HP Omen 15 (2019) review

HP refreshed its Omen 15 gaming laptop series this year with NVIDIA RTX graphics and 9th generation Intel processors, complemented with a set of design tweaks. While the Omen 15 isn’t as ultra-portable as Asus’ Zephyrus M series, it’s not bulky either.

We got to try the HP Omen 15 (2019) dh0138tx, which comes packed with 9th gen. Intel Core i7 chipset backed by NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q design graphics. Spec-wise, it is a very compelling gaming laptop with powerful hardware that should ideally run most of the current AAA titles quite smoothly.

With that, let’s jump right into our experience of using HP’s latest Omen 15 (2019) gaming laptop.

Price and availability

HP Omen 15-dh0138tx (2019) is powered by Intel Core i7 (9th gen) processor with 8GB NVIDIA RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics, 16GB RAM and 1TB HDD + 512GB SSD storage. This model is priced at Rs 1,74,990 which makes it one of the most affordable laptops with RTX 2070 in India.

A similar variant with RTX 2060 graphics card is also available and is priced at Rs 1,59,990 in India.

Design

Taking the Omen 15 out of the box, it feels pretty sturdy and has considerable weight. The official numbers say that this gaming laptop is 20mm at its thickest point and weighs 2.23 Kgs. It’s well built, and a combination of plastic and aluminum is used for the chassis.

Gone is the dual-hinge design from last year and the Omen 15 now uses a central hinge to attach the lid to the base. The bottom corner of the top receives angular-cut design, which gives the laptop a tactical outlook.

The rear side of the lid still features dual-tone textures. However, the carbon fiber finish from last year has been replaced with a matte finish while the other half has a brushed metal finish to it.

HP Omen’s logo is embossed in silver on the lid but isn’t RGB-lit while the name “OMEN” finds its way on the hinge at the bottom. For us, we’d have liked if HP had retained the red-color logo from last year’s model, complemented by leading red lines.

As the laptop now has a central hinge, all the ports that HP had positioned on the rear center of the base in the 2018 version, have now been relocated to either side of the base.

It is fitted with Omen Tempest Cooling Technology, which consists of a 12V fan module, three-side vents, and 5-way airflow, which aim to provide a good thermal solution when the system is firing on all cylinders. You’ll find more about this in the performance section on the next page.

The area around the RGB keyboard has brushed metal texture, whereas the trackpad receives a matte finish. The power button has a red accent, which is Omen’s signature color.

The base of the laptop features a single-access panel that can be used to upgrade the internal hardware.

Overall, the HP Omen 15 is a well-designed gaming laptop, but the new version rips out the old one off some neat design elements like the carbon-fiber finish surrounded by red leading lines. Then again, it’s what we’d hoped, but the current crop isn’t bad either. For once, it doesn’t go all the way out in declaring its gaming foundations apart from the minor teases here and there, which is decent.

Display

HP Omen 15 features a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) Resolution display. It uses an IPS screen with a refresh rate of 144Hz for smooth gameplay experience. Besides, the Omen 15 finds itself in the same bezel-reducing race as other laptop makers. 

Narrow bezels support the left and right side bezels of the laptop while the top and bottom parts have thicker and are irregularly-sized bezels, flush with an Omen logo in silver at the bottom-center. The top bezel is home to an HP wide-vision HD camera along with dual-array microphones.

In our time with the Omen 15, we were delighted to play games like Apex Legends, Control on it as it produces some of the best-looking visuals on a gaming laptop in this price range. The high refresh rate screen ensured a blur-free and smooth gaming experience.

The display on the Omen 15 doesn’t disappoint and is excellent when it comes to playing games or watching videos on it. We would have loved to see a more minimalistic approach when it comes to the bezels. And even something along the lines of Zephyrus M would have provided a higher screen to body ratio than the current screen estate. Hopefully, HP tweaks it for the next year’s Omen laptops.