Style – that’s what always been a PC manufactured by Voodoo, which a few years ago acquired HP. However, with the economic recession that has gripped the US desire to acquire high-end gaming machines have diminished consumer and brand Voodoo long disappeared into the vast ocean of products HP.
And now, like Venus, swimming to the shore in an open shell, she is reborn in the form of a laptop computer Omen, which, along with a great performance in games boasts a beautiful and slim figure. And let’s not underestimate the importance of style. Today, most manufacturers of gaming notebooks, with very few exceptions, readily willing to sacrifice exquisite design and throw existing strengths of the window of a flying train on rails in order to save on travel.
However, the creators Omen is not the case. The flowing lines of the computer draw attention before you open the display. And with a raised screen diagonal size is equal to 15.6 inches, thin base of the laptop resembles the blade and it creates a sense of floating in the surrounding area.
In its anterior part has a thickness Omen 15.5 mm and the rear – 19.9 mm. Just incredible. For comparison, the thickness of the front part likewise equipped Alienware pattern 13 was 26.3 mm and the rear – 28 mm.
Stylish solutions
Among other design, refinements should be noted Adjustable backlight that illuminates the dynamics keys WASD, the power button and three zones on the keyboard. Such a move is not new and has already met earlier, but still deserves the highest praise. Further, it is worth mentioning the joints. HP designers intentionally made part of the hinge chrome, and at the ends of its color changes like a hot exhaust pipe. LED backlighting enhances ventilation holes to create an atmosphere. Everything is done very nicely.
On the left side of the keyboard is a vertical row of programmable function keys. They are programmed very easily, but their options are limited. I have not managed to create macros for gamers used key sequences (for example, to reload by pressing the «R«, pauses 400 ms, and then press “1” to return to the main armament).
According to the designers of HP, a lot of the time it took them to ensure that originating from Omen reminded rustling sounds do not sit on a desk fan. Ambient air is sucked in through the holes located at the front of the bottom panel cools laptop components and thrown back. This approach helps inter alia to save key during prolonged cold gaming sessions.
I decided to check out a bold statement HP, reaching the top of the heat map Razer Blade Pro and Omen after hour cycle test execution Heaven 4.0 the basic version of DirectX 9. While the top panel, Razer Blade Pro warmed almost evenly among Omen most of the heat was concentrated in the back of the computer. The cooling system is really impressive when you consider how small and thin to get this laptop.
Glitter luxury
Some of the HP and does give a luxury. Touchscreens gamers do not need, and yet, on top of the display Omen posted the digital digitizer. Screen with a diagonal of 15.6 inches made of IPS technology and has a 72-percent color gamut, allowing a very juicy picture. Running several tests, I did not notice any failures in the color spectrum or any other shortcomings. The brightness is also evenly distributed.
Resolution of 1920×1080 pixels in an era of laptops 4K may seem modest, but HP explained that consciously went for it in order to reduce power consumption. Moreover, in practice, games rarely used resolution higher than 1920×1080, even if the monitor supports it.
For luxury, I would mention the presence and 16 GB memory type DDR3 / 1600 and SSD 512 GB M.2. By themselves the components no complaints, but they push the price up. Using the format M.2 is welcome, because it finally removes restrictions mSATA, which is superimposed on laptops over the past few years. The device M.2 Samsung, set in Omen, allows you to bring read and write speed up to 746 and 671 MB / s compared to 496 and 254 MB / s, which showed mSATA drive in the Razer Blade Pro.
Transferred to us for testing PC worth $ 2,100. HP offers nine different trim levels – some of them are considered optimal, we have yet to discuss. But for now, the most important for gaming laptops have the CPU and GPU, which in all trim levels are the same HP.
During ventilation air passes inwardly through apertures in the bottom panel and rears ejected.
Main components
Solving computational problems, HP laid on a quad-core Intel Core i7 4710HQ microarchitecture Haswell. But for a gaming notebook the most important – is the processing of graphics, which entrusted the GPU GeForce GTX 860M. As if trying to confuse us, NVIDIA offers just two different versions of 860M. One of them is based on the old architecture of Kepler while the other (the one installed in the laptop HP) is based on more productive architecture Maxwell. The graphics processor in different models attached Omen 2 or 4 GB of memory.
To appreciate what does still made Omen, I decided to compare this computer model 2014 Razer Blade Pro. According to its specifications, both gaming notebooks is very similar. Razer Blade Pro c 17-inch screen equipped with a processor located one step lower, and in exactly the same graphics chip GeForce GTX 860M based on the architecture Maxwell, albeit with 2 GB of memory on board.
