HP OMEN 16 Review: stealthy design, beastly performance

The HP OMEN 16 is an exceptional gaming laptop. The laptop has been by my side for almost two weeks, and I am thoroughly impressed with everything it has to offer. Sure enough, it doesn’t have the fanciest display or the most lightweight design. But, it offers impeccable performance, allowing gamers to play most AAA titles at 1080p or 2K resolution. If you’ve been considering buying the laptop, you should open a new tab on Amazon or wherever it’s being sold. By the time you finish reading this review, you’ll definitely want to add it to your cart. So, let’s dive straight in. 

Design and Display

The HP OMEN 16 breaks the typical mould associated with a gaming laptop’s aesthetic. To that end, the laptop’s all-black finish is devoid of any edgy decals or logos. The OMEN branding etched on the lid looks elegant, and the laptop looks less cartoonish and more sophisticated from afar. The OMEN 16 doesn’t have RGB lighting, and doesn’t appear overtly bulky. As such, you can take the device to a cafe or a coworking space without worrying about drawing unnecessary attention. 

Now, if you prefer a gaming laptop with a more aggressive or pronounced design, the OMEN 16’s monolithic chassis will seem unimpressive. However, those who desire a stealthy gaming notebook will find a lot to like here. I was thoroughly satisfied with the laptop’s build quality, too. The device uses a mix of metal and plastic for its construction and feels quite sturdy. The keyboard deck doesn’t flex when I rest my hands on it or apply pressure when typing articles or emails. 

Similarly, the laptop’s hinges offer excellent resistance, ensuring the display doesn’t wobble and stays anchored at the desired angle. Speaking of which, the HP OMEN 16 comes with a 16-inch Full HD display. The panel refreshes at 165Hz and offers a response time of 7ms. It doesn’t get too bright and tops out at 300 nits. That said, the panel covers 100 percent of the sRGB colour space and comes with an anti-glare coating, which should keep reflections at bay. 

Thanks to the laptop’s potent hardware, a lot of games can comfortably hit 144FPS or more on the unit. These include titles like Hades, Apex Legends, Valorant, XDefiant and more. As such, gamers will get a competitive edge in the titles mentioned above as they scale pretty well on the laptop’s HRR screen. The higher refresh rate also makes browsing through lengthy PDFs, articles, or documents less of a chore. The display offers wide viewing angles and overturns vivid colours, too. The bezels surrounding the screen are quite narrow, and I didn’t notice any colour shifting when viewing the display off-axis. So, you should find the display more than suitable for watching movies as well.

Ports and Webcam

The HP OMEN 16 has a handful of connectors, including two USB Type-A 5Gbps ports, two Thunderbolt 4 connectors, and an HDMI 2.1 slot. For networking, the laptop has an RJ45 port and supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. I wish the laptop had one more Type-A port, as it would’ve allowed me to connect all my accessories seamlessly. As things stand, I have to use a dock since I have three devices that interface over USB Type-A. Of course, your mileage will vary. 

That said, I am all for the placement of the ports, some of which can be found towards the back, sandwiched between the heat vents. This makes it easy to route the HDMI and power cables, reducing desk clutter. The laptop also comes with a 1080p webcam with a dedicated privacy shutter. 

The webcam’s picture quality is decent; however, it doesn’t support Windows Hello recognition or Windows Studio effects. Additionally, the laptop doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor, so you must enter a password or PIN whenever you want to unlock the device.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The HP OMEN 16 has a full-size keyboard; as such, you will get a dedicated Numpad with the keyboard deck. Quite frankly, I would have preferred if the keyboard did not have a Numpad and instead had larger, more spaced-out keys. As things stand, the laptop’s keyboard deck feels cramped, and I accidentally pressed ‘F’ instead of ‘G’ countless times when playing XDefiant. You can imagine my frustration when I repeatedly used a melee attack instead of lobbing a flashbang at the enemies. 

On the plus side, the keyboard supports four-zone RGB backlighting and 26-Key Rollover. As such, you can press multiple keys simultaneously without worrying about the keyboard glossing over your input. The trackpad offers a smooth surface, too, and should suffice for when you don’t have a mouse lying around. 

Performance and Battery Life

I was delighted with the HP OMEN 16’s performance. Spec-wise, my review unit comes with Intel’s Core i7-14700HX processor, which has eight performance and twelve efficient cores. The processor can deploy up to 28 threads, and the P-cores can turbo up to 5.50GHz. As for the GPU, the OMEN 16 comes with an RTX 4060 with a TGP of 140W. This is the maximum wattage supported by Nvidia’s RTX 4060 mobile GPU, and I am glad to see HP hasn’t cut any corners here. 

