HP Omen 15.6'' Review
Category : Notebooks / Tablets
Published by Marc Büchel on 27.07.15
The OMEN gaming Notebooks from HP are a good looking breed and they come with some really interesting features. There is for example an Intel Core i7-4710HQ CPU as well as a GTX 860M graphics chip. Apart from that HP chose to equip this notebook with a FullHD touch display, which is quite an interesting choice for a gaming notebook. All this together sounds like a bit of a different approach for a gaming notebook and we're definitely curious to find out what this model can do.
On the following pages we will show you the strenghts and weaknesses of the OMEN 15.6 Gaming Notebook from HP.
Preview
Specifications / Chassis
Test Model / Avialable Models
| Digitec (Test model) | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-4710HQ, 2.50 GHz Standard, 3.50 GHz Turbo |
| Operating System | Windows 8.1 Multi-Language |
| Chipset | Intel HM87 Express Chipset |
| Memory | DDR3 1600 MHz, 1 x SODIMM, 16 GB (1 x 8 GB) |
| Display | 15.6'' Full HD, Touch, 1920 x 1080 (Samsung SDC3544) IPS |
| Graphics card | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M, 4 GByte GDDR5, 1029 MHz Core, 5000 MHz Memory |
| Hard drive | Samsung XP941 (MZHPU512HCGL-000H1) - 512 GB SSD |
| Network | 1 x WLAN 802.11ac |
| Video Camera | HD Web Camera |
| Connectors | 1 x 3.5mm Jack 4 x USB 3.0 1 x mini DisplayPort 1 x HDMI Type A 1 x Reader SD/SDHC/SDXC |
| Audio | Built-in Speakers incl. Microphone |
| Battery | 58 Wh, 4 Cells, Lithium-Polymer |
| Dimensions | 383 x 246 x 20 mm (W x D x H) |
| Weight | 2.1 kg |
| Price | CHF 1919.20 |
Châssis / Design / Build Quality
As soon as you take the OMEN 15.6 out of the box you will notice, that this is a great looking gaming notebook. Weighing 2.10 kilogram it is unusually light for a gaming unit but nevertheless there is a lot of performance slumbering under the bonnet. The M.2 solid state drive for example is seriously quick and the discrete GPU, the quad core CPU with eight threads and 16 GByte memory have been combined with a 15.6 inch FullHD IPS touch display. Apart from that also the cooling is adequate for the rouglhly 100 watts heat that can be produced by this notebook. The cooling solution is capable of removing the heat under normal circumstances but, when running Furmark, which puts insane load on the GPU, we see that there is thermal throttling and GPU clock frequency is being reduced. On the other hand if you do gaming there is no throttling and the GPU remains at it's stock frequencies. Regarding noise levels we can say, that under load the unit is noisy but in idle it's subjectively speaking very silent.
Display / Input Devices
Display
HP equipped the OMEN 15.6 with a 15.6'' IPS display that features FullHD, 1920 x 1080, resolution. Furthermore the display comes with LED backlight and there is a 10 point touch panel in place. Especially in combination with Windows 8/8.1/10 this is interesting and you might get used to this features faster than what you might think at first. Although this is an IPS panel color reproduction could be better, since only 60 percent of the Adobe-sRGB color space is covered. The brightness is on a very good level with an anverage of up to 308 cd/m2. The contrast is at 835:1, which is a very good value once again and the black level is convincing at 0.38 cd/m2. Since HP is using an IPS panel with this notebook, viewing angle sability is great as well.
Input Devices
The OMEN 15.6 gaming notebook comes with a tenkeyless keyboard and on the left hand side there are six macro buttons. Using the corresponding bundled software macros can be programmed on theses six buttons, which is very practical if you play MMORPG games for example. Basically the keyboard is much alike an Apple keyboard. The key drop is well chosen and the pressure point leaves a good impression. The keys themselves come with a slightly rough surface and provide good grip. Furthermore the chassis doesn't bend. This is another indicator for high build quality.
Centered, below the keyboard you can find the touchpad. Fortunately this has not been integrated into the material of the chassis and offers a left and a right key. The touchpad also offers supports multitouch gestures, which work perfectly fine. Overall the touchpad is what you expect it to be: precise and responsive. Apart from that the two mousebuttons - left and right - are also as responsive as they should be and they offer a well defined release point.
Test setup
Regarding our notebook reviews we use a practical approach. To get a detailed impresson of the device the tester uses it to work with. In case of gaming notebooks it replaces the testers gaming PC during the time of the test. These methods allow us to provide detailed user experience to you.Regarding performance benchmarks - which are listed below - we don't go very deep. What we do, is that we use benchmarking software which over the years have established as standards for reviewing purposes. Furthermore the specific game benchmarks give insight to the playability of recent games.
