second on the Highest settings at 1080p as I stabbed an eel with a knife that I inexplicably pulled from an airplane rudder.

We saw similar results on the Hitman benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), as the Omen 15 beat the competition again at 88 fps, and the category was left in the dust at 66 fps, while the Alienware m15 (79 fps), Stealth Thin (79 fps) and Zephyrus S (83 fps) could barely keep up.

The Omen 15 hit 63 fps on the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (Very High, 1080p), which beats the 46-fps category average, but the Zephyrus S and Alienware m15 surpassed the Omen with 64 fps and 66 fps, respectively. The Stealth Thin (61 fps) was only behind the Omen 15 by two frames.

The lid’s design looks great though. A red X in the center separates it into four quandrants, with the left and right quadrants covered in faux carbon fiber. A crimson Omen logo sits in the center of the upper quadrant, striking a beautiful contrast.

Note: The foil Omen logo on our unit was already starting to peel off when we pulled the notebook out of its box—and we saw plenty of similar complaints on HP’s support forums. According to HP, however, this was a known issue with early devices like ours that has since been resolved.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE

At one inch thick and 5.75 pounds sans power brick, the HP Omen 15 is lighter than many gaming laptops, though not as sleek as some of the Max-Q laptops we’ve seen. The Asus ROG Zephyrus and Gigabyte Aero 15X both weigh in under five pounds despite using more potent graphics cards (they cost hundreds of dollars more, to be fair). You can’t complain about the port selectionOn the SteamVR Performance Test, the Omen 15 (8.6) actually came out as the weakest of the bunch, aside from beating the measly 6.3 category average. The Stealth Thin (9.5), Zephyrus S (9.7) and Alienware m15 (10.1) all have a slightly better VR experience to offer.

HP 15-CE198WM 15.6″ FHD Gaming Laptop review

Performance

The Omen 15 is armed with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor with 16GB of RAM, so even with 40 Google Chrome tabs and Shadow of the Tomb Raider running in the background, the laptop shrugged off the 1080p Spider-Man trailers I kept opening to make my own mini Spider-Verse.

On the Geekbench 4.1 overall performance test, the Omen 15 scored 21,870, surpassing the 20,402 mainstream gaming laptop average as well as the Stealth Thin (18,046) and Zephyrus S (21,711), but the Alienware m15 excelled with 22,873 -- they all have a Core i7-8750H processor.

On the HandBrake benchmark, the Omen 15 transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 10 minutes and 25 seconds, soaring past the 11:20 category average. The Stealth Thin lagged behind at 12:01, while the Zephyrus S and Alienware m15 completed it posthaste at 10:12 and 9:51, respectively.

Gorgeous displays and fancy carbon fiber lids don’t matter if a gaming laptop doesn’t game, though. Fortunately, the HP Omen 15 works and plays like a champ. We’ll be comparing it against several similar systems in our tests, including the GTX 1060 Max-Q-equipped Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming, the Gigabyte Aero 15 with a full-fat GTX 1060, the Gigabyte Aero 15X with a GTX 1070 Max-Q, and the larger HP Omen 17 with a GTX 1070 inside.

Maxon’s Cinebench R15 measures raw CPU performance, and the more threads you can throw at it, the happier it is. Many of today’s high-end gaming laptops lean on the quad-core Intel Core i7-7700HQ, including most of the machines compared here, and largely deliver similar results with some minor variations due to cooling design differences.

The Dell Inspiron uses a Core i5 chip instead. It stands strong in Cinebench’s single-thread tests, but because the chip lacks hyper-threading support, Dell’s laptop brings up the rear in Cinebench’s multi-threaded benchmark by a large margin. The smaller HP Omen 15 actually outperforms the larger Omen 17 by a considerable amount.

The Cinebench test has a short run time, but the file we encode in our CPU-intensive HandBrake test (which uses an older version of the software) takes around 45 minutes on a quad-core processor. The extended duration reveals how a laptop’s temperature throttling affects performance over time. The Omen 15 finishes nearly five minutes after the Omen 17, despite its advantage in Cinebench. That suggests it throttles performance more aggressively during extended workloads to keep temperatures down.

But this is a gaming laptop, so let’s get to the games! Note that we tested at 1080p. The GTX 1060 Max-Q excels at that resolution, but going up to the display’s native 4K utterly cripples games. Keep that in mind if you pick this laptop up because you’ll need to manually change the resolution to 1080p the first time you launch new games.

As you can see, the HP Omen 15 delivers in excess of 60 fps across the board at 1080p. The gorgeous G-Sync display makes every game look and feel marvelous. HP’s Max-Q-equipped notebook hews closely to the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming, and lags behind the Gigabyte Aero 15’s full-fat GTX 1060 by only a handful of frames per second. Moving up to a GTX 1070 provides a big jump in performance—and cost—as you’d expect.

We also ran the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark continuously for an hour. The only performance drop-off observed fell within the margin of error—around a frame per second. RoTR is a very GPU-intensive game; comparing the consistent results the Omen 15 delivered on it over an hour to the laptop’s lagging Handbrake score, we’re led to believe HP is more aggressive at throttling back the CPU during extended workloads.

The Omen 15’s cooling is superb overall. The laptop didn’t get overly hot during long gaming or benchmark sections, and while the fans indeed ramped up after a while, they never were so loud as to be distracting.

