HP Omen 17 Game Laptop

HP Omen 17 Game Laptop

Welcome to a Biomedical Battery specialist of the HP Laptop Battery

Some laptops achieve glory through staying small. Y’know, cramming stacks of power into a svelte aluminium shell that’ll easily slip in your satchel.

HP’s Omen 17-w106na is not one of those laptops.

Where ultrabooks aim for slim and surprise you with their power, this Omen machine aims for power and surprises you with just how ruddy massive it is.

Then again, it is a hugely powerful, VR-ready gaming laptop that’ll play just about anything.

Is it worth the back pain and the empty wallet, though? We got the Omen’s fans whirring to see if it can truly justify the £1600 price.

The Omen 17 with battery like HP 2000 Notebook PC Battery, HP G62 Battery, HP Pavilion dv5-3000 Battery, HP Pavilion dv4-4000 Battery, HP Pavilion dv3-4200 Battery, HP HSTNN-I84C Battery, HP HS03 Battery, HP HS04 Battery, HP G72 Battery, HP HSTNN-PB6S Battery, HP HSTNN-PB6T Battery, HP HSTNN-LB6U Battery should come with one of those health and safety videos that tells you to lift with your knees: this thing is an absolute beast.

With a 17.3-inch screen, it was never likely to slip easily into a backpack, but, at 3.35kg, lugging it around genuinely feels like a workout. In fact, you’ll probably struggle to find a sack capable of carrying the Omen - and, at 3.29cm-deep, it’s not slipping into a subtle sleeve any time soon.

So it’s not exactly portable; rather, it’s the sort of laptop you’ll stick in your car to take round your mate’s house for a good VR session. At least it feels as if you’re getting a lot of laptop for your £1600.

Less, though, can be said for the build quality. Despite a carbon fibre effect on the lid and keyboard surround, this is a flipper that feels particularly plasticky.

What’s more, there’s a good deal of flex in the screen, and the hinges barely seem able to support it. It’s all a bit strange, really, given the level of the hardware inside, and makes me wonder whether HP built the 17-w106na almost entirely as a transportable VR machine.

HP’s Omen 17-w106na remains, though, a strange beast. There’s no questioning its abilities as a VR-ready gaming powerhouse. It’ll handle almost any task thrown at it - whether that’s a media editor or a next-gen game.

As a laptop you'd want to use for anything other than gaming, though? Massively big and heavy, its plastic build simply has too many creaks (and its hinges too much give) for a notebook that costs £1600 - however powerful it may be.

Throw in a dull, 1080p screen and a mediocre battery life, and it’s clear that HP’s laptop beast is not, truly, a go-anywhere games machine.

Rather, it’s a foldable monster that’s best when attached to an external monitor or VR headset. Whether that solution really makes more sense over a dedicated PC tower - such as the Asus G20CB - depends on whether you’re actually likely to stick it in your (large) backpack and take it on the road. Even then, you’re probably better off with something like the Dock-equipped Razer Blade Stealth.