Following the results of performance tests 3DMark, Tomb Raider and BioShock: Infinite Computer Omen has appeared a little faster, albeit slightly.
I ran other tests. But as the specifications of both notebooks are almost identical, any difference, as expected, have been identified.
It may be added that there were no attempts to modernize the CPU and GPU HP Omen and Razer Blade Pro manufacturers have not yet been taken.
Why 4GB?
Expediency equipment graphics cards 4GB of memory is now a lot of questions and does not give a significant performance boost in games. In fact, RAM or video card needs to operate at a higher resolution, or for highly active anti-aliasing.
Questions arise with respect to other solutions designers Omen. Graphics processor GeForce GTX 860M is best suited for 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second. If the laptop screen has a higher resolution requires an increase in the frame buffer, using this processor you can not provide an acceptable frame rate for the game. When translating test BioShock: Infinite and Tomb Raider at maximum frame rate image quality on both laptops dropped to 40 with a little. That’s not bad, but it is believed that the best perception of games needs 60 frames per second or higher. The only reason to increase the amount of memory available to the graphics processor coupled with the expectation that an increase in the framebuffer consoles PC games will also use more graphics memory.
But in this case HP makes sense to think about installing a graphics processor Omen next generation: Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M. In the end, it was the graphics processor has reduced the thickness of the notebook to 17.8 mm. According to the results of the test, this processor is 20-30% faster than the GTX 860M. The only obstacle is related to architecture – 870M processor architecture uses Kepler, and not Maxwell. Pay for it will have to heat and time PC is on battery. Razer Blade laptop I have not tested it, but if we start from a larger heat Razer Blade Pro, use it better to winter.
Battery: for good gaming machine
Games and long battery life hard to fit together, but they make friends helps architecture Haswell. I have implemented standardized tests PC Mark 8 Home Conventional and discovered that Razer Blade Pro 14 was slightly better than the Omen: 9345 points against 8346. However, the battery capacity from Razer Blade Pro 2014 is 78 watt-hours, and at Omen – 58 watt- hour. Screen brightness for both computers at the same time is equal to 130 units.
Since both notebooks are targeted primarily at the game, I decided to oppose the mixture, web browsing, photo editing and regular games PC Mark 8 pure gaming tests. The basis was taken the test Heaven 4.0 in basic mode.
Razer Blade Pro 2014 lasted only an hour. Outstanding result can not call it. Omen worked for 45 minutes longer. This means that the resources of HP Omen enough for a short flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles or to travel on commuter trains, and for the transcontinental flight, you will need extra batteries. Although, of course, taking into account the weight and size of the duration of the computer from independent power supply is not so bad.
The CPU also not be discounted
To evaluate the performance of the CPU, I performed on both devices test coding Handbrake: file of 30 GB is transformed into a file that can be played on the tablet Android. Here Omen thanks to its processor was a little faster, and both computers left far behind dual-core multithreaded. Do I need a quad-core processor with Hyper-Threading technology in the gaming laptop? Debatable, but for fans of games that only they are limited and controversial double. But if we assume that video transcoding has become a routine task for those receiving it from a variety of sources, additional cores and Hyper-Threading, of course, are an added advantage.
Welcome back …
Overall, the new gaming laptop deserves the name Omen. His appearance deserves special praise, and he has a good gaming performance with a very slim design and efficient heat removal system. And with the 4 GB and 16 GB of graphics memory, supplemented by solid state drive capacity of 512 GB, the price of $ 2,100. In comparison with laptops in its class is quite reasonable.
But buying Omen for myself, I would prefer to save and select a configuration with 2GB of video memory, 8 GB memory type DDR3 / 1600 and SSD 512 GB for $ 1,800.
Those who had the opportunity to observe the transformation of the company from beginner Voodoo PC market in a fairly recognizable brand in its niche, I can only sympathize. Instead flourish, as is the case with the Alienware after becoming a part of Dell, the brand gradually fade. However, the appearance of HP Omen gives some hope.
HP Omen: genes Voodoo, style and grace
Texture panel looks stylish but attracts fingerprints.
Pluses:
• cold enough to touch even in games.
• Surprisingly reasonable price for its class.
Disadvantages:
• Elegant notebook features a very weighty power adapter reminds sexy model dressed in “sweats” with sagging knees. Moreover, due to the short duration of the battery pack, this “brick”, apparently, you have to carry with you.
• The lid is literally attracted fingerprints.
Findings
New thin gaming laptop HP Omen, weighing 2.12 kg, has a stylish look, which has always been characteristic of the famous brand Voodoo and has sufficient headroom.
Price: $ 1,699.
Rating: 4 stars
Source: HP
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