HP Omen 17

It seems like crazy talk to call a $1,799 or AU$3,699 (about £1,470) a bargain, but that’s exactly what we’d call the HP Omen 17 when it burst onto the scene. It’s like the design process consisted of someone bursting into an HP engineering lab, throwing a GTX 1070 on the table, pointing at it and loudly proclaiming “let’s make this a laptop,” then left the room. The HP Omen 17 is kind of like HP found some gamer’s secret wishlist of ‘dream features in a laptop,’ and used it as a design document – focusing on graphics, display and storage. 

The HP Omen 17 is a G-Sync enabled, 4K 17-inch gaming laptop that actually makes Ultra-HD gaming seem like some attainable thing. We wouldn’t exactly call it a cheap laptop, but when you see what it’s capable of, the price tag seems like a downright bargain. More powerful than the Asus ROG Strix GL502 and less expensive than the Gigabyte P57X, the HP Omen 17’s price tag almost seems like a fantasy.

And, while the version of the HP Omen 17 we reviewed here has since been discontinued by the manufacturer, you can still find it refurbished or used. Or, you could go with the refreshed version with an 8th-generation Coffee Lake processor.

Design

As far as gaming laptops go, the HP Omen 17 is conservatively designed. It lacks the aggressive angles and sharp lines of most other high-powered laptops. Apart from its enormous size, you'd be hard pressed to know it's a gaming laptop at all save for the throwback HP Voodoo logo on lid.

The computer is plastic through and through, and it definitely feels that way. At no point in time did I feel like I was going to snap something off by handling it, but I also never felt like I was holding a premium laptop. The Omen has the plastic-lunchbox feel of the Gigabyte P57X , lacking the higher-end brushed-aluminum of most gaming laptops, including the Asus.

The face imitates the look of carbon fiber, which gives it a little more of the powerhouse gaming-laptop feel, and the backlit, chiclet-style keyboard has a tactile feel to it. Keys are yielding and responsive, but otherwise unremarkable.

Two big knocks against the design of the Omen 17 are its trackpad and its hinges. The lid hinges have a metallic finish, but look tacky. I also notice an audible squeaking, which can make for some spooky sound effects around Halloween, but otherwise, they don't inspire much confidence in their longevity. 

The trackpad is clunky and imprecise. It's multi-touch enabled, which is always a welcome feature, but clicking it just doesn't feel nice. At all. There's no crispness to it. If, for some insane reason, you want to use it for gaming, you're going to have a harder time than usual. Get a mouse or just hook up a console controller.

One of the most surprising and impressive things I encountered in my time with the Omen was how quietly it runs. The Omen has dual fans and quad heat pipes, with three exhausts to help move air, and it almost seems like sorcery. 

It gets hot, without question, but it never reaches a point where it feels alarming so, and the fans are easily drowned out by background noise. Do they run silently? No, but they're never distracting, and that's pretty impressive given how much power the Omen 17 has inside.

When it comes to size, the HP Omen makes itself known while sitting on your lap at a beefy 7 pounds. That makes it heavier than the Asus, perhaps not too surprising given the ROG Strix is a smaller 15-inch laptop. It's also a bit heavier than its 17-inch Gigabyte P57X competitor, which weighs 6.6 pounds.

Where the weight really becomes noticeable is when you pack up the computer and power brick and sling it over your shoulder. The power brick is one of the closest I've ever seen to resembling an actual brick used in construction, and its bulk and the Omen's hefty base weight means your back is going to be angry with you.

A Glaring Issue

There's something to be said about 17-inch gaming. Having all that extra screen real estate makes for a more immersive experience, and it helps better show off all those glorious pixels. The fact that the display is G-Sync enabled adds even more immersion while smoothing out screen tearing impressively.

As nice as it is having a gigantic, 4K, G-Sync enabled screen, don't even think about using it outdoors. In fact, the screen glare is so bad I had a hard time using it in my dining room where the indirect sunlight was coming through the windows.

The HP Omen 17 really gives you more for less. In fact it seems like there's a catch not immediately apparent. While it lacks the aluminum lid of the Asus ROG Strix GL502, it's only a few hundred bucks more expensive than the $1399 base-model ROG, but the Omen is bigger, has a newer graphics card, and it does 4K. 

Size and graphics-wise, it's on par with the Gigabyte P57X, but price-wise, the P57X is in the neighborhood of $700 more. You could use those savings to get a pretty nice 4K TV set and hook the Omen up to it. 

Spec sheet

Here is the HP Omen 17 configuration sent to techradar for review: 

• CPU: 2.6 Ghz Intel Core i7 6700HQ (quad-core, 6MB cache, up to 3.5GHz with TurboBoost)
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5 RAM), Intel HD Graphics 530
• RAM: 16GB (DDR4 2133 MHz)
• Screen: 17.3-inch 4K (3,840 x 2,160) G-Sync screen
• Storage: 256GB SSD; 1TB HDD (5,400 rpm)
• Optical drive: External USB DVD-RW
• Ports: 3 x USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, DisplayPort, mic/headphone jack, Ethernet, SD card readerConnectivity: 2x2 802.11ac WLAN and Bluetooth 4.0Camera: Front-facing HP Widevision HD Webcam
• Weight: 7 pounds
• Size: 16.38 x 11 x 1.29 inches (W x D x H)

Including a USB DVD-RW drive is a nice touch, but personally I can't imagine ever needing it. The 1TB HDD is a wonderful addition for those of us who primarily buy digital. 

