HP Omen 15 Review. The Right Gaming Laptop for the Right Price – review Addiction

Review and test of the HP Omen 15 laptop with pre-top assembly.

Today we are testing a classic gaming laptop: large, 15 inches and with an adequate price. We are talking about HP Omen 15 Laptop 15-ek0039ur. Prices for it start at 73,000 rubles for versions with Ryzen 5 4600H and GTX 1650 Ti and go up to 167,000 for versions with i7-10750H and RTX 3070. We got a pre-top assembly for tests: for i7-10750H and RTX 2070 Max-Q for 125,000.

Appearance

A laptop is delivered as standard: a white box and a 200 W power supply weighing 250 g. Omen itself is a standard of rigor. A rectangle of charcoal black color, small bevels on the sides to make it easier to lift the laptop from the table and a very nice soft-touch cover on the lid. The bottom half is entirely made of slightly rough plastic, the lid and space around the keyboard are covered with a sheet of aluminum alloy. Of the decorations, there is only a new logo: a mirrored rhombus with a gradient paint.

In terms of dimensions, we have a standard 15-inch model: 36×24 cm with a thickness of 2.3 to 2.6 cm and a weight of 2.46 kg. Almost the entire rear panel is provided for ventilation, there is also a blowout on the left side. Fresh air is taken from below: for this, huge ventilation holes were cut at the bottom and covered with a mesh so that dust does not clog.

There are no special questions about the assembly: the structure is strong, does not bend, does not bend. The screen is held in place by a pair of 180-degree hinges that hold the cover firmly in position. Confused only by the unusual cut of the case along the keyboard line: when closed, it leaves a small gap between the bottom half and the lid, and this not only opens access to dust, but also reduces the rigidity of the lid in this place.

HP OMEN Laptop 15-ek0039ur review. The right gaming laptop for the right price

Control and display

As for the matrix, the laptop can be supplied in several versions. Our model had an IPS resolution of 1920 × 1080 at 144 Hz with a brightness of 323 cd / m22 and 92% sRGB coverage. The bezels around the screen, as is now customary, are thin: 6 mm on the sides and 10 mm on the top, where there are microphones and a 720p webcam. The latter shoots well: of course, there is enough noise, but if you get a little confused with the light, then it is quite possible even to show yourself in Twitch against the background of the game.

HP OMEN Laptop 15-ek0039ur review. The right gaming laptop for the right price
The touchpad is large here – 115×74 mm – and is recessed into the body by half a millimeter. There are no separate buttons, which is not always convenient in games, but for Windows and some Transport Fever 2 it is enough. The keyboard is membrane, with full-size keys, without a numeric keypad (although there are versions with it), but with well-defined arrow blocks and a Home / End group.
HP OMEN Laptop 15-ek0039ur review. The right gaming laptop for the right price

The power button is built into the shared array, to the left of Del. We have provided protection from accidental pressing: to respond, the key must be held down for at least one and a half seconds. Note that the keyboard also has a backlight, moreover, full-color and customizable by zones. In terms of mechanics, the keys are also pleasant: they are both soft and at the same time hard at the end of the stroke, which gives a normal understanding of the pressing of the button. Plus, there are no combination locks. The entire left side can be clamped almost at once.

From the additional we note the Omen button, which launches the proprietary Game Center application. In general, this is a fairly standard software with a collection of installed games, keyboard backlight settings and resource monitoring. But there are also a couple of unusual gizmos in it.

First, there is an undervolting tab. That is, if you do not like the temperature of the processor, then you can legally try to throw it off by lowering the voltage on the stone. Moreover, HP offers to do this even in automatic mode. The computer tries different values ​​sequentially and selects the best one. For example, we have it lowered the voltage by 0.055 Volts and dropped the rendering temperature by as much as four degrees.

Secondly, there is an option of broadcasting games running on a laptop to the phone screen. Yes, I understand there is already a Steam Link for this, but the HP software works with all launchers.

HP OMEN Laptop 15-ek0039ur review. The right gaming laptop for the right price

Iron

Now let’s talk about the hardware. It is based on the well-known six-core processor Intel Core i7-10750H – its base frequency is 2.6 GHz, but in one stream it can theoretically be overclocked up to 5 GHz, in 12 streams – up to 4.6 GHz.

He was given 16 GB of memory: these are two DDR4 strips at 3200 MHz. For data storage, we installed one NVMe SSD with a volume of 512 GB and a speed of 3 GB / s, but if you wish, you can put another solid-state device: for this there is M.2 in 2280 format. It’s nice, by the way, that copper heat sinks are provided for both slots by default. And finally, the graphics were unsoldered NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q with 8GB GDDR6.

HP OMEN Laptop 15-ek0039ur review. The right gaming laptop for the right price

Two controllers are responsible for the networks: the LAN has a gigabit one Realtek RTL8168, and on Wi-Fi 802.11ax and Bluetooth 5.0 – Intel AX201… The controller is allocated to the sound Realtekthat serves both headsets and two speakers Bang & olufsen… The laptop also supports the DTS: X Ultra object surround sound standard, which, together with the software, allows you to simulate the exact location of sound sources.

In terms of connectors, everything is more than good here. On the left are LAN, USB 3.0, HDMI 2.0, SD card reader and 3.5mm jack. On the right are two more USB, Mini DisplayPort and USB Type-C.

In work

HP supplied the system for cooling Tempest Cooling. These are three radiators (two in the back and one on the right side), the same number of heat pipes and two turntables. The latter are surprisingly large and due to this they work at low frequencies. That is, the noise practically does not press on the ears. But at the same time, the turntables themselves are heard well. At maximum, they can accelerate to 52 dB.

HP OMEN Laptop 15-ek0039ur review. The right gaming laptop for the right price

In terms of temperatures and operating modes, everything is more or less normal. The video card is, of course, Max-Q, and on average consumes about 65 W, which allows it to rise to a frequency of 1450-1500 MHz. The processor in games is usually limited to 40 watts and operates in the 4.1-4.2 GHz region. In graphics-free mode – during rendering – the TDP of the processor rises to 80 W, which again allows you to keep 4.2 GHz.

As for temperatures, the situation is as follows. The GPU usually stays within 72 ° C. Well, the stone rises to 85-88 °, which is, by the way, very good temperatures for Intel. In many laptops, it goes well beyond ninety.

As for the performance in games, even though the video card is in the Max-Q version, the laptop shows good results. All recent AAA games without ray tracing except Watch dogs legion, overstep the 50 frames per second mark at maximum settings, and level projects F1 2023, Horizon zero dawn and World of tanks are approaching a hundred fps. If you want, you can squeeze 144 frames out of the system that the screen needs, but then you have to sacrifice the level of graphics.
HP OMEN Laptop 15-ek0039ur review. The right gaming laptop for the right price

Eventually

As a result, let’s say the following. It’s a really nice car. Yes, it doesn’t follow today’s downsizing trends. But for, let’s say, a semi-stationary solution, this is rather a plus. Due to the increased dimensions, it is possible to maintain normal temperatures on the processor and video card.

At the same time, what we especially liked: HP does not save on very important things. If competitors in the same price range light-heartedly put a screen with a completely indigestible coverage of 50% sRGB, then there is a normal matrix at 92% and at the same time without discounts in frequency: 144 Hz in place.

We also liked the unexpected, purely geeky thing with the processor undervolting. We have not seen anything like this from any of the manufacturers.

As for the cons. Then only high volume of the turbines can be recorded here. As for the rest, it is a real candidate for a purchase.

Specifications

Display: 15.6-inch, 1920×1080, IPS, matte, 144Hz (LGD05FE)
CPU: Intel Core i7-10750H (6 cores, 12 threads, 2.6-5 GHz, 45W)
Memory: 2x 8 GB DDR4-3200 (Samsung M471A1K43DB1-CWE)
Video card: Intel UHD Graphics, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q (1147-1935 MHz, 8 GB GDDR6)
Disk subsystem: 512 GB NVMe SSD SK Hynix PC601 HFS512GD9TNG-L2A0A
Sound: Realtek
Net wired: 1 Gbps Ethernet (Realtek RTL8168)
Net wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11ax (Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201), Bluetooth 5.0
Connectors: Thunderbolt v3 (USB 3.2 Gen.2), 3x USB 3.2 Gen.1, HDMI 2.0a, Mini DisplayPort, 3.5mm jack (TRRS), RJ-45
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Additionally: 720p webcam
Battery: 70.9 Wh, 5833 mAh
Dimensions (edit): 35.8 x 24 x 2.3 cm
Weight: 2.46 kg
Price for February 2023: 125,000 rubles ($ 1,670)

HP OMEN Laptop 15-ek0039ur review. The right gaming laptop for the right price

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