HP Omen 16 (16-b0000) review – an all-round gaming beast

HP sells one of the most underhyped gaming laptops out there. Their Omen brand is definitely not as populous as the ROG from ASUS, but you still get a 15, 16, and 17-inch notebook to choose from. It is the 16-inch model that we’re focusing on today, and we are particularly excited about it because it not only comes with a Tiger Lake-H45 processor (which is great for gaming and productivity) but also features a good amount of options for graphics.

The choice falls between the RTX 3050 Ti, RTX 3060, and RTX 3070. As you can see, there is something for every budget. It’s worth noting that the lowest-tier option is still quite expensive. This may allow the Pavilion Gaming, and the newborn Victus brand to eat up some of the sales of the Omen. We are particularly interested in a comparison between today’s machine and the Victus 16 (16-e0000), and we’re going to take an in-depth look at both devices soon after the review.

So, what is a key selling point that the Omen relies on to keep its users? First of all, the 144Hz IPS display. It should offer a full sRGB coverage, but even more importantly – a smooth experience for gamers. Additionally, the build quality of the product is expected to be pretty high, so let’s check it out.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-omen-16-intel/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP OMEN 16 (16-b0000, b1000) - Specs

  • BOE BOE0AAE
  • Color accuracy  1.4  1.1
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 8000GB SSD
  • M.2 Slot
  • 1x M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 + 1x M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4  See photo
  • RAM
  • up to 64GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Home, Windows 11 Pro, Windows 10 Pro, No OS, Windows 10 Home
  • Battery
  • 70Wh, 4-cell, 83Wh, 6-cell, 83Wh, 6-cell, 70Wh, 4-cell
  • Body material
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum
  • Dimensions
  • 369.3 x 247.9 x 23.1 mm (14.54" x 9.76" x 0.91")
  • Weight
  • 2.37 kg (5.2 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • Thunderbolt 4, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort, Sleep and Charge
  • HDMI
  • 2.1
  • Displayport mini
  • Card reader
  • SD
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.2
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Dual Array Digital Microphones
  • Speakers
  • 2 Speakers, Bang & Olufsen
  • Optical drive

All HP OMEN 16 (16-b0000, b1000) configurations

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, the laptop comes with the mandatory paperwork, as well as a 200W charger.


Design and construction

As always, the lid of this notebook is made out of plastic, while the base is aluminum. This has an effect on the build quality, as the lid is pretty flexy when twisted. Although the metal base, should mean it has a solid structure, it also showed some flex. It was enough to even activate the touchpad clicking mechanism, which is not ideal.

In terms of measurements, the Omen 16 is 2.37 kg in weight and 23.1mm in thickness. This makes it pretty average. On the bright side, it’s good to know that it is significantly lighter than the Dell G15 5511.

Thankfully, the lid opens easily with a single hand. Once again, we see thin side bezels, an average forehead, and a quite sizable chin. The former features an HD Web camera with no privacy shutter above it.

Now, let’s take a look at the base. The first thing we see is some sort of a grill spanning the entirety of the section above the keyboard. As for the keyboard… well, it is a really good unit with long key travel and clicky feedback. Although you are not getting a NumberPad, you will be happy to see the Arrow buttons, which are huge.

In addition to that, HP has placed the power button in the same illogical position. Thankfully, the software does its job well in figuring out whether you clicked the button by accident, or not. On the bright side, you have a shortcut to both the calculator app, and the Omen Gaming Hub, which we’ll mention again later on.

Below the weirdly long Space bar, you will find the large touchpad. It doesn’t come with a glass surface, but it’s pretty smooth nonetheless. Also, it is extremely fast and accurate.

If you look at the bottom panel, you will see the speaker cutouts, as well as a pretty big ventilation grill. The heat is exhausted from three slots – two on the back, and one on the right side of the machine.

Ports

On the left side, you will find the power plug, followed by a LAN port, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, a Mini DisplayPort, an HDMI 2.1 connector, a Thunderbolt 4 port, and an SD card reader. That’s not all, as the right side houses two more USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

To get inside this device, you need to undo 8 Phillips-head screws. Then, pry the bottom panel, starting from the back. Keep in mind that you may need to use some force.

