#HP’s Gaming Lineup Gets a Major Refresher – Review Geek

HP just announced several new gaming laptops alongside a new gaming monitor in an effort to attract those looking for more affordable components for their gaming setup. The lineup includes a new Victus line and two laptops from HP’s Omen line.

By introducing the modest Victus line, HP is offering a mid-tier gaming laptop for those who want to game, but not drop thousands on a higher-end gaming computer. Likewise, the two newly refreshed Omen gaming notebooks are available in two sizes and still look to be offering solid and more premium performance like predecessors.

Victus Laptop

The founding laptop in HP’s new Victus line, the Victus 16, boasts a quad HD 165Hz 16-inch display. Under the hood, it brings an 11th-gen Core i7 or Ryzen 7 5800H processor, Radeon RX 5500M or Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics, and up to a 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD.

Given that it starts at just $800, that’s decently powerful hardware that will work just fine for most games. HP designed the computer to be a stepping stone between its Pavilion notebooks and its more powerful Omen series. The Victus will be available in three colors—black, dark blue, and white—and start at $799.99.

Omen Laptops

Those looking for a more hard-hitting gaming laptop should turn to HP’s Omen line. It dropped two new models—the Omen 16 and the Omen 17—which give you options for both AMD and Intel. The Omen 16 is your best option for having lots of options for customizing, whereas the Omen 17 offers better components overall.

The Omen 16 has a 16.1-inch display with a 16:9 aspect ratio, plus it gives you the choice between an Intel Core i7-11800H or an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX mobile CPU. For storage, you can opt for either a 1TB PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD or two 1TB PCIe SSDs configured in RAID 0. Memory options can handle as much as 32GB of DDR4 3200 RAM (clocked at 3,200MHz), and you can even spring for the RTX 3070 GPU configuration.

HP also boosted the thermals for this model by adding over 200% more blades onto the system’s fans and making them less thick than the blades on the Omen 15. It also has an SD Card slot and an HDMI 2.1 port for up to 4K output at 120Hz. Battery on the Omen 16 is expected to last up to nine hours for garden-variety usage, as well.

The Omen 17 has an Intel Core i9-11900H processor, and it can also support an RTX 3080 should you so desire. Its larger and more powerful than the Omen 16. Same as the Omen 16, this laptop can handle up to 32GB of DDR4 3200 RAM and you’ll have the same choice for storage. Its display measures 17.3 inches.

Both laptops support Wi-Fi 6E, use Thunderbolt 4, and can have up to QHD resolution with a165Hz refresh rate. Otherwise, it’s worth noting that the Omen 17 has a mechanical keyboard with RGB optical switches (with a 0.2ms response time). Both will be available in early June; the Omen 16 will start at $1,049.99 while the Omen 17 will start at $1,369.99.

Omen Gaming Monitor

The new Omen 25i gaming monitor has a 165Hz refresh rate and a 1920 x 1080 HD resolution, along with AMD FreeSync, Nvidia G-Sync support, and VESA HDR 400 certification. It boasts a new IPS panel and features Dynamic Crosshair tech that’ll automatically change the color of in-game crosshairs for better contrast.

HP is also upgrading its Omen Gaming Hub with Omen Oasis. The update will help optimize performance, gameplay, game capture, and also create lobbies for multiplayer scenarios.

via The Verge