HP Refreshes Omen 15, Updates Pavilion Gaming Laptop With 16-Inch Display

HP announced a handful of new gaming laptops today, serving up a refresh of the 15-inch Omen and a new 16-inch Pavilion laptop. In the case of the Omen, we'll see an AMD configuration option joining the standard Intel Core CPUs, while the Pavilion Gaming 16 will obviously be taking its place as one of the few 16-inch gaming notebooks on the scene.

The new Omen 15 comes with a fair number of improvements over last year's model, the most obvious being an expanded choice in CPUs. Omen 15 buyers will have their choice of 10th gen Intel CPUs – the Core i5-10300H and the Core i7-10750H specifically – or they can decide to shun Intel entirely and opt for a Ryzen 7 4800H from AMD instead.

Regardless of the CPU, it seems we're limited to NVIDIA graphics in the new Omen 15, with the laptop supporting up to a GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q. GPU options for the laptop start at a GTX 1650, but if you want something in between those two extremes, you'll also have the option of a 1650 Ti, 1660 Ti, or an RTX 2060. Memory options start at 8GB DDR4-2933 and go up to 32GB DDR4-2933.

Prospective buyers have quite a few options when it comes to the display as well, which starts at a FHD IPS panel that's presumably running at 60Hz, though HP doesn't mention refresh rate specifically on its store page. That panel can be upgraded with a 144Hz or even a 300Hz refresh rate, or you can opt for a 4K UHD panel that's running at 120Hz instead. Add to that a 70.9Wh battery and a collection of ports that includes 3 USB Type-A, a 3.5mm combo jack, HDMI, Mini DisplayPort, an SD card reader, and USB-C with DisplayPort 1.4, and we've got ourselves a seemingly solid mid-range gaming laptop.

The Omen 15 is available today from HP's store and starts at $999, but obviously, the price will only go up as you upgrade the hardware in the rig. Maxing out all of the options on HP's website brought the final bill to around $2,500, so indeed, price can vary wildly depending on what kind of hardware you want.

While the Omen 15 refresh is certainly attention-grabbing with the option of an AMD CPU, the new Pavilion Gaming 16 might be even more exciting because of its 16-inch form factor, one that's rarely seen in gaming laptops. From the spec sheets HP shared today, it looks like the Pavilion Gaming 16 will be available in two main configurations.

The first one comes with an Intel Core i5-10300H, a GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q, a 512GB Intel SSD, 8GB of DDR4-2933 RAM, and a 16.1-inch FHD IPS display running at 144Hz that covers 72% of the NTSC color gamut. The second model comes with a Core i7-10750H CPU, 12GB of DDR4-2933 RAM, that same GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q, a 1TB 7200 HDD paired with a 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD, and a 16.1-inch FHD IPS display that covers 45% NTSC. Both models, it seems, come with a 52.5Wh battery.

So, it looks like the Pavilion Gaming 16 won't be quite as capable as the Omen 15, but with HP saying that the Pavilion 16's starting price will be around $800, we wouldn't exactly expect it to be. There's no store listing for the Pavilion Gaming 16 yet, but HP expects to start shipping it out by the end of the month.