HP’s HyperX Omen 15 isn’t quite the budget-friendly gaming laptop its predecessor was

The HP HyperX Omen 15, which I first saw astatine CES, replaces the HP Victus 15, a longtime bestselling fund gaming laptop. The Victus costs conscionable $800, aliases little erstwhile connected sale, and was a bully introduction constituent to decent laptop gaming.

The Omen 15 has bully small upgrades complete the Victus. Its RTX 5050 Laptop GPU tin play 2026’s latest games, albeit connected low-ish settings. But it’s besides sewage a brighter 16:10 facet ratio show pinch higher refresh rate, and a 1080p webcam to make it a small amended for non-gaming stuff.

I’d telephone it a working-class gaming laptop, but acknowledgment to RAMageddon, the Omen 15 starts astatine $1,200 — a acold outcry from the $800 that made its predecessor truthful appealing. But laptop prices are measurement up crossed the board, and if you want current-gen gaming hardware, this is astir arsenic inexpensive arsenic you’re going to find it.

Our HyperX Omen 15 reappraisal portion is simply a $1,199 configuration sold done Walmart pinch an eight-core Intel Core 5 210H “Raptor Lake” chip, RTX 5050 discreet GPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and 512GB SSD. There are pricier Omen 15 configs retired location pinch RTX 5070 GPUs and OLED screens, but that’s for illustration spending Acura money connected a Honda Civic. On the little end, HP still has a Victus 15 config pinch the RTX 5050 for $900, but it has 8GB of RAM — that’s not really tenable, particularly for playing the latest games.

The bully news is that the Omen 15 pinch an RTX 5050 is beautiful serviceable for playing games astatine its 1920 x 1200 autochthonal resolution. Last-gen games for illustration Control tin get a soft 70 to 80fps connected High preset while utilizing DLSS. Cyberpunk 2077 tin tally connected the Ultra preset (no ray tracing) pinch DLSS group to Quality and get 60 to 70fps— sometimes dipping down to 40 while driving pinch tons of worldly onscreen. Standard framework procreation boosts it to 95 to 105fps, and 70s to debased 80s successful a car. Multi Frame Gen, which you don’t get connected last-gen GPUs, tin push that ever further if you don’t mind much “fake frames.”

Newer games are a much Medium to Low affair. For example, Helldivers 2 runs comfortably astatine conscionable supra 60fps connected its Medium preset pinch DLSS group to Quality — though it dips into the 40s erstwhile the bug courage deed the fan. But Battlefield 6 was lower, down successful the 50fps scope while moving Medium preset pinch DLSS cranked to Performance. I besides tested Halo: Campaign Evolved, which defaulted to its Very Low preset, wherever it looked for illustration a potato. On Low settings, pinch DLSS group to Medium, it mustered betwixt 50 to 60fps, but pinch predominant drops into the 40s pinch tons of enemies onscreen.

While playing each these games, the fans kicked up to a decent volume, but they weren’t obnoxiously loud, and the chassis stayed reasonably cool. The hottest point, a mini spot nether the chassis, roseate to 113 degrees Fahrenheit / 45 Celsius. But the main areas that usually make interaction pinch your hands aliases thigh didn’t get excessively lukewarm — beautiful bully thermals for a somewhat compact gaming laptop.

So the RTX 5050 GPU and its 8GB of VRAM tin get by pinch the latest graphically aggravated games, truthful agelong arsenic you’re not expecting a ocular powerhouse. But what astir surviving pinch the remainder of the laptop?

Much of the Omen 15’s value has gone to its specs. That intends location are immoderate unsmooth edges showing successful the accustomed areas. The trackpad has a responsive mechanical click, but if you prime up the laptop by either of its beforehand corners the chassis flexes and causes an accidental click. This is communal successful mostly integrative laptops, but still annoying.

The keyboard has decent capable tactility erstwhile typing. But moreover though I cognize gamers emotion a number pad, it makes this 15-inch laptop consciousness cramped. I don’t bask typing connected it for illustration I person different HP laptops. The speakers? A small muddy-sounding — particularly for music. And the ports? It has HDMI 2.1 and gigabit ethernet, which is great, but only 1 USB-C to spell pinch its 2 USB-A ports. And each of them are a humble 10Gbps — not peculiarly speedy compared to USB4 aliases Thunderbolt 4. Gaming laptops are expected to person ports aplenty, but this is conscionable ports apassable.

Aside from its gaming performance, the Omen 15’s different spot is its screen. The 1920 x 1200 IPS sheet isn’t peculiarly special, but astatine 400 nits it’s decently agleam and it has bully opposition and colors. It’s bully for games, and good for productivity activity and ray contented creation. I did a spot of Lightroom Classic editing connected the Omen 15, and my 50-megapixel RAW files were workable astatine a humble clip. (It helped that I was editing a batch of nether 50 images, and not, like, 2,000.) The bigger problem pinch trying to do imaginative things was the Omen’s paltry 512GB of storage. It fills up quickly erstwhile games for illustration Battlefield 6 return up 142GB. There’s a 2nd M.2 slot for different drive, conscionable arsenic there’s a 2nd RAM slot, which is awesome for early upgrades — but boy will that costs you correct now. You tin clasp retired for RAM and SSD prices to travel backmost down to Earth, but if that takes arsenic agelong arsenic it’s expected to, the Omen 15 mightiness consciousness beautiful outdated by then.

The Omen was besides good for my mundane work: Chrome tabs, 4 virtual desktops, Signal, Slack, euphony streaming, etc. While the 1080p webcam is simply a small grainy and somewhat debased successful saturation, it looks good connected video calls. The main obstruction to getting activity done connected the Omen 15 is that its artillery ne'er lasted maine much than 5 and a half hours. That’s acold from the worst for gaming laptops, but support that chunky powerfulness adapter pinch its tube plug nearby.

The HyperX Omen 15 is simply a decent gaming laptop. It’s conscionable not the worth the Victus 15 utilized to be. But neither is thing else. Absent a really bully sale, you’re going to salary complete $1,000 for anything pinch the RTX 5050, and usually a batch more. But buying into moreover the bottommost rung of the 50-series gets you each of Nvidia’s latest features, for illustration Multi Frame Gen and immoderate DLSS 5 yet shapes up to be. Last-gen 40-series aliases AMD GPUs aren’t bad options, but Multi Frame Gen tin thief support framework rates playable for longer.

It’s still worthy looking for those sales, though. HP, Best Buy, and Walmart often person deals connected astir of HP’s merchandise line. Even now, there’s an Omen 16 pinch an RTX 5060 GPU and somewhat larger (but dimmer) surface for conscionable $100 more than the Omen 15.

RAMageddon makes buying a caller gaming laptop daunting. If you request to bargain now and you don’t want to spell open-box aliases secondhand, you conscionable person to travel to position pinch the truth that you’re going to beryllium paying higher prices than balanced models from a twelvemonth aliases 2 agone — moreover successful the “entry level.” Considering the circumstances, the Omen 15 is an okay worth astatine $1,200 for getting into laptop gaming.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge