HP’s HyperX Omen 15 Review: A Price Hike for Budget Gaming
HP replaces the budget-friendly Victus 15 with the HyperX Omen 15, but market conditions push the starting price to $1,200.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- HP HyperX Omen 15 replaces the long-running Victus 15 lineup
- Starting price jumps from $800 to $1,200 due to market factors
- Equipped with an RTX 5050 GPU and 16GB of DDR5 RAM
- Delivers solid 1080p gaming performance for its tier
HP has introduced the HyperX Omen 15 gaming laptop, initially spotted at CES, stepping in to replace the HP Victus 15, which long served as a bestselling budget gaming laptop. The older Victus carried a price tag of just $800, or even less during sales, serving as an accessible entry point into decent portable gaming.
While the Omen 15 brings welcome upgrades over its predecessor—such as an RTX 5050 Laptop GPU capable of handling newer games on modest settings, a brighter 16:10 aspect ratio display with a higher refresh rate, and a 1080p webcam—the realities of the current tech market have shifted its positioning. Thanks to RAMageddon, the Omen 15 starts at $1,200, a significant jump from the $800 price point that made the Victus so attractive.
The review unit tested is an $1,199 configuration sold through Walmart featuring an eight-core Intel Core 5 210H Raptor Lake processor, an RTX 5050 discrete GPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 512GB SSD. While higher-end configurations with RTX 5070 GPUs and OLED screens exist, reviewers note it feels like overspending on a modest platform. On the lower end, HP still offers a $900 Victus 15 with an RTX 5050, though it comes with only 8GB of RAM, which falls short for modern gaming demands.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
The mention of RAMageddon highlights ongoing supply chain and component cost pressures within the semiconductor and memory markets. These macro-level economic shifts often force manufacturers to reevaluate profit margins, resulting in higher baseline prices for devices that traditionally targeted budget-conscious consumers.
On the performance front, the Omen 15 paired with the RTX 5050 handles its native 1920 x 1200 resolution quite well. Older titles like Control run smoothly at 70 to 80fps on High presets with DLSS enabled. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk 2077 runs on the Ultra preset without ray tracing, utilizing DLSS Quality to achieve 60 to 70fps during standard gameplay.
Source: The Verge
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