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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. This is the 2018 HP Omen. So when they first came
00:10out with like the original Omen gaming laptop in like 2015, I liked it, did a good review
00:15on it, and then they did two years, like the 2016 version and the 2017 version were just
00:20eh. I just didn't recommend them, I did reviews on them, I just told people honestly not to
00:24buy them. 2018 model kicks ass. Straight up, this is such a big improvement over the previous
00:30generation that, well, I'm pretty excited to do this video. Okay, so the design of this
00:35thing is very Omen-y still. It's got the red face and the classic red accents for HP Omen,
00:41but the design is a little bit different from before. It's the old chassis, it's a little
00:43bit smaller, it's a little bit more compact, and they've redesigned this whole product.
00:47The bottom half of this laptop has an aluminum keyboard deck and a plastic bottom panel.
00:52Both well-made, both quite sturdy, but the top half of the laptop isn't as sturdy. It's
00:56still well-built, it's just there's a little bit more flex to the materials and stuff,
01:00there's just no aluminum on the top part of it, so the screen has a little bit of flex,
01:04and I also don't love the hinge. So some companies do this hinge really poorly, they didn't.
01:09HP actually has, like there's no clicking or there's no like weird tension or anything
01:13like that, but we've seen some companies in the past put hinges close together like this,
01:17and they develop some weird play that just causes the hinge to fail over time. I don't
01:21think that's going to happen on this one. It just feels actually like a good hinge.
01:25Okay, this whole device isn't an ultra-premium, super-thin laptop, right? It's built pretty
01:30well considering the price, but there are a lot of plastic components, and it starts
01:34at $800 if you get the base model, that's with the i5 and a GTX 1050, but even fully
01:39specced out, I think it hits like $1100, maybe $1200 on Amazon, that's with the GTX 1060,
01:44and I feel like that's really reasonable for what you're getting.
01:46Now I think the biggest change this year in terms of the aesthetics is actually the screen.
01:50It used to have really thick bezels, and it's no longer a member of the thick bezels
01:54club. It's got a nice and thin top and side bezel. The screen uses a 144Hz panel, excellent
02:00for games, and pretty usable for color-accurate work. Now this model is running the GTX 1060.
02:05It's not like the fastest GPU out there, but a very respectable card, even right now in
02:102018, despite this GPU being a couple years old, it still delivers really good performance
02:14for most AAA titles.
02:16Another big change this year is the thermal performance. The 2016 model and the 2017 model
02:20had not great thermals, to the point where I just didn't recommend those devices. The
02:242018 model has significantly improved. I'm not seeing thermal throttling under benchmarks.
02:28Now the temperatures still run hotter than I'd like, but at least we're not seeing thermal
02:32throttling. That being said, I don't love the fans. So for one, on idle, this thing
02:37doesn't run silent, and that's something that is important to me. Not everyone cares about
02:41that stuff, but when this thing's not doing anything, if I'm just like browsing the web,
02:45I don't like that I can still hear the fans. They're quiet, but it's still audible, and
02:49that's with the kind of default profile. If you go for the more aggressive profile, it's
02:52even worse. The other thing is, even when this thing is running full tilt in games,
02:56the fans don't get super loud, but I wish there was more thermal headroom. Honestly,
03:00if they'd given more granular control with the fans, like being able to just ramp it
03:04up manually, I think that would have solved it alone, but yeah, the fans, maybe they can
03:08fix this with software. So I will say that, but in its current state, I wish the fans
03:12were a little bit better. The keyboard's pretty good. It's comfortable, lighting in
03:16zones, not individually lit, but it's a good layout, and I think most people can get used
03:19to it quickly. The trackpad, however, is something that I don't like. It doesn't use Windows
03:24Precision Drivers. I really wish they did, because so many manufacturers are using Windows
03:27Precision Drivers nowadays. It just feels like a bit of a miss. It's not the tracking,
03:31it's more the gestures. Like, sometimes it won't pick up whatever you're doing with your
03:34gestures, and that's a driver thing. Port selection. There's a handful of them located
03:39on the back, including a Thunderbolt 3 port, and you get some USB on the sides, as well
03:43as an SD card slot. The speakers, they're located on the side, like the bottom side,
03:48so they're not in the best position, but they sound pretty good. Not bass-heavy or anything
03:51like that, but considering that this is kind of like a mid-tier gaming laptop, I'm happy
03:56with the speakers. The internals. These are really easy to get into. It's a handful of
04:00Phillips screws, and you have access to both of your drives, RAM, Wi-Fi card, and you also
04:05have your battery. So this battery is a reasonably large one. It's 70 watt-hours, but I'm not
04:10getting amazing battery life. We're looking at 4, maybe 4.5 hours. It's still respectable,
04:14but because this is a relatively compact 15-inch laptop, I think a lot of people are looking
04:18at it as like a daily driver they bring to school or for work, and for most people that
04:22are doing that, you're going to have to bring the charger to last the full day. Overall
04:26thoughts on this device, though? I really like it. It's so much more improved compared
04:29to the 2016 and 2017 models. Like, those ones I did not recommend. This one I highly
04:35recommend. So, yeah. One last thing. The mouse that I used when I was playing games on this
04:40thing was actually the HP Omen Reactor mouse. So here's the deal. This thing was sent as
04:46a demo for me to kind of check this whole thing out with, and usually when computer
04:51companies or computer manufacturers make mice, they're not great. But I saw this thread on
04:55Reddit where a bunch of people were praising this thing. I was like, really? Is it actually
04:59legit? And it's a really good mouse. It looks weird. If I'm being honest, this is totally
05:04not my design aesthetic, but people love the performance. The cable's wrapped in this metal
05:07braid which prevents fraying. It's got optomechanical switches, an optical sensor, and this height
05:13adjustable area for the back where your palm goes. It's a strange looking mouse, but the
05:17performance is good. I understand why the people that have picked this up love it, because
05:21it's this unconventional mouse. Like, HP mice? Who would have ever thought that it'd be a
05:25good mouse, but it's a good mouse. Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you
05:28liked it, subs if you loved it. See you guys next time.