HP OMEN MAX 16: Real Users Split on Reddit's Most Controversial Gaming Laptop

The real crime here is buying a laptop with a 5090 and playing Fortnite.

You mean an HP laptop is built with cheap materials, shit thermals and bound to implode sooner or later? That would be a first for them!

Make sense that is the reason why they had the most massive sale and discounts on any other 5000 series laptop. They were selling their 5070 Ti laptops for like $500-$700 less then their competitors. Makes all sense now.

Wondered how these would hold up over the years given their insane price:performance value. I know this is just one anecdote, but this is HP's shot to sit next to Lenovo in the best price:performance range. Hope these issues don't become more common.

Dang didn't know HP's software was so damn customizable. Can easily change Load Line calibration? Complete 180 from what Dell offers.

Yeah not gonna lie, the build quality looked goddamn awful on these laptops, all made of cheap plastic to keep the prices down, so I'm not surprised to see this, and then ofc Liquid Metal killing another laptop, seriously who thought putting that shit in a laptop was a good idea.

Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, 5090 Laptop GPU (24GB GDDR7 VRAM), 64GB 5600 MT/s, 2560 x 1600 240hz OLED, 2TB Gen5 SSD + Samsung 980 EVO 2TB Gen4, 330W Power Charger. It weighs 2.68 KG.

The Omen Max is an awesome laptop, I've had nothing but great things to say about it. Yes their "cryo compound" isn't as good as Liquid Metal, but these types of things can happen on any laptop. Looks like you got a lemon, and that you also must've had a few hard drops making it worse.

I've known that HP/Compaq was complete dog poo about 25 years ago when I bought the best possible specced one and it started breaking down in 3 years. At the time it was like a 2500 dollar laptop. Their build quality is horrendous.

His hard crashes are a bit concerning. I have the same temperature spikes to 105C with my 275HX but average temperatures are much more reasonable 85-88C. No crashing though. I wish we could undervolt the 275HX but HP did not include that feature in OGH and XTU or the BIOS does not allow it either.

It depends on your regional pricing (In my case Canada). I like my Omen but it was much cheaper compared to the competition. For example my unit was $700 cheaper than the Legion 7i Gen 10 if spec'd similarly. $4500CAD for the Omen vs $5250 for the Legion, spec for spec after tax and cashbacks. Even with the extra $300 I spent to buy a kit of 2x32GB 6400 CSODIMMs, it's $450 cheaper. The Legion performs better slightly but not enough to offset the savings for me.

You have to put the Omen controller in maximum performance mode because this makes it reach the maximum watts of your graphics card. For example, I have a Victus with a 120w RTX 4070 and if I leave it on balanced it tells me that it is at 80w, but if I put it on maximum performance it can reach 120w without a problem.

HP for me will remain the absolute worst in the industry unless they do something to improve their build quality. The upgradeability is a big issue for anyone wanting to keep a machine in the long term. I was also watching the interior and the build quality just did not inspire me any confidence at all. Even the way foam barriers are placed... I just do not like what I see.

Yeah been using the 5090 Laptop GPU version for a month now and wow is it impressive. And it manages the heat very well, it's not a hot air jet engine when playing games. Upgrading the RAM to 64GB was an easy process as well.

Wow, the HDMI is the only display output directly connected to the GPU. I realize that it is HDMI 2.1, but that means a buyer's monitor must also have an HDMI 2.1 port for VRR support.

Overall the build quality is awesome. Personally I prefer the Omen over the Legion, but that's primarily for design reasons like the better feeling trackpad, metal body, and smooth flat glass bezel display. Performance-wise they're about the same, with the Legion pulling ahead only when a game is more CPU-bound.

It appears to have excellent cooling, great performance with a 250W TGP, not to mention being far more sleeker and black MacBook Pro-like compared to the MSI Vector, which screams 'edgy gamer'.

I have owned an HP Envy, a 2014 HP Omen and my current 2023 Omen and have never had an issue with them. I am playing Space Marines II 5 days a week on my current Omen for months. I must be one of the lucky ones.

My Omen Max arrived today (AMD AI 9 HX 375, RTX 5080) and it definitely has the RGB light bar up front, and the Omen lettering is gloss black. AMD was treated to some of those finishing touches OP thought were Intel-only.

I wasn't happy spending £3700 for a gaming laptop that needs an HP authorised technician to change the main SSD. HP's cryo hybrid liquid metal paste is not available to users. So you're stuck with 1TB NVMe stick. My 2022 Omen 17 RTX 3080Ti allows me to upgrade the SSDs without removing and repasting the CPU/GPU.

Enable performance mode (shortcut is function P). Enable the Nvidia overlay settings ALT Z and you can turn on GPU power to see how much your card is drawing while gaming.