Benchmarking Suite
- Futuremark PCMark 7
- Total Score
- Cinebench
- 1 Core
- Multicore
- Futuremark
- PCMark 7
- 3DMark
- Games
- Battlefield 4
- Watch Dogs
- Tomb Raider
- Crysis 3
- Thief
- GRID
- Sleeping Dogs
- Metro Last Light
- Far Cry 4
- GTA V
- Battery Life
- Load
- WLAN and Browser
- Idle
- Noise Level
- Load
- Idle
- Temperature
- Load
Performance
System |
HP Omen Pro 15.6'' |
| PCMark 7 | 5934 Points |
| Cinebench R11.5 - Single CPU | 1.47 Points |
| Cinebnech R11.5 - Multi CPU | 7.12 Points |
| AS SSD - Sequential Read | 705.78 MB/s |
| AS SSD - Sequential Write | 558.77 MB/s |
| AS SSD - 4K Read | 23.99 MB/s |
| AS SSD - 4K Write | 54.56 MB/s |
| AS SSD - 4K-64 Read | 202.07 MB/s |
| AS SSD - 4K-64 Write | 356.50 MB/s |
| Access Time Read | 0.067 ms |
| Access Time Write | 0.121 ms |
Games |
HP Omen Pro 15.6'' |
| 3DMark Total Performance | 3'597 Points |
| 3DMark Total Extreme | 1'782 Points |
| 3DMark Total Ultra | 876 Points |
| Unigine Heaven - Very High Details - 1080p | 443 Points |
| Battlefield 4 - Very High Details - 1080p | 34.22 FPS |
| Watch Dogs - Very High Details - 1080p | 19.88 FPS |
| Tomb Raider - Very High Details - 1080p | 16.10 FPS |
| Crysis 3 - Very High Details - 1080p | 11.41 FPS |
| Thief - Very High Details - 1080p | 36.72 FPS |
| GRID - Very High Details - 1080p | 33.30 FPS |
| Sleeping Dogs - Very High Details - 1080p | 21.00 FPS |
| Metro Last Light - Very High Details - 1080p | 16.88 FPS |
| Far Cry 4 - Very High Details - 1080p | 20.38 FPS |
| GTA V - Very High Details - 1080p | 36.68 FPS |
Temperatures / Noise level / Power consumption / Battery life
Temperatures |
OMEN 15.6 |
| Idle - CPU | 40 °C |
| Load - CPU | 78 °C |
| Idle - GPU | 39 °C |
| Load - GPU | 89 °C |
Noise level |
OMEN 15.6 |
| Idle | 33.2 dBA |
| Load | 45.7 dBA |
Power consumption |
OMEN 15.6 |
| Idle | 29 Watt |
| Load | 110 Watt |
Battery life |
OMEN 15.6 |
| Idle | 4h 06min |
| Load | 1h 23min |
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| Overall the HP OMEN 15.6 leaves a great impression and you get an exceptionally good looking gaming notebook. We especially liked the high build quality, the comfortable keyboard and responsive touchpad, and next to the very nice design, we were happy about the fact, that the GTX 860M graphics chip is capable of providing enough performance for FullHD gaming. We also like that there is a touch screen and you get used to it quicker than you might expect. When it comes to cooling and noise level, HP has an adequate system in place. Under full load the unit is noisy. In idle the unit is silent but not inaudible. | - Form factor
-Design |
||
| Display / Input devices | + | - | |
HP provided the OMEN 15.6 with an overall good
display with IPS panel, that features a size of 15.6 inch and offers FullHD resolution. Apart from that there is a glare-type surface, which does not remove reflections. We were actually surprised, that the color space is not as good as we expected, but in the case of gaming that is nothing to worry about. Brightness, contrast and black level are on good to very good levels. |
- Display size
|
- Glare-type display | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| Equipped
with a Core i7-4710HQ quad core CPU which features eitght threads clocked
at 2.5 GHz there is plenty of performance slumbering under the bonnet.
Combined with an NVIDIA GTX 860M this notebook is really quick when it comes
to 3D performance. The GTX 860M offers enough performance to play recent games at FullHD resolution. Also regarding 2D performance there is plenty of performance under the bonnet. When it comes to battery life we would like to see that improved, since there still is headroom. |
-
Gaming Performance
|
- Battery Life | |
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you should be looking for a gaming notebook which comes with an exceptionally good looking design and offers enough performance for FullHD gaming, then the OMEN 15.6 is a great choice. | - Gaming Notebook - Desktop Replacement | ||
| Rating | |||
| The HP OMEN 15.6 Gaming Notebook receives very good 4.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
