HP Omen 16 (2023) Review

HP India revealed its latest Omen 16 laptop at the “Coolest Gaming Event” in June 2023. At the launch event, the company shared details about the two new laptops coming to the Indian market, the Omen 16 and Victus 16. As reported previously, both these laptops feature Intel’s latest 13th-gen CPU and Nvidia’s latest GeForce RTX 40 series mobile GPUs.

The company is aiming both gamers and content creators with the Omen 16 thanks to the 16-inch screen and decent specs backing the laptop. As part of the launch, HP has brought several variants in the market to offer flexibility around the price. The starting option comes with 13th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU with Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile GPU, while the top-of-the-line variant brings Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile GPU along with the same CPU.

We got a chance to test the HP Omen 16 wf0059TX for a limited time after the launch. During our time with the laptop, we focused on the gaming performance, thermals, battery-backup and much more. Is the Omen 16 worth your attention and money? Check out how the HP Omen 16 faired in our review below.

HP Omen 16 specifications

Let us check what this laptop packs under the hood before we get into the performance, here are the specifications for the HP Omen 16 laptop variant that IGN India received to review:

Performance benchmarks

Gaming on the HP Omen 16

Now, let’s get to the main question you are here with, “How does the HP Omen 16 perform while gaming?” The quick and short answer is “it does the job”. The HP Omen 16 is nowhere near the performance that other, higher-end and more expensive gaming laptops have been able to provide to gamers. However, this does not mean that Omen 16 is down at the bottom of the leaderboard. It provides the player with an average performance, something that isn’t too exciting but nothing to complain about even.

While testing out the HP Omen 16’s gaming performance, we benchmarked 8 AAA titles at 1080p resolution and max graphics settings. There was no upscaling, V-Sync or Motion Blur during these tests. The list of titles that were a part of the HP Omen 16 Gaming Benchmarks includes Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 5, Borderlands 3, Hitman 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA V, A Total War Saga: Troy, and Horizon Zero Dawn.

Overall, the combination of Intel 13th Gen i7-13700HX CPU and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 fared well. HP Omen 16 offered high average fps in the older and less graphically intensive titles like GTA V and Troy: A Total War Saga. At the same time, getting an average fps of 80 on Cyberpunk 2077 is impressive in itself.

I also wanted to assess the laptop’s performance in the online competitive gaming space, For this, I logged a few hours in both Fortnite and Valorant. Playing at max settings and 4k graphics, you will face frequent stutters and frame rate drops, lowering it down to 1080p will provide you with the optimum performance for online gaming.

Overall, the gaming performance is better than average, as you can see through the scores. But the problem is that the rest of the competition from 2023 offers better gaming performance while matching Omen 16 for the price point. However, the bigger screen is a noticeable advantage, helping in providing an immersive experience while gaming on the laptop.

Synthetic, productivity benchmarks

Testing out how the laptop performs in productivity tasks is important, and that is why it we have used several synthetic benchmarking tools. While these tools may not give you an exact sense of real-world performance, they do help you look at the comparative data against other laptops that IGN India has reviewed till now.

Looking at the series of charts presented above, you can easily see that the Intel 13th Gen i7-13700HX CPU and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 manage to produce some decent scores. However, they are no match to the 13th-gen Core i9 or Ryzen 9 7940HS powered laptops. Overall, they fall right in the centre of the table, better than 12th-Gen Intel and Ryzen 7 5000 series parts but lower than the latest hardware.

Battery and thermals performance of Omen 16

Now coming to the battery segment, looking at the laptop’s massive size, I expected to get a decent amount of work done without looking to connect the charger. However, the 6-cell, 83Wh Lithium-ion polymer battery didn’t last as long as I expected. The laptop lasted me about 3–4 hours of normal work at best. The included 280W power adapter is powerful enough to charge the laptop back up quick. Else it would have been a big hindrance for the users.

Like the battery section, thermal performance was another weak point for the HP Omen 16. We used the stats from HWInfo to determine the thermal performance of the laptop. It is worth noting that the laptop was properly ventilated and had access to sufficient fresh air during benchmark testing and gaming.

Looking at the stats during long gaming sessions, the CPU peaked at 100 degrees Celsius and thermal throttled. As with most computing devices, thermal throttling is just a matter of time. The CPU package was hovering in the range of 80-90 degrees Celsius. In the case of the GPU, we recorded a peak temperature of 104 degrees Celsius, with the average window around 75–85 degrees Celsius while gaming. The fans had to overwork to bring these temperatures down, generating a lot of noise.

The laptop even got too hot to touch at times around the speaker grill and function keys area, in addition to the side vents. We observed this behaviour both during the benchmark tests and while playing online competitive games like Fortnite and Valorant. On one occasion, it got so hot, that I had to shut the game down for the laptop to cool down to playable temperatures.

Design and display

HP Omen 16 will catch your eye, not because of its design, but because of its large and robust footprint. The laptop’s 16-inch screen feels huge, while making it a little less portable than other, smaller laptops. At the same time, Omen 16 is sturdy with top-of-the-line build quality. But this sturdiness also makes the laptop heavier, adding to the portability issue.

As mentioned in the specifications section, the HP Omen 16 features a 16.1-inch IPS panel with QHD (2560 × 1440 pixels) resolution with up to 240Hz refresh rate. The big and responsive screen helps both in offering an immersive gaming experience as well as more area for content creation. The extra screen real-estate helps you see much more content on screen than you would be able to on smaller laptops. However, I do think that the screen brightness could have been higher for a better experience while working outdoors.

Software and miscellaneous

The laptop ships with stock Windows 11 Home, just like all the other recently released gaming laptops. On top of that, you do get the OMEN Gaming Hub software, which allows the user to better control and customiae their laptop. Gamers can use the software to monitor the CPU and GPU temperatures, RAM consumption, storage, network usage and top processes on the laptop.

OMEN Gaming Hub also enables one to customise the performance of their laptop with multiple presets including eco, balanced and performance power modes. You can also set the thermal control to max, auto or manual. The software also includes a boost and “optimiser” tab to further enhance the performance of Omen 16. Finally, gamers can use the Light Studio to customise the keyboard backlights.

Value for money

Now for the concluding question, does the HP Omen 16 justify its asking price? The answer depends on the type of user you are. HP Omen 16 wf0059TX comes at INR 2,44,990 price point, which seems justifiable due to the bigger 16-inch screen, decent performance, and latest specs. This price point firmly puts the laptop in the premium gaming laptops segment. A segment where players can find other gaming laptops from the competition that offer far superior performance than Omen 16.

While the INR 2,44,990 price tag may appear expensive, but the combination of latest parts from Intel (13th Gen i7-13700HX CPU) and Nvidia (GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile GPU) does push the cost up. The 16-inch screen along with the latest core components helps HP Omen 16 differentiate itself from other laptops currently available in the market. It does a decent job in offering okay performance along with a large screen. But if you are looking for something that does the same job at a lesser price point with better battery backup and thermal performance, then you should consider other options.