HP launches The Omen: a slim gaming notebook

HP isn’t necessarily a company known for building powerful gaming rigs, although it has taken over gaming PC manufacturer Voodoo over 10 years ago. HP engineers will be looking to change that perception with the recent release of The Omen gaming notebook. Built to compete with the best portable gaming devices on the market, The Omen will be giving the Razer Blade and Acer Aspire V Nitro Black Edition a run for their money. The HP Omen features a 15.6 Inch 1080p display, an Intel Core i7 CPU and a discrete Nvidia GPU fitted into a 19.9mm thick frame. HP’s new gaming notebook will start at $1499.99 which is about the same price tag as we’ve seen in its respective Acer rival.

Developers have carefully designed the notebook’s chassis in custom HP fashion to enable an optimized thermal performance and allow its Core i7 processing unit to run at high speeds for long periods of time. The Omen draws air from the bottom and blows the hot steam out its back side, preventing the user’s hands from being scalded with hot air. HP claims that this custom thermal design allows The Omen to enjoy an enhanced performance output compared to other gaming notebooks fueled by the same Core and graphics card. In terms of build quality, the frame of this gaming notebook is made out of CNC machined aluminium anodized into a matte black finish. Its design is very practical, as HP engineers have placed all the ports on the back side of the laptop to ensure better aesthetics and accessibility. HP feels that the Omen’s 15 inch 1080p touchscreen panel maintains the right balance between resolution and optimal frame rates. The keyboard features six programmable function keys, designed to emit subtle noises when tapped. Users will be able to configure the keyboard’s lighting system to highlight specific keys. The Omen will feature custom speakers with gaming-appropriate illumination.

The base model comes with an Intel Core i7 processor, 128GB SSD, 8GB of RAM and Nvidia Geforce GTX 860M 2GB graphics card. HP will release a higher spec’d model soon. It will be interesting to see how The Omen performs compared to the latest Razer Blade high-end gaming notebook which is viewed as one of the best portable gaming devices on the market.