Review Summary
Expert Rating
It’s 2025, and NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series laptops are finally hitting the market. With new GPUs coupled with the latest processors, we’re seeing the beginning of a new era for gaming laptops, and the HP Omen Max 16 feels like a perfect example of this evolution. It’s HP’s top-of-the-line gaming laptop for 2025, packed with the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and the monstrous NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU. In fact, it’s one of the first RTX 5080-powered laptops you can officially buy in India right now.
Whether it’s playing the latest AAA titles, editing 4K videos, or running AI-powered apps, the Omen Max 16 promises to handle it all without breaking a sweat. But of course, performance like this doesn’t come cheap. Which brings us to the big question – should you really be spending over 3 lakh rupees on this beast? Let’s dive in and find out if the Omen Max 16 truly lives up to its “Max” name.
Table of Contents
Design and Display
Right out of the box, the HP Omen Max 16 feels premium. The design is minimalistic yet thoughtful. The body is mostly made of high-quality aluminium, finished in Shadow Black, giving it a stealthy, mature look. It’s perfect for gamers who want something stylish but not overly flashy.
Speaking of which, the only real “bling” or gaming flair comes from the RGB light bar at the back and the customizable RGB keyboard lighting. Branding is clean too, with just a shiny OMEN logo on the lid — and that’s about it. Honestly, I feel that’s something most users would appreciate. The laptop can easily blend into both a gaming setup and a professional workspace. It’s a design approach we’ve seen before on devices like the HP Omen Transcend and Lenovo’s Legion series — and I, for one, fully support it.
In terms of portability, at 2.68kg, the Omen Max 16 is a bit on the heavier side compared to standard laptops, but it’s actually very reasonable considering the hardware it’s packing. The hinges feel solid, offering smooth motion without wobbling when adjusting the screen. There’s minimal keyboard flex even under pressure, reflecting good structural strength.
As the name suggests, the laptop features a 16-inch IPS display with a 2560x1600p resolution. That, paired with a super-smooth 240Hz refresh rate, makes everything feel slick, from casual browsing to intense gaming sessions. Competitive titles like Valorant and Marvel’s Rivals take full advantage of the high refresh rate, making movements appear incredibly fluid and responsive.
In terms of colour reproduction, the screen covers 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, making it a reliable option for photographers, designers, and anyone who needs accurate colours. The brightness peaks at 500 nits, ensuring excellent outdoor visibility and making the screen easy to view even in bright indoor lighting.
The colour accuracy also creates a great entertainment experience when watching movies or streaming shows. That said, I do miss the presence of a mini-LED panel here, something several competitors have started offering at this premium price point. Still, credit where it’s due — the Omen Max 16’s display is easily one of the best IPS panels on the market, comparable to what you get on devices like the Alienware X16 R2.
Speaking of entertainment, the visuals are well complemented by Bang & Olufsen-tuned dual speakers. The sound is clear and rich, with a surprising amount of bass for a laptop. It gets loud enough for casual gaming, YouTube, or Netflix sessions. However, for a truly immersive experience, especially in competitive gaming where pinpoint audio cues matter, I’d still recommend pairing it with a good set of gaming headphones.
Ports and I/O
Compared to other bulky gaming laptops, the OMEN Max 16 is surprisingly sleek. But despite its relatively slim profile, HP has ensured that connectivity isn’t compromised. On the left side, you’ll find dual Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, perfect for fast data transfers, connecting external monitors, or even charging devices. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone/mic combo jack, which remains a staple for most gamers and creators who prefer wired audio.
Over on the right side, things are kept clean and minimal. There’s just a single USB-A 3.2 Gen1 port, which is likely placed there with convenience in mind. It’s ideal for plugging in a gaming mouse or other accessories that benefit from quick access.
The rest of the ports are placed at the back, leading to a cleaner look. There’s the DC charging port, a full-sized HDMI 2.1 output (capable of 4K at high refresh rates), another USB-A 3.2 Gen1 port, and an RJ-45 Ethernet jack for stable, low-latency gaming when Wi-Fi just won’t cut it. Overall, it’s a solid port selection. While an SD card slot would have been a welcome addition for creators, what’s here will more than satisfy most gamers, streamers, and power users.
As for the webcam, HP has equipped the Omen Max 16 with a 1080p IR camera, which is a step above the standard 720p sensors found on many gaming laptops. In good lighting, it delivers crisp and fairly colour-accurate video, good enough for work calls, Zoom classes, or even casual Twitch streams. However, in low-light conditions, the image quality takes a noticeable hit, showing some noise and a lack of detail. It’s usable, but don’t expect DSLR-like clarity.
On the bright side, it supports Windows Hello facial recognition, thanks to the built-in IR sensors, and it worked reliably in my testing, logging me in almost instantly. There’s also a physical shutter switch for added privacy, which is always a welcome addition in today’s world where security is a major concern.
Keyboard and Touchpad
Moving on to the keyboard, the OMEN Max 16 comes with a large, well-spaced layout offering a good amount of key travel. Each keypress feels soft, making the overall typing experience very comfortable, provided you like quieter keys.
You see, the rubber dome design underneath the keycaps gives the keyboard a slightly unique feel. It dampens the sound significantly, making it quieter than most gaming laptops. It’s not mushy by any means, but it’s also not as clicky or sharply tactile as what you might find on some mechanical-style gaming laptops. HP has nailed a sweet spot here — striking a nice balance between comfort for typing and responsiveness for gaming.
