My very first laptop was from HP and I have fond memories of it, when HP send me the HP Omen for review, it rekindled the memories. Rest assured, it would not cloud my judgement when I take a deep drive into the HP Omen 15 2020 review here.
HP Omen 15 2020 has a wider choice of configurations to choose from. The HP Omen 15-ek0019TX I got for my review is powered by Intel Core i7 10th gen combined with a modest NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 Ti. You can also get more adrenalin rush with GeForce® RTX 2070 with Max-Q configuration, if you are into higher spectrum of gaming.
HP OMEN 15-ek0019TX Specification
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-10750H (2.6 GHz base frequency, up to 5 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 12 MB L3 cache, 6 cores)
- Graphics adapter: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 Ti (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
- Memory: 16 GB DDR4-2933 SDRAM (2 x 8 GB)
- Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080pixel, 300 nits, 144Hz refresh rate
- Storage: 1 TB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
- Connections: 1 SuperSpeed USB Type-C 5Gbps signaling rate (DisplayPort™ 1.4, HP Sleep and Charge); 1 SuperSpeed USB Type-A 5Gbps signaling rate (HP Sleep and Charge); 2 SuperSpeed USB Type-A 5Gbps signaling rate; 1 Mini DisplayPort™; 1 HDMI 2.0a; 1 RJ-45; 1 AC smart pin; 1 headphone/microphone combo
- Networking: Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5 combo
- Battery: 52.5 Wh Li-ion (3-cell)
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
- Camera: 720p
- Audio: SAudio by Bang & Olufsen; DTS:X® Ultra; OMEN Audio Control Support DTS:X® Ultra; Dual speakers; HP Audio Boost 2.0
- Weight: 2.36 kg
Design and Build Quality
With the 2020 model, HP had toned down the aggressive dash of curves and lines in their gaming machines. When you call out gaming laptops these days, there are flurry of offerings with strong accentuated cuts and psychedelic LED colors popping out. The HP Omen 2020 lineup is muted in comparison and follows traditional laptop looks with robust build. It can sneakily blend in an office environment.
It is made of a combination of aluminum and plastic with the underlying chasis in metal and gives a sturdy and robust feel to it and probably can handle few knocks too. The matte finish on the lid tend to catch grease easily and is a fingerprint magnet. The lid has a diamond-shaped mirror-like logo which glistens in green and blue, depending on the angle viewed. Personally, I find the logo too bland but on hindsight, this subtle logo would appeal to even non-gamers.
Weighing 2.36 kg, the Omen 15 2020 definitely has fair bit of heft to it and measures 22.6mm in thickness. If you are planning a machine to carry often, this should be kept under consideration. A Wide Vision 720p HD web camera is housed on the top bezel. There is no privacy shutter, a while light indicator glows when the camera is active. Like most webcams in laptops, this is passable for video calls. The power button finds an odd place between the F12 and delete button.
The bottom has a large ventilation grills, which could inhale lots of air towards the heat sinks.
Ports
The HP Omen packs a lot in terms of port selection. On the left, you get a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, an HDMI port, an full-sized SD card reader, a Gigabit Ethernet port, headphone/microphone jack, and power jacks.
On the right side, you get a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports along with a mini DisplayPort and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Thunderbolt Type-C port.
Display
The Omen 15 2020 laptops can be flat laid to 180 degree and the hinge mechanism is confident. The Omen 15’s 15.6-inch 1920 x 1080-pixel display is love at first sight. I liked the popping colors, deep blacks and the colors are vibrant. Details are crisp and you will not miss anything in good game scenarios. It clocks 313 nits brightness which I find to be adequate and 71.8% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut is impressive. In short, the display is extremely likeable. There is also Nvidia G-Sync support.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The chiclet keyboard is almost silent which I kind of like for my laptops unlike the mechanical keyboards I like for my desktops. HP might also have gone for the silent treatment inline with the design choice of blending it in office ecosystem. The keyboard is full-fledged with separate numeric keys and calculator and arrow keys. I didn’t have any issues while typing. The travel distance is comfortable to use.
Then there is the RGB lighting, which most games would love to see. The back lighting can be customized from the OMEN command center. They keyboard is split into four zones for RGB lighting. The customization is not free wheeling but you can pick the colors for the four zones and the lighting is static. There is no strobbing, breathing or other dynamic effects.
The trackpad is large and easy to use. There are no separate dedicated left and right buttons. Omen 15 supports gestures and responds very well to them
Performance
Coming to the performance, if you are looking at top-notch gaming performance you should go with the GeForce® RTX 2070 for the max performance but that also costs a bit more than the unit I have here. Though the RTX 1650 Ti is not the powerful GPU from Nvidia, you can’t disown it, it still has in it. If you are aiming to mix gaming and work and a machine for multimedia editing, this variant proved to be fairly good in my use. This could be a good mid-level gaming machine. I used it for some of my video rendering and real-life use cases and it proved it to be a good reliable workhorse.
In 3D mark benchmark test we got 3897 in Time Spy test and 1761 in Time Spy Extreme test.
It has a Samsung NVme 1TB SSD storage. On Crystalmark 7 test, we got the following results in real-life performance and peak performance tests. There is 16GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory (8GB x 2 sticks), which can be upgraded to 32GB.
Omen Command center is you go-for destination to customize the keyboard lighting, adjust fan speed, monitor system diagnostics. For gamers, it also has an AI-based software that maps your play and throws pointers on your weak points. The game stream functionality aids to stream your game to another device in the same local network.
Battery life
The Omen 15 packs a 3-cell 52.5 Wh Li-ion battery. I could get a bit above 6 hours on an average on Omen 15 laptop, which is pretty good for a gaming laptop.
Verdict
The HP Omen 15-ek0019TX is a great mid-segment gaming laptop. If you don’t fancy the over the top design cues of gaming laptops and want something that would blend with your office environment, this is a great buy. Plus, the display is stellar and you get decent battery life for this segment.
