So much power
More specifically, today we are talking about the HP Omen 17-w102nl: As the name suggests, a 17-inch notebook sits on top of the HP gaming laptop hierarchy scale (if it were not for the recent HP Omen 17w-203nl, which differs from this model virtually just in the processor, which is now a Seventh generation Intel i7).
Prior to the user experience, they talk about technical specifications: 2.6GHz i7 6700HQ with turbo boost up to 3.5GHz, two 8GB 2133 MHz RAM banks accessible to the user, but above all an Nvidia GeForce GTX1070. An all-encompassing feature that puts him in a position of absolute advantage over many other contenders in the range of 1500/2000 euros.
For a gaming experience that makes portability a crucial element, this pc does not mind and returns great satisfaction: Gears of War 4, despite being highly scalable and easy to optimize, it runs widely over the 60 FPS with all the FullHD settings, Resident Evil 7 also achieves far beyond the fully-maxored, always at 1080p. The idyll begins to crack with Forza Horizon 3, a particularly cumbersome product to carry more than 30 FPS, which with all settings is at best between 40 and 50 FPS, so they have to sacrifice something to reach the target twice as much as that console, but with the benefit of all the exclusive improvements on the PC platform.
To get rid of the performance of the first two games mentioned, you have to go to work on the scaler of the resolution, pushing you to the 2K: there the situation starts to get worse with the 4K, of course speaking of maximum settings. As mentioned earlier then, a gaming experience that makes the power move its mantra, but shows the side when it stops and tries to connect the PC to a TV in the living room. A portable high bandwidth problem, despite making huge steps forward, still fails to balance the results of a more performing fade.
Little study
Since this Omen prefers mobility to sedentary, the aesthetic factor becomes even more important. Hp has chosen to kick the gaming world without drifting into the usual design that characterizes the products of this environment. The chassis is black in color, with a carbon ring resembling finish; instead of the usual edges and cuts, HP opted for softer and curved lines, more classic in the world of standard PCs.
Obviously in this morigerized setting stands out the red logo on the back of the screen and the keyboard with a numeric keypad, also with red trim. About keyboard, typing is more than good, although it is also here chosen to place the button “ù” where you usually would find “Enter”,
Generally, there are no specific customizations for the gaming user: even the above-mentioned keyboard is illuminated exclusively in red and has no intensity levels. From the software point of view there is nothing to work on, except the Bang & Olufsen equalizer, but it does not give the experience that gamers are looking for. Unfortunately, the collaboration with the Danish audio house has not been very profound, since the sound coming out of the speakers is more than good, but not at the level of gamers.
In general, it seems that HP knows perfectly well in assembling large pcs at the right price, but does not have enough experience in the gaming world to be really competitive: to give you an example, with generous hands, if you keep your fingers pointing WASD is likely to feel the wrists cut off from the body edge; the trackpad is great for web browsing, but in games it could take advantage of separate keys; the fan of the graphics card, quite noisy, often turn off bang demonstrating poor optimization.
