Announced globally just last month, the new HP Omen 15 and Omen 17 gaming laptops are now in Malaysia. Featuring capable hardware and a premium-looking design, these gaming machines are arguably some of HP’s most eye-catching products yet.
At the launch event of these new Omen laptops, we managed to spend some time with them. While we were impressed with the Omen 15 and 17, their steep price tags are not quite as impressive.
First off, let’s start with design: it’s not often you come across gaming laptops as sleek-looking as the HP Omen 15 and Omen 17. Sure, they share the overused black and red colour scheme many other gaming laptops have, but the Omen laptops sport a design language that’s rather unique. I’m especially a fan of the laptops’ lid design; the tribalesque Omen logo is a nice touch too.
Speaking of touch, the Omen laptops are mostly made out of plastic, which isn’t exactly a bad thing. Of course, it doesn’t feel quite as premium as laptops with metal chassis, but the Omen 15 and 17 certainly feel sturdy.
Open up the laptop and you’ll see a “dragon red” backlit keyboard, which is really what you’d come to expect from a gaming laptop. Unlike the Omen laptops’ mostly plastic construction, however, the palm rest area is made entirely out of metal. It’s cool and comfortable to the touch, and I imagine it will be pleasant to use in long gaming sessions.
The Omen laptops’ keyboard, on the other hand, is actually quite decent. The keys have a good amount of travel, and they’re quite tactile as well. (It’s also worth noting that the Omen 17 comes with a row of programmable keys on the left of the keyboard.) That being said, the keyboard does feel a tad too “soft” for my liking; the rough-feeling keys aren’t great either.
As expected of a gaming laptop, the Omen laptops’ trackpad isn’t quite as good as, say, a productivity-focused ultrabook’s. It can still track my fingers pretty accurately, but the trackpad itself doesn’t click. Instead, I’ll have to use the dedicated buttons on the bottom of the trackpad. Yes, it’s possible to tap on the trackpad to accomplish the same task, but it’s not quite as…satisfying.
So how is it like gaming on these Omen laptops? Frankly, we can’t say much. The only game that we managed to try out on the Omen 15 was Dota 2, which isn’t exactly a very graphically demanding game. For what it’s worth, it was definitely a very enjoyable experience, which is really a given for a laptop as capable as the Omen 15.
The HP Omen 15 and Omen 17 are well-designed, premium-looking gaming laptops, but they cost a pretty penny too. The Omen 15, for one, retails from RM4,499, and the base model only comes with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU, 4GB of RAM (seriously), and no SSD storage. As for the Omen 17, it’s priced from a whopping RM8,899, but it does come with respectable hardware like a GTX 1070 GPU, Nvidia G-Sync support, and a 256GB PCIe M.2 SSD.
At the end of the day, you’ll really be getting what you pay for with the HP Omen 15 and 17. They’re costly, yes, but their design and overall package may warrant their high asking prices. But of course, only a full review can reveal whether or not these gaming laptops are actually any good.
