It's happened to all of us at least once. We buy that piece of tech we've been pining for, and when it finally arrives, it has some big problems. Two months ago, our forum member A_245 purchased an HP Omen laptop for programing and gaming purposes. However, a couple of problems with the display made the user send the system back.
A_245 acknowledges that the ultra-HD panel was a big selling point of their first laptop. Now, they are trying to decide if they should give HP another shot and get an HP Omen 17 or jump ship and try either the Asus ROG G752VS OC Edition or the MSI GT62VR Dominator Pro. Each of A_245's choices has its own strengths and weakness, but which machine is right for this user? We have some advice.
Display
A_245 is right that the HP Omen 17 has a 4K, anti-glare panel that is pretty good. In our tests, this screen reproduced a whopping 178.7 percent of the sRGB color gamut. Compare that to the G752VS's and Dominator Pro's 1080p displays, which scored 112 and 106 percent, respectively. The GT62VR offers better color accuracy, at 0.68 (0 is ideal), with the Omen 17 and G752VS hitting 1.4 and 2.1.
The G752VS is crazy bright at 476 nits, with the Dominator Pro achieving 301 nits and the Omen 17 delivering a not-too-bright 286 nits. Both the Omen 17 and Dominator Pro's screens feature Nvidia G-Sync technology, which will nearly eliminate any screen tearing during gameplay.
Gaming
Thanks to their Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPUs, the laptops are pretty evenly matched in the gaming department. All three systems are VR-ready, with the Omen scoring a 10.1 on the SteamVR performance benchmark, matching the Dominator Pro's score. The G752VS did slightly better, at 10.4.
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When we ran the Rise of the Tomb Raider test, the G752VS delivered 55 fps on high at 1080p. The Omen 17 and Dominator Pro weren't too far behind, at 52 and 51 fps, respectively. On the Grand Theft Auto V test, the Omen 17 achieved 69 fps, while the Dominator Pro obtained 67 fps. However, the G752VS was the undisputed winner, at 73 fps.
Performance
Both the Omen 17 and Dominator Pro are outfitted with a 2.8-GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU with 16GB of RAM. As the name "OC Edition" suggests, the G752VS is packing an overclockable 2.9-GHz Intel Core i7-7820HK processor with 16GB of RAM. So while the Omen 17 and Dominator Pro are pretty well-matched, the G752VS has some off-the-charts performance.
For instance, the Dominator Pro hit 13,556 on Geekbench 3 the synthetic overall performance test, while the Omen 17 notched 13,352 and the G752VS scored 14,717. When we ran the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro test, the G752VS took only 2 minutes and 51 seconds to pair up 20,000 names and addresses. The Omen finished the task in 3:35, while the Dominator Pro brought up the rear, with 3:47.
Thanks to its pair of 256GB PCIe SSDs in RAID 0 configuration (and a 1TB and 7,200-rpm hard drive) the G752VS has the speediest file-transfer speeds of the three, at 727 megabytes per second. But the Dominator Pro (256GB m.2 PCIe SSD) wasn't too far behind, at 628.6MBps, while the Omen 17 (256GB SSD) produced a respectable 203.6MBps.
Battery Life
With all that power crammed into these laptops, their battery life drains quickly, so you'll want to be by a power outlet at all times. The Omen 17 lasted the longest on our battery test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi), at 3 hours and 54 minutes. The G752VS wasn't too far behind, at 3:53, while the Dominator Pro tapped out at 3:18.
MORE: Laptops with the Longest Battery Life
Bottom Line
While I definitely understand A_245's preference for a 4K display (especially one with Nvidia G-Sync technology), in terms of price and performance, I'm going to recommend the MSI GT62VR Dominator Pro. At $1,799, it's a bit more expensive than the $1,468 HP Omen 17, but it offers a little more powerful performance, with faster file-transfer speeds. If it's in A_245's budget, then I'd suggest the $2,159 Asus ROG G752VS OC Edition, as it's faster and more powerful, and has longer battery life than the other options.
Illustration: Tom's Guide