HP's 256GB SSD copied 4.97GB of data in a sluggish 22 seconds, for 231 megabytes per second, which doesn't reach the 300-MBps category average. The Stealth Thin's 512GB SSD (193 MBps) didn't make it either, but the Zephyrus S' 512GB SSD hit 424 MBps, and the Alienware m15's 1TB SSD wrecked shop at 1,018 MBps.

Battery Life

Gaming laptops chug a lot of power, but the Omen 15's battery life is still shorter than we expected. After continuously surfing the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the Omen 15 lasted only 3 hours and 47 minutes, whereas the mainstream gaming laptop average is 4:31. The Zephyrus S (3:33) didn't do any better, but the Alienware m15 (6:25) and Stealth Thin (5:40) lasted quite long for gaming laptops.

The HP Omen 15’s battery life sucks, even after reducing the brightness to 250 to 260 nits to ensure a level playing field between all the machines. It’s the worst we’ve ever seen in a gaming laptop, falling behind even the beastly Acer Predator 21 X and its dual GTX 1080s. It’s so bad that we double-checked our settings and ran the test again to confirm our results.

Most Max-Q laptops we’ve seen pack modest batteries, and the Omen 15 is no different with its 64-watt-hour capacity. That’s not enough to keep the screen fed for long with this particular configuration. 4K resolution is famous for murdering batteries. G-Sync is too, as it requires the Nvidia GPU to be active at all times—you can’t switch over to integrated Intel graphics to increase endurance with a G-Sync display. The combination cripples this Omen 15. Keep your charger close.

Webcam

When looking at the test shots of the Omen 15's webcam, I thought I was thrown into a B-movie horror flick. The lighting was ominously dark, and my surroundings were washed in a greenish tint.

I could even see the pixels on my forehead when the photo was zoomed out all the way. I would suggest buying an external webcam if you plan on streaming.

Heat

The Omen 15 got a little spicy under the hood after playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider for 15 minutes straight. The underside hit 116 degrees, which is far from our 95-degree comfort threshold, while the center of the keyboard and touchpad reached 115 degrees and 82 degrees, respectively. There were scorching-hot temps where the fans are, on the lower-left underside: Those spots hit up to 143 degrees.

It wasn't too bad while I handled smaller tasks like displaying a 15-minute 1080p video. During that time, the Omen 15's underside hit 101 degrees; the keyboard reached 100 degrees and the touchpad measured 85 degrees.

Software and Warranty

HP includes some of its own typical bloatware as well as the more useful Omen Command Center, which monitors the CPU, GPU, RAM and network speeds.

Its Network Booster can prioritize bandwidth usage, and the Lighting tab, of course, controls the keyboard lighting. Unfortunately, it only features static lighting effects, so it's nothing very fancy. There's also three performance settings: Comfort (lowers CPU and GPU), Default (standard) and Performance (raises the CPU and GPU).

HP also includes HP JumpStart (Windows 10 tutorial), HP Recovery Manager (maintenance and recovery data) and HP Support Assistant (updates HP device drivers). Not to mention Windows 10 bloatware like Netflix, Royal Revolt 2: Tower Defense and the epic Microsoft Solitaire Collection.

The Omen 15 comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how HP performed on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands ranking.

Bottom Line

The HP Omen 15 packs a punch in terms of style and performance. It delivers a solid display, decent speakers and a comfortable keyboard. However, I can't look past the display's slightly dim nature and the way the speakers can buzz at higher volumes.

If you're interested in going for a more premium laptop, you can get the Alienware m15 , which comes equipped with similar specs that offer stronger performance, a much more colorful display, better gaming utilities and longer battery life.

Should you buy the HP Omen 15?

To finish where this began: I’m torn about the HP Omen 15. I thoroughly enjoy the core of system! It’s not too bulky, the design looks good, there’s plenty of ports, the keyboard and touchpad are comfortable, and the hardware delivers a top-notch 1080p gaming experience. That’s everything you need for a competent all-around gaming laptop.

But HP repeatedly trips over the details in the specific configuration we were sent to review.Pairing a tiny NVMe drive with a large but pokey 5,400rpm hard drive doesn’t make sense. Gamers need 7,200rpm for mass storage—otherwise loading times and asset streaming in open-world games become excruciating. Mixing actual brushed metal and plastic designed to look like brushed aluminum feels cheap and jarring.

Worse, the Omen 15 is overflowing with bloatware. Not even counting HP’s own software (of which there’s an excessive amount) we counted roughly a dozen non-stock programs preinstalled on the system, including Netflix, Plex, a McAfee Livesafe trial, several meh games, and Dropbox (which sometimes pops up after you restart, asking you to register).

All those little nitpicks add up when you’re spending on a notebook, but it’s the display that kills this particular laptop’s appeal, as gorgeous as it is. If you always travel with your charger, the scant 1.5-hour battery life—while watching videos, not gaming—might not faze you. It’s a complete showstopper if you have any desire to truck out to the library or coffee shop with your laptop alone. Worse, the sacrifice is needless. So many pixels crammed into the 15.6-inch screen forces HP to scale desktop elements to 250 percent to remain legible, and the GTX 1060 Max-Q can’t game beyond 1080p anyway. The 4K display isn’t just superfluous; you actively need to adjust options to keep it from hurting your computing experience. Ugh.

The HP Omen 15 is still a solid gaming laptop at its heart though. Most of these gripes can be mitigated by selecting alternative configuration options on HP’s website and running PC Decrapifier on your PC.