I tested the HyperX Omen 15 and it made me leave my handheld at home

Not every great gaming laptop needs top-of-the-line specs or a weird look. I mean, it's great if they do, but one look at the Steam Survey shows that midrange specs are more common, and that's what the HyperX OMEN 15 is targeting. It still has a fairly gamer aesthetic, but that's fine, and it nails the basics with plenty of power and cooling potential.

The 3K 120 Hz OLED display we tested is bright and responsive, and while the fans are loud, they keep the internal hardware from throttling under sustained load. It's worth mentioning off the bat that this is on the top end of the configuration, with an Intel i9 and an RTX 5070 Mobile, so there are more affordable options in the lower tiers. I'd still recommend the OLED display, though, but that's my preference.

About this review: HP provided the HyperX OMEN 15 for this review, but had no input into its contents.

Price, specs, and availability

Okay, first off, the OMEN branding is now under HyperX, although it's still HP. The OMEN 15 is meant to be a budget gaming laptop, and starts at $1,100 for the base spec. The version we were sent for review has an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, which has an MSRP of $2,800 but is currently on sale for $700 off. You can find it directly from HP or at major electronics retailers like Best Buy.

What I liked about the HyperX OMEN 15

This gaming laptop nails the core experience

The HyperX OMEN 15 won't be mistaken for an ultraportable, but it's not a flashy gaming design either, especially once you peel off those Nvidia and Intel stickers. You get two USB-A 10 Gbps ports, HDMI and USB-C on the rear, Ethernet, and an audio port—all good things to see. Wi-FI 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 round out connectivity if you don't want to hardwire, and I can't really complain about the number of ports on offer. Maybe a SD card reader would be nice, but otherwise it's all good.

The 3K OLED display is beautiful, covering 100% of sRGB and P3, with accurate gamma tracking and a white point that stayed very close to the 6500 Kelvin range we like to see. It measured 536 nits in SDR, has good uniformity, and is color-accurate as well. And, well, with a 120 Hz refresh rate, it's smooth as butter when gaming. Everything you could want from a gaming display, to be honest, without pushing into the 4K territory where you would struggle with frame rates on a mobile GPU.

Performance is peak, everything else is secondary

The combination of Intel Core Ultra 3 CPUs and RTX GPUs is what you want out of a gaming laptop right now. While the iGPU in Intel's latest CPUs can handle 1080p gaming readily, to dip into 2.5K or 3K as this display deserves, you'll want the extra power of the Nvidia graphics chip, and the internals didn't disappoint here.

Synthetic benchmarks might look lower than expected, but that's down to the lower number of performance cores on the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H. The gaming performance is what you're buying this laptop for, and that is the standout here. Forza Horizon 6 at native resolution with no DLSS at high settings gave a smooth 74 FPS, while Cyberpunk 2077 managed 51.2 at ultra settings, or 54.4 at ray tracing low. With some settings tweaks you could coax a little more out of it, and the OLED display is gorgeous to game on.

Battery life is a little better than I'd expected for the hardware inside, reaching just over five hours on our looped video test. Keep in mind it won't last that long if you're utilizing the GPU fully, but for typing and other uses, it's got enough stamina to handle a day of school or whatever. You don't need to be as wedded to the wall socket as many other gaming laptops, which I appreciated.

The max CPU temperature I noticed while gaming was 91C, which is still well under TjMax, and it didn't thermal throttle, unlike some units we've seen recently. The keyboard tray kept comfortable temperatures, although the fans are noisy at full throttle, so plan on headphones.

What I didn't like about the HyperX OMEN 15

It's a little rough around the edges

I'm not a big fan of where the power plug was placed on this laptop, or that it uses a barrel jack when you can pass enough wattage over USB-C. Maybe that's because I've broken every single right-angled barrel jack power adapter I've owned, but the laptop is thick enough to place that power on the rear and maybe add a few more ports at the same time.

Typing comes with a weird flex, and not the good kind

HyperX decided to cram a numpad onto the OMEN 15 keyboard, which makes the layout a little cramped, and I'd rather the space be reclaimed for speaker grills or something. It's not that fun to type on, but if you're buying it mainly for gaming, then that won't matter as much. The RGB backlighting looks good, and helps a ton in dimly lit areas.

The other thing about the keyboard is that it flexes in the middle section. If there wasn't a numpad, the sides would provide more rigidity, and maybe this wouldn't be an issue, but it is what it is, and I found it annoying to use. The mechanical touchpad is noisy when tapped as well, and I'd really like to see haptic touchpads make their way to the gaming side of the market. I'm sure this is a cost-cutting exercise as most gamers use an external mouse, but it makes the hardware feel cheaper than it really is.

Should you buy the HyperX OMEN 15?

You should buy the HyperX OMEN 15 if:

• You want a fast, bright OLED display
• You wear headphones when gaming
• You want gaming performance above all else

You should NOT buy the HyperX OMEN 15 if:

• You're sensitive to fan noise
• You want the best typing experience
• You want a less gamery aesthetic

The HyperX OMEN 15 is a good gaming laptop that provides plenty of power for your favorite titles. At least if you add a little to the specifications for one of the higher-tier models. But the lower models are still decent for the price, with RTX 5050 graphics and the option of the nice 3K OLED display.

The things I didn't like about this laptop are the same things every gaming laptop has issues with, so they are more limitations to be aware of than reasons to avoid it. Loud cooling systems come with the increased power inside the device, and mechanical touchpads are fine when you're realistically going to use a gaming mouse with the laptop anyway.