The 1TB HDD and 256GB SSD is an even match with the Asus ROG Strix GL502 and the Gigabyte P57x. You can also get the HP Omen 17 with a 512GB SSD, which would run everything quite nicely. Given the growing size of modern games (GTA 5, a 3 year old title, takes up almost 60GB), your best bet is the 1TB HDD, with the SSD for your OS.

Performance

For its price, the Omen 17 is an insane computer. The 4K, G-Sync enabled screen and ample storage more than make up for its plastic feel and bulk. Performance-wise, its value really shines.

If you just want smooth frame rates and high detail, go ahead and crank everything up and set the resolution to 1080p. The Omen delivers. If you don't mind lower frame rates and some sacrifices in graphical flourish, you can mostly get away with playing games in 4K and having a pleasant experience depending on how demanding the title is. 

Benchmarks

Here’s how the HP Omen 17 performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

• 3DMark: Cloud Gate: 22,920; Sky Diver: 25,943; Fire Strike: 11,668
• Cinebench CPU: 679 points; Graphics: 104 fps
• GeekBench: GeekBench: 3732 (single-core); 13,387 (multi-core)
• PCMark 8 (Home Test): 3293 points
• PCMark 8 Battery Life: 2 hours and 20 minutes
• Battery Life (techradar movie test): 3 hours and 46 minutes
• The Division (1080p, Ultra): 71 fps; (1080p, Low): 164 fps
• GTA V (1080p, Ultra): 52 fps; (1080p, Low): 100 fps

Games look and run incredibly well. Metal Gear Solid 5, my personal favorite game of the last decade, looks absolutely amazing with the GeForce Experience-suggested settings. I only played it on Xbox One previously, but on the Omen I could see the muscles in Snake's back as he crawled his way through the game's prologue.

Even 4K works well, which is a testament to the power of the GTX 10-series cards. The Division auto-configured itself to run in 4K and I was able to get a respectable 30 fps with everything else left on the suggested settings.

Grand Theft Auto 5, with everything turned to the max, even runs at 4K. Granted, it doesn't run well at Ultra settings, but it runs 20 fps in full 4K. Choppy frame rate aside, I found myself staring slack-jawed at the individual pebbles that make up San Andreas' asphalt streets. 

I also checked out ABZU, which has a much lower overhead than GTA 5, and cranked its settings to their max. If you ever get the chance to play ABZU in 4K on a computer that can handle it, you will not be disappointed. On the Omen's 17 inch screen, it's breathtaking.

At 1080p, the Omen just screams. It's on par with the Gigabyte P57x, which isn't surprising given the similarity of their configurations. On Ultra, I was getting an impressive 52 fps in GTA 5 and 71 fps in The Division. I've never seen the games look so great. Turning on G-Sync taps down the max frame rate, but makes for an even smoother experience.

There's no doubt this is a VR-ready machine. Spec-wise, it's perfect. The GTX 1070 is a complete animal of a graphics card and the difference between it and its predecessor in the 980 is notable. While 16GB is plenty of RAM, 32GB is even better, and the memory modules are accessible via an access plate on the bottom. 

For the low price of RAM these days, why not splurge on more memory?

It comes as no surprise that battery life is a bummer. It's about what you'd expect from a gigantic, powerful laptop, which isn't saying much. You honestly won't do much better with a competing laptop, so it's hard to knock a problem that plagues high-end gaming laptops.

Conspicuously absent from the HP Omen 17 is any sort of bundled overclocking and performance software. Some users don't trust themselves enough to delve into the settings on my CPU and GPU, but if you love to get in there and adjust voltages, there's nothing included with the computer. You'll need to venture into the BIOS or use your favorite third-party tool.

I'm happy to say the sound quality on the built-in speakers is not only good, but loud. And better still, when the volume is blaring, the speakers don't sound like they're about to burst. You'll obviously get better sound from dedicated speakers, but the built-in Bang & Olufsen sound equipment is loud and clean. 

The jump to 4K and VR started before the hardware was truly ready. Earlier 4K enabled computers could barely handle the content they were marketed to run, and initial requirements for VR made a lot of people realize their powerful gaming rigs weren't going to handle the next "big" thing in gaming. 

We've come a long way in a short time, and not only is hardware powerful enough to handle the next big gaming buzz, the HP Omen 17 proves it can come at a reasonable price.

We liked

The huge, G-Sync display really let’s modern games stretch their graphical legs. I already put 100 hours into Metal Gear Solid 5 on consoles and I can honestly say, looking as good as it does on the Omen 17, I wouldn't mind putting in another 100 hours.

Sound quality from the built-in speakers is good enough to not detract from the experience, and if you want to stream some music, loudly, the Omen has you covered.

We disliked

It seems very unlikely this desktop replacement will ever venture too far from a desktop. A 17-inch laptop is bulky by anyone's standards, and the seven pound weight coupled with the huge power brick makes traveling a real chore.

The screen doesn't handle bright light very well, even when it's coming through a window. As long as there's no light source to reflect off of it, the screen looks quite nice, but you won't be showing this laptop off at the park.

Final verdict

The powerful HP Omen 17 makes up for its shortcomings through the application of pure power at a price point well below other comparably equipped machines. Sure, it has creaky hinges and a plastic chassis, but who cares? 

It's worth the trade-off to get your hands on such a powerful machine at a sub-$2000 price. Even if you don't care about 4K, once you see your games at their highest settings in 1080p, you'll forgive the HP Omen 17 for not looking the part.