Here, we see two M.2 PCIe x4 slots. The one on the left supports Gen 3 drives, while the other can house Gen 4 ones. Interestingly, you will need to remove the right SSD, if you want to take the battery out.

Speaking of which, the unit inside has a capacity of 83Wh. It lasted us for more than 9 hours of Web browsing, or about 7 hours of video playback. So, removing the SSD reveals the hidden screws. Undo it, as well as the five other screws. Then, you can lift the battery and unplug its connector from the motherboard.

Memory-wise, there are two SODIMM DDR4 slots, which support dual-channel mode.

Last but not least, there is the cooling. It comprises two large heat pipes shared between the CPU and the GPU. A third one is dedicated to the graphics card and has its own heat sink on the left. It’s also good to know, that the VRMs and the graphics memory are all covered by a cooling plate.


Display quality

HP Omen 16 (16-b000) in the configuration we tested has a 144Hz FHD panel – BOE BOE0AAE. Its diagonal is 16.1″ (40.9 cm), and the resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 137 ppi, and a pitch of 0.19 х 0.19 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 64cm (25″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

Viewing angles are excellent. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

We measured a maximum brightness of 419 nits in the middle of the screen and 399 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 10%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6900K – slightly colder than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K.
In the illustration below you can see how the main display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work. The contrast ratio is relatively good – 860:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows HP Omen 16 (16-b000)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 100% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976, resulting in a vibrant and punchy image.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results in factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of HP Omen 16 (16-b000) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 9 ms.

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.


PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

HP Omen 16 (16-b000)’s display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness at any point. This means it is comfortable for long gaming sessions without harming your eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP Omen 16 (16-b0000) configurations with 16.1″ FHD IPS BOE BOE0AAE.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

HP Omen 16 (16-b000)’s Bang & Olufsen speakers produce a sound of very good quality. In addition, its low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/omen-16.1-inch-gaming-laptop-pc-16-b0000/2100371510

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This laptop’s 83Wh battery pack lasted us for 9 hours and 15 minutes of Web browsing, or 7 hours and 18 minutes of video playback.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.


CPU options

Currently, the laptop can be found with the Core i5-11400H or the Core i7-11800H.


GPU options

When the graphics is concerned, you can pick from the RTX 3050 Ti, RTX 3060, or the RTX 3070.

HP OMEN 16 (16-b0000, b1000) GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the HP OMEN 16 (16-b0000, b1000) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which HP OMEN 16 (16-b0000, b1000) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

Results are from the 3DMark: Time Spy (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)


Gaming tests

Metro ExodusFull HD, Low (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Extreme (Check settings)
Average FPS109 fps49 fps23 fps

Borderlands 3Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Badass (Check settings)
Average fps91 fps68 fps52 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)Full HD, Lowest (Check settings)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)
Average130 fps91 fps82 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon WildlandsFull HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average fps88 fps80 fps67 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

As we mentioned at the beginning of the review, this laptop offers you the option to undervolt your CPU. Firstly, what is undervolting? This is the process of offsetting the core voltage of your processor, which leads to less energy being consumed, and thus less heat being generated. It has long been the major overclocking tool for laptop enthusiasts, as undervolting has the side effect of increasing the clock speeds.

