OMEN notebooks from HP have appeared in our reviews more than once. They have established themselves as solid machines, which are convenient to work with and comfortable to play on. Their configurations, as a rule, are balanced, the assembly is of high quality, the appearance is no-frills. Let us tell you what the novelty in the series is: the fifteen-inch OMEN 22R20EA in the 15-ek0039ur configuration.
Appearance
At first glance, the OMEN 15 has nothing to do with gaming laptops. However, recently HP and some other brands have often taken the design of their gaming models into austerity and minimalism. So this time: the case with a diagonal of 15.6 ” is made of black matte plastic, which slightly resembles a soft-touch coating to the touch. All the elements are of the correct shape, the corners are not rounded, the stiffeners are clearly visible on the bottom cover. The parts fit tightly to each other, the fasteners are screw (no creaks, crunches and displacements), the laptop feels like a monolithic device.
Ventilation slots and holes were placed at the bottom and at two ends. The solution is successful: hot air does not warm up the hands, and cold air is freely supplied to the cooling system, without mixing with hot streams.
Connectors for connecting peripherals are brought out to the ends. The right one is rich in interfaces: there is a pair of USB 3.0 Type-A, miniDisplayPort, USB 3.1 Type-C. On the left, they put a power jack, HDMI, third USB 3.0 Type-A, HDMI, RJ45, card reader and a 3.5 mm four-pin audio jack socket.
Control and screen
The OMEN 15 lid opens 180 degrees with protruding hinges. It’s hard to say why a gaming laptop needs such a feature. But the rest of the screen is good: it is a Full HD IPS-matrix with a refresh rate of 144 Hz, framed by six-millimeter bezels on the sides. Above the display, a webcam and microphones were placed.
The keyboard fits well with the overall style of the laptop: black island-style keycaps are in perfect harmony with the base of blackened metal, and even the RGB lighting looks natural. The key travel is 1.5 mm, the side of the main caps is 15 mm, the distance between them is 3.3 mm, there are practically no truncated buttons. The stroke is elastic, pleasant, almost soundless. A power button was also added to the main unit, protecting it from accidental pressing during printing: to operate, you have to hold it down for about two seconds.
A decent area is left under the wrists, a third of it is occupied by a touchpad rectangle of a solid size – 115 × 74 mm. However, the touch panel was not supplemented with two full-fledged buttons; have to be content with one.
Iron
The stuffing of the new OMEN is worthy: a six-core Intel Core i7-10750H with a declared TDP of 45 W. The base frequency is low – 2.6 GHz. But if necessary, it rises up to 5 GHz for single-threaded tasks. High-frequency RAM, 3200 MHz, standard volume – 16 GB. There are two video cards: integrated into the UHD Graphics processor and a discrete GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q with 8 GB of video memory. The drive is one: NVMe SSD for half a terabyte. The new generation has inherited an important feature – ease of modernization: the back cover can be removed without much effort, memory modules are installed in SO-DIMM slots, and the SSD has the most common form factor M.2 2280. Another drive of the same type can be installed on the other side of the battery …
The cooling system consists of three stacked radiators connected by heat pipes with large heat sinks. They cover the processor, graphics chip, video memory, and power supply components. Additional copper heatsinks are provided for SSD drives. Cold air flows through all the components, which is drawn in by two large turbines mounted on either side of the motherboard.
The built-in sound of the OMEN 15 matches the main content: two miniature ACs from Bang & Olufsen were installed closer to the right and left sides of the body. They play with dignity, but nevertheless, to fully reveal the potential, it is worth connecting something discrete, especially since the manufacturer claims support for the DTS: X Ultra object surround sound standard. The networks are represented by Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-Fi 802.11ax on an Intel controller. For connection of headsets and other short-range devices, there is Bluetooth version 5.0.
In work
The laptop copes with games without any problems: out of nine recent AAA titles, only Watch Dogs: Legion fell short of 50 frames at maximum settings. And Horizon Zero Dawn, World of Tanks and F1 2020 produce more than 80 frames regardless of the graphics settings without brakes or twitching. In some titles, there are gaps in the results of about 10% from test to test, but this is most likely a temporary problem, which will be solved due to the next driver updates or the games themselves.
The noise level in games is moderate, it doesn’t press on the ears, and in 2D it’s almost completely silent. At the same time, the graphics processor is overclocked to 1935 MHz, and the central one – up to 4.8 GHz. Maximum CPU temperature – 95 ° C, GPU – 89 ° C. The 5833 mAh battery is enough for 100 minutes of movies or light 3D, but resource-intensive tasks will reduce the battery life to 60 minutes.
Eventually
The 2020 HP OMEN 15 is a decent laptop. The six-core processor and RTX 2070 Max-Q do not hold back in the choice of games: they will digest everything, so long as they do not disconnect from the outlet. A high-quality screen is pleasant to work with and does not tire the eyes in long battles, and large turbines do not tire with noise, regularly rustling under load. The advantages of the model are also a monolithic body, the possibility of upgrading, low weight and reasonable price.
Specifications:
Display: 15.6 inches, 1920 × 1080, IPS, matte, 144 Hz (LGD05FE)
Processor: Intel Core i7-10750H (6 cores, 12 threads, 2.6-5 GHz, 45W)
Memory: 2 × 8 GB DDR4-3200 (Samsung M471A1K43DB1-CWE)
Video card: Intel UHD Graphics, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q (1147-1935 MHz, 8 GB GDDR6)
Disk subsystem: 512 GB NVMe SSD SK Hynix PC601 HFS512GD9TNG-L2A0A
Sound: Realtek
Wired network: 1 Gbps Ethernet (Realtek RTL8168)
Wireless network: Wi-Fi 802.11ax (Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201), Bluetooth 5.0
Ports: Thunderbolt v3 (USB 3.2 Gen.2), 3x USB 3.2 Gen.1, HDMI 2.0a, miniDP, 3.5mm jack (TRRS), RJ-45
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Optional: 720p webcam
Battery: 70.9 Wh, 5833 mAh
Dimensions: 35.8 x 24 x 2.3 cm
Weight: 2.46 kg
Price: 125,000 rubles ($ 1,670)