I just purchased this laptop and I thought you might be interested to know that they seem to have completely fixed the hinges! Absolutely 0 screen wobble now, at least on the one I received, and although it's slightly harder to open you can still do so with 1 hand.

Yeah the laptop itself is good, the paste is piss poor. All the people I know that own this laptop due to crazy July deals — the ones that repasted with PTM = no issues. The ones that did not repaste = all broke due to heating issues. HP ruined a perfectly good laptop with their "cryo" garbage.

The thermals are a known issue with the Max — HP used a hybrid thermal compound this gen and they missed the mark. Repasting with PTM seriously cools down the machine. I saw one test that resulted in an almost 20c difference (91c on stress test to mid 70 after repaste).

NEVER KEEP YOUR LIQUID METAL-COOLED LAPTOP VERTICALLY FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME. I'm 100% sure that's why it happened so fast, but for everyday use, they just needed to use PTM7950. It's cheaper, easier to apply, and for the love of God, it won't kill your PC when it spills.

I had an HP Envy 16 (now discontinued, but it was basically a cheap Omen in a fancy metal chassis), which killed its motherboard after barely 2 years. On the other hand, one of my first laptops was an EliteBook that is still kicking today, so it seems that HP only knows how to make business laptops. I'll never buy another HP that isn't business-grade.

Have the same but the 5080 version. The paste was bad so I sent it back and the next one was much better. Have had no issues since I bought it a few months ago.

Got mine in July still running flawlessly.

It's a great laptop, but it's a bit of a lottery when it comes to quality control. I had the OLED model and the trackpad and several keys felt loose, my temps were higher than normal. I found out that the thermal paste job was pretty bad. Consider if the model you get has their vapor chamber — the only Gen 5 NVMe drive slot is located under the vapor chamber and will have to be removed if you want to upgrade it.

I returned my AMD 5070 version, way too many features missing from what was advertised with the other more expensive models and there was zero clarification. They even removed the second M.2 SSD slot. I have a Zephyrus G14 instead now, so much nicer.

Many people claim their AMD version has the light bar, but OP is also right — most AMD versions don't have the light bar. People saying their AMD version has it is of no help as they're not mentioning the exact model & SKU of their laptop. The self-cleaning fan is 100% Intel-only regardless of model.

Motherboard is a bitch — sent my MAX in for repair after 2 months from being bought. As for performance, just pay attention to the temperatures; mine reached 50°C at most on the performance settings. It can run pretty much anything, until your battery reaches 30%, that's when performance tanks.

You can't change the WiFi chip?? Shame, the rest of it looks awesome. The primary SSD being under the heatsink is kind of a shitty move by HP but oh well at least you get easy access to the second one.

1 SSD being completely inaccessible is crazy bad design. If/when it fails, you're just screwed I guess. I'd rather only have the 1 that's fully accessible if that's the case.

The cpu cooling is bad and the general consensus is horrible paste job from the factory. P core 11 for me is always multitudes hotter than everything else and a few other cores are a little hotter. I have to turn the multiplier down to 36x just to get the hot cores to be normal temps. Even from day 1, the CPU benchmark scores were just much lower than other 275hx.

I've been hooked on my 5080 275hx. Playing Hell Is Us on very high/ultra and it looks amazing on this OLED. I also repasted with LM on both GPU/CPU. Neither go over 80c at full tilt.

I am impressed with the performance and build quality HOWEVER — the practice of gimping the AMD offering by limiting it to only 1 M.2 slot (unless you get a 5070Ti or better model) is just crazy to me. The charger alone is almost as big as some ultrabooks.

I think I'd rather take an AMD CPU with a 5070ti with 12GB VRAM than an Intel CPU with a 5070 and only 8GB VRAM. In this day and age where everyone keeps saying 8GB VRAM is just not enough, it's pretty safe to say that sacrificing a little CPU power for more VRAM would be the smarter move.

I love my Omen Max but I somehow broke off one of the pieces in the back that's by the vents the first day I received it. Performance is amazing. While playing Battlefield 6 I get around 90-100fps with Overkill graphics on balanced mode and my temps stay around 70-73° on the CPU if left in auto. I did end up repasting with Liquid Metal about a month in since I was seeing temps as high as 103°.

For anyone finding this post — don't bother buying this unit. The first one I had was overheating, sent off for repair, they found no issues. I sent it again, they found the issues but had no parts for months. I then demanded a replacement unit which I received on 23rd October. 23rd of November it died, no power, no AC light. I demanded a refund.

Just got the Omen Max 16 with a 5080 and Ultra 7 and 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 5x4 for $2080 on their website. Fyi the 5070ti have user serviceable SSD if you use tweezers apparently.

I've done some testing after the F.12 BIOS update and there are indeed some improvements in both battery life and performance while on battery. Before this update the situation was terrible — like 2-3 hours battery life with performance comparable to a 10-year-old low power laptop.