For RAM and storage, my review unit comes with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM clocked at 5,600 MHz and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. As prefaced at the beginning, the OMEN 16’s potent hardware translates to excellent gaming performance. I played a lot of games on the machine, including demanding AAA titles and a number of eSports and casual games. While taxing games ran superbly at 1080p resolution, I could comfortably play less demanding titles at 2K resolution as well. 

Apex Legends, for instance, runs comfortably at 2K resolution and consistently outputs 144FPS. I did have to turn some presets down, but most graphics settings were tapped out. Despite that, the game ran faultlessly on the machine; even a bunch of Ultimates going in tandem didn’t rock the frame rate.

The same goes for Valorant, too, which outputs well over 200FPS at 2K resolution and the best graphics presets. XDefiant, another high-octane PvP shooter, runs at around 90-100FPS at 2K resolution. That said, you can get the most out of the screen’s 165Hz refresh rate by dropping the resolution to 1080p. Doing so will net you around 140FPS in the game. 

God of War and Deathloop were more than playable at 2K resolution, too, with the former averaging around 50FPS on the laptop. Lesser taxing games like Hades run at a mind-boggling 600FPS at 2K resolution on the laptop. 

Some AAA games will need to be run at a 1080p resolution, though, which is understandable. Witcher 3, for instance, nets around 65FPS at the Ultra graphics preset. Turning on RT does take a toll on the frame rate, but you’ll still be able to enjoy the title at a playable 40FPS. Similarly, Cyberpunk 2077 sits at around 30FPS with full HD resolution, high graphics presets, and Ray Tracing enabled. Note that this is done without using Nvidia’s DLSS tech, which, if enabled, would surely increase the frame rate by a healthy margin. Without Ray Tracing, the game runs at around 60FPS. 

 
Fans of the racing genre will be delighted to know that games like NFS Unbound also run superbly on the laptop. In Unbound, I was zooming through the city’s streets at a cushy 65FPS. The game was set to 1080p resolution and the highest graphics preset (without DLSS). Hogwarts Legacy was, perhaps, the most taxing game I played on the laptop. I had to fiddle with the settings to hit high FPS consistently. At the Medium preset, the game logs around 100FPS. At the High preset and with Nvidia’s DLSS tech enabled for some load-sharing, the game runs at around 80FPS.

During various playthroughs, I noticed that the laptop’s chassis got quite hot to the touch. The area above the keyboard deck, in particular, got pretty warm. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the P-cores touched 100 degrees as well. That said, I didn’t run into any throttling issues on the machine. The fan noise was also nominal, and it did not distract me from completing quests.

Needless to say, the laptop is more than adept at day-to-day tasks like web browsing and routine office work. It can even be used in creative workflows like video editing, thanks to its colour-accurate display and snappy performance. In fact, the laptop completed tasks like applying a wide angle or a lens correction filter much quicker than devices powered by Intel’s U-series processors and Arc graphics. Rest assured, the OMEN 16’s performance will not leave you wanting more.

As is the case with most gaming laptops, the OMEN 16’s battery backup is sub-par, at best. As such, you should save your work religiously when using the device on battery power. Unsurprisingly, the laptop logged a little under three hours in PCMark 10’s Battery drain test, too. 

On the upside, the laptop comes with upgradeable RAM and storage, so you can bolster its performance down the line.

Verdict

As specced, the OMEN 16 costs around Rs 1.5 lakh in India. For its asking price, the HP OMEN 16 is a superb gaming laptop that checks most boxes. It’s powerful enough to run most AAA games at high settings and 1080p resolution. It also features a snappy display that’ll allow gamers to make the most of eSports titles like Valorant and Apex Legends. I am in awe of its build quality and subtle design that doesn’t draw too much attention. The battery backup leaves much to be desired, though, and the laptop’s keyboard deck feels oddly cramped. Nevertheless, I highly recommend the OMEN 16 to budding gamers. 

Editor’s Rating: 8 / 10

Pros:

• Excellent performance
• Minimalistic design
• 165Hz, colour-accurate display
• Ample ports and connectors

Cons:

• Keyboard deck feels cramped
• Below-average battery backup
• Can get quite warm under load