I remember writing about the Omen X PCs. In all of its cubed/tri-chambered design, glowing with glory, it was a helpful push for HP’s Omen brand PC gaming sector. The tech giant, HP, only began its Omen brand early 2016, and although the worldwide trend was on a continual slope of making things smaller, HP had confidence in changing things up a bit. In doing so, HP made some rather gigantic PCs, with its Omen X desktop running anywhere from $1,569 to start, all the way up to a good thousand dollars more. In comes 2017, and HP has done it again, bringing in a brand new Omen X gaming PC, and this one’s in laptop form. Built for portability, there’s no denying this rig is full of all the latest tech, and yes, this includes anything from memory, all the way up to a fantastic-grade CPU processor.

The big 17-inch display is graced with a lovely 4K option (a pixel count of 3840 x 2160), as well as a 1080p variant (which is said to feature a far better refresh rate of 120Hz for that 17.3-inch screen). Whilst targeting, arguably, the most insistent sector of the market, the segment where gamers are seeking the maximum performance possible, HP also aims to counteract the prospect of overclocking. In doing so, the Omen X gaming systems feature ultra-high-end internal hardware. For example, expect unlocked Core i7 CPU processors, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1070/1080 video card, plus high-end DIMMs, and finally, advanced SSDs.

Just like the existing Omen X desktop, these are very user-upgradeable, and will come in multiple configurations. All about customization and choice, the PC’s two display options are perfect, as some may consider that 4K pixel count a bit too high for the larger LCD screen size, and the 1920 x 1080 perfect for gaming. Each option allows for Nvidia’s G-Sync adaptive refresh rate technology, as well as a vapor chamber cooling system with four 3.5mm heat pipes for transferring all that work to four separate radiators.

Storage is available in the forms of either two SSDs in RAID 0, as well as a 2.5-inch HDD with 7200 RPM spindle speed for bulk storage, coupled performance and capacity. Of course, connectivity is a rich asset here, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, an Ethernet port, two Thunderbolt 3’s, one HDMI 2.0, one Mini DisplayPort, three USB 3.0s, an SD card reader, and of course, a 3.5mm audio jack for headphones and a microphone.

I like to refer to the Dell equivalent of gaming rigs for more than one reason- mostly because it, in this case I’m referring to the Inspiron 15 7537, has always been a good entry-level rig to compare to. However, as you may have guessed, the Omen X is not entry-level, to say the least. Although they share similar 7th gen Intel processors, Dell’s model would be for the budget seeker. Most of these new features, particularly the overclockability, is not a perk current Omen gaming notebooks have. This isn’t to say they are not powerful machines, because they are mostly known as such, but voltage tweaking, and pushing to the max hasn’t been the focus as of late. The Omen X laptop is a great example of the manner in which HP is changing its approach to gather in more of this market segment.