In this case, the Omen Gaming Hub offers two choices – manual control, or Intelligent undervolting. We wanted to keep things as digestible as possible, so we only ran the Intelligent option. Essentially, it starts offsetting the voltage by a set value, tests, and then restarts the computer, until it crashes. Then, it remembers the last value before it failed, and creates a preset with it. In our case, the software decided on a fairly mild undervolt of -55mV. To show you the difference from the default settings, we first ran Prime95 without enabling the function.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i7-11800H (45W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 minMax Fans
HP Omen 16 (16-b0000)3.77 GHz (B+64%) @ 85°C @ 103W2.74 GHz (B+19%) @ 65°C @ 50W3.55 GHz (B+54%) @ 92°C @ 90W
HP Omen 16 (16-b0000) (Intelligent undervolting)3.82 GHz (B+66%) @ 66°C @ 99W1.99 GHz @ 45°C @ 24W3.70 GHz (B+61%) @ 89°C @ 89W
HP Envy 15 (15-ep1000)3.46 GHz (B+50%) @ 96°C @ 78W3.14 GHz (B+37%) @ 96°C @ 61W2.80 GHz (B+22%) @ 95°C @ 49W
Acer Predator Helios 500 (PH517-52)3.88 GHz (B+69%) @ 99°C @ 111W3.84 GHz (B+67%) @ 99°C @ 107W3.66 GHz (B+59%) @ 99°C @ 99W3.66 GHz (B+65%) @ 99°C @ 101W
ASUS TUF Gaming F17 (FX706, 2021)3.56 GHz (B+55%) @ 92°C @ 104W3.54 GHz (B+54%) @ 94°C @ 90W3.30 GHz (B+43%) @ 89°C @ 75W
MSI Sword 153.16 GHz (B+37%) @ 94°C @ 60W3.01 GHz (B+31%) @ 95°C @ 56W2.98 GHz (B+30%) @ 95°C @ 54W
Dell XPS 15 95103.41 GHz (B+48%) @ 99°C @ 82W3.00 GHz (B+30%) @ 99°C @ 63W2.71 GHz (B+18%) @ 93°C @ 48W
Lenovo Legion 5i (17″ Intel, 2021)3.84 GHz (B+67%) @ 96°C @ 113W3.69 GHz (B+60%) @ 96°C @ 101W3.36 GHz (B+46%) @ 81°C @ 80W
Dell G15 55113.67 GHz (B+60%) @ 97°C @ 100W3.54 GHz (B+54%) @ 98°C @ 91W3.43 GHz (B+49%) @ 93°C @ 79W
Acer Predator Helios 300 (PH317-55)3.67 GHz (B+60%) @ 90°C @ 103W3.66 GHz (B+59%) @ 99°C @ 103W3.40 GHz (B+48%) @ 99°C @ 84W
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 GU6033.87 GHz (B+68%) @ 95°C @ 106W3.90 GHz (B+70%) @ 95°C @ 109W3.58 GHz (B+56%) @ 86°C @ 80W
MSI Creator Z16 (A11Ux)3.12 GHz (B+36%) @ 96°C @ 68W3.03 GHz (B+32%) @ 95°C @ 62W2.76 GHz (B+20%) @ 95°C @ 53W2.90 GHz (B+26%) @ 95°C @ 59W
MSI GE76 Raider (2021)3.22 GHz (B+40%) @ 95°C @ 67W3.11 GHz (B+35%) @ 94°C @ 62W3.14 GHz (B+37%) @ 94°C @ 61W3.26 GHz (B+42%) @ 94°C @ 64W
ASUS TUF F15 (FX506, 2021) (Turbo Mode)3.98 GHz (B+73%) @ 86°C @ 102W3.88 GHz (B+69%) @ 95°C @ 100W3.44 GHz (B+50%) @ 87°C @ 77W
MSI Pulse GL763.16 GHz (B+37%) @ 95°C @ 65W3.00 GHz (B+30%) @ 95°C @ 59W2.87 GHz (B+25%) @ 95°C @ 55W
MSI Pulse GL662.94 GHz (B+28%) @ 94°C @ 58W2.76 GHz (B+20%) @ 94°C @ 52W2.77 GHz (B+20%) @ 94°C @ 52W

Interestingly, we saw a significant drop in the clock speed in the second benchmark. About five minutes into the test, both the frequency and the temperature stabilized, and the laptop ran at 3.55 GHz and 92°C until the rest of the test. This result is actually not that bad. However, once we applied the suggested -55mV core offset, we experienced an even more brutal clock drop at the second checkpoint. However, the end result is quite visible. We got about 150MHz higher core clock, which was running at 3°C lower, and was drawing 1W less. Keep in mind that both fans had a lot of headroom and were far off their maximum rpm.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 TiGPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (Max fan)
HP Omen 16 (16-b0000)1781 MHz @ 68°C @ 80W1767 MHz @ 71°C @ 80W
HP Envy 15 (15-ep1000)1681 MHz @ 87°C @ 75W1376 MHz @ 74°C @ 48W
ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 OLED (UM535)1530 MHz @ 66°C @ 50W1529 MHz @ 68°C @ 50W
HP Pavilion Gaming 15 (15-dk2000)1613 MHz @ 65°C @ 60W1576 MHz @ 73°C @ 60W
MSI Sword 151633 MHz @ 73°C @ 60W1605 MHz @ 79°C @ 60W1644 MHz @ 69°C @ 60W
Dell XPS 15 95101187 MHz @ 74°C @ 40W1293 MHz @ 75°C @ 44W
Dell G15 55111882 MHz @ 71°C @ 88W1878 MHz @ 72°C @ 89W
Dell G15 55151857 MHz @ 76°C @ 80W1850 MHz @ 77°C @ 80W
Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-57)1616 MHz @ 70°C @ 66W1607 MHz @ 72°C @ 65W1632 MHz @ 69°C @ 66W
MSI Katana GF761619 MHz @ 76°C @ 60W1594 MHz @ 82°C @ 60W1632 MHz @ 70°C @ 60W

