GoKawiilis a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.
The HP HyperX Omen 15, which I first saw at CES, replaces the HP Victus 15, a longtime bestselling budget gaming laptop. The Victus cost just $800, or less when on sale, and was a good entry point to decent laptop gaming.
The Omen 15 has nice little upgrades over the Victus. Its RTX 5050 Laptop GPU can play 2026’s latest games, albeit on low-ish settings. But it’s also got a brighter 16:10 aspect ratio display with higher refresh rate, and a 1080p webcam to make it a little better for non-gaming stuff.
I’d call it a working-class gaming laptop, but thanks to RAMageddon, the Omen 15 starts at $1,200 — a far cry from the $800 that made its predecessor so appealing. But laptop prices are way up across the board, and if you want current-gen gaming hardware, this is about as cheap as you’re going to find it.
6 Verge Score HyperX Omen 15 (Intel Core 5 210H, RTX 5050) $ 1199 $ 1199 The Good Affordable-ish gaming performance in a decent to solid package
Fine for 1080p / 1200p gaming and light content creation
165Hz refresh rate on a fairly bright screen
Upgradeable DDR5 RAM and NVMe SSD (with two slots for each) The Bad Not as affordable the HP Victus 15 it replaces
Only one of the USB ports is USB-C — and not even Thunderbolt
No face or fingerprint unlocking
... continue reading