The GPU temperature test was pretty straightforward. You have practically no options to tinker with the hardware. Thankfully, the device was running pretty cool, which allowed it to take advantage of the full 80W TGP budget. This puts it in a significantly better position than the Envy 15, which was struggling with its horrendous cooling solution. On the other hand, the Dell G15 5511 has the upper hand, due to its higher TGP.

Gaming comfort

As we said earlier, the fans of this laptop are fairly quiet for a gaming device. Indeed, you can clearly hear them when you’re gaming, but it’s nothing too dramatic, to be honest. The external temperatures are another factor that shows the fans don’t need to spin faster.


Verdict

Last year was pivotal for the relationship between the manufacturers and the users. In the gaming industry, we saw a huge outburst of first-party software, which offers some sort of hardware customization – like preset performance profiles or even overclocking.

Well, props to HP for going the extra mile, and providing you with arguably the most important “enthusiast” laptop feature – undervolting. We have not yet tested the limits of this feature, but we found out that the software is pretty lenient – of course, they would want to be sure you don’t cook up your brand new device.

Nevertheless, we have to mention that the cooling is more than capable of running the 80W RTX 3050 Ti. It would be great if HP has put the facilities for a higher TGP so that they can increase it via a firmware update. At least for now, we have no information about any intentions from HP to do so.

HP Omen 16 (16-b000)’s 16.1-inch IPS panel has a Full HD resolution, decent contrast ratio, and comfortable viewing angles. Furthermore, its backlight doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment, and it fully covers the sRGB color gamut. Of course, this means that the image it displays is really attractive. But what surprised us more was the color accuracy out of the box. People, who need to use their devices for color-sensitive work will be happy. Gamers also have reasons to smile, as the panel works at 144Hz and has very fast pixel response times.

Also, there are some pleasant surprises on the inside. You can take advantage of two SODIMM slots for memory expansion, as well as two M.2 PCIe x4 slots for storage. Thankfully, one of them supports Gen 4 SSDs, which is great. Of course, what would be an HP laptop without some sort of nonsense going on? Thankfully, here, it is hidden from plain sight. As is one of the screws of the battery. Yep, they placed the Gen 4 SSD in a way, that blocks one of the screws holding the battery in place. Not that it does anything in terms of performance or usability of the device… it is just annoying.

Speaking of the battery, we got more than 9 hours of Web browsing, or more than 7 hours of video playback on a single charge, which is a good result for a gaming laptop.

Interestingly, HP has retained the same I/O for the past three to four years. However, it has upgraded some of the parts like the HDMI, which is now 2.1, and the Thunderbolt connector, which is the 4th Generation.

Ultimately, the laptop is great and does everything you will ever need from a gaming PC. However, the HP Victus 16 comes with a slightly lower price tag, while a similarly specced Lenovo Legion 5i, offers a more powerful version of the RTX 3050 Ti (for example). You definitely have choices, but you can’t go wrong if you opt for the Omen 16.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-omen-16-intel/

Pros

  • Sleek metal design
  • Decent battery life
  • Hardware with a lot of potential
  • 100% sRGB coverage and accurate color representation
  • Quick pixel response times
  • No PWM
  • 2x SODIMM slots + 2x M.2 PCIe x4 slots, one of which supports Gen 4 drives
  • Great keyboard
  • 1x Thundebrolt 4 + HDMI 2.1 + SD card slot


Cons

  • Build quality is not great
  • No NumberPad

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