When it comes to RGB lighting, the Omen Max 16 features full per-key RGB support, something you’d expect at this price point. The lighting is bright, vibrant, and consistent, with minimal bleed even at higher brightness levels. HP’s familiar HyperX keyboard design is in play here, and it integrates seamlessly with the OMEN Light Studio software. While the software might feel a bit overwhelming at first, it offers deep customisation once you get the hang of it, from reactive lighting effects to fully personalised colour layouts.
Moving to the touchpad, it’s generously sized and comfortable for general navigation. Windows Precision drivers ensure that multi-touch gestures like two-finger scrolling, pinch-to-zoom, and three-finger swipes work smoothly. One of the pleasant surprises here is excellent palm rejection. Even during long typing sessions or gaming marathons, there were no accidental cursor jumps, which is something many gaming laptops still struggle with.
That said, there’s a minor but noticeable drawback, which is that the touchpad surface doesn’t feel as premium as you might expect at this price point. It’s smooth enough for daily tasks, but lacks the silky, luxurious glass finish you’d find on most premium gaming laptops. Also, the click feedback towards the edges feels slightly hollow. As a result, you’re bound to notice rattling, especially near the lower edge. Now, to be fair, this is a gaming laptop, and most users will likely pair it with a dedicated gaming mouse anyway. Add to that, for everyday tasks like browsing, work, or casual use, the touchpad is absolutely fine. It’s just that when you’re spending over 3 lakh rupees, these small hiccups become a bit more noticeable on what is otherwise an outstanding gaming laptop.
Performance and Battery Life
Okay, so on to the meat of this laptop – the performance. Under the hood, the laptop is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, coupled with 32GB DDR5-5600 MT/s RAM. There’s the beastly NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU with its 16GB of next-gen GDDR7 VRAM, which pushes crazy frame rates even in graphically demanding titles. I’ll get to the full numbers in a minute, but another thing I want to highlight is the storage. The Omen Max 16 comes with a 1TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD, and the read/write speeds are absolutely bonkers.
Starting with our usual lot of synthetic benchmarks, the HP Omen Max 16 easily outputs some of the best scores in both CPU and GPU testing. A score of 1928 in Cinebench R24 Multi-Core and 18870 in GeekBench 6 Multi-Core is easily at the top of the charts, while the laptop’s performance in 3DMark’s Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks is also amazing. Even under extended stress loads in PCMark 10 Extended and Fire Strike Ultra, performance was impressive. The CPU peaked at 98°C, while the GPU hovered around 62°C. These aren’t unusual for a high-end gaming laptop, and in HP’s defence, surface temperatures remained comfortable, with no burning hot WASD zone.
To put its performance into perspective, I tested the Omen Max 16 against two other heavy-hitting gaming laptops: the Acer Predator Helios 16, featuring an Intel Core i9-14900HX and RTX 4080, and the Alienware X16 R2, equipped with Intel’s Core Ultra 9 185H and RTX 4090. Importantly, all three laptops feature GPUs configured at 175W TGP, which makes this a fair comparison in terms of thermal and power headroom. What stood out during testing was how well the RTX 5080 Laptop GPU in the Omen Max 16 held its ground. Unlike the desktop version of the RTX 5080 GPU, which showed only a modest improvement over the RTX 4080, the laptop variant sees a far more substantial leap. In fact, the Omen Max 16 not only outperformed the RTX 4080-equipped Helios 16, but even went toe-to-toe with the RTX 4090-powered Alienware X16 R2, occasionally edging it out. That’s no small feat, and it clearly reflects the generational performance uplift NVIDIA has achieved on the mobile side this time around.
The biggest leap, however, comes in gaming. Even at native 1600p resolution, AAA titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, and Hogwarts Legacy ran at 100+ FPS on Ultra settings — and that’s without any upscaling. Once you enable DLSS 4 and Multi-Frame Generation (MFG), the performance jumps are massive. Frame rates easily double, allowing you to enjoy demanding games at up to 240 FPS — perfectly in sync with the display’s refresh rate. For gamers looking for that cinematic smoothness without sacrificing quality, this laptop absolutely delivers.
One thing that’s not ‘Max’ about this laptop, however, is the battery life. The Omen Max 16 packs an 83Wh battery, which managed just 2 hours and 2 minutes in the PCMark 10 Video Playback test at 80% brightness using the Balanced power profile. It’s disappointing, though not unexpected, for a machine running this kind of high-performance hardware. Curious to see how much more I could squeeze out, I disabled the dedicated GPU via NVIDIA Optimus and forced the system to rely solely on integrated Intel graphics. This time, the laptop clocked a much more respectable 5 hours and 31 minutes on the same test. That’s a solid leap, and in line with what you’d expect from a machine idling on less power-hungry components.
But here’s where things get strange: even during basic tasks like video playback, the system didn’t automatically switch to integrated graphics on battery, which is exactly what Optimus is designed to do. This behaviour defeats the entire point of having a dynamic GPU-switching solution. One possible explanation could be that HP wants to cater to creators who need the full GPU power on the go — say, for video rendering or 3D work. But even then, considering the laptop weighs 2.68 kg, it’s not something most creators would carry around for mobile productivity.
That said, performance while plugged in is stellar. In PugetBench for DaVinci Resolve, the laptop scored an impressive 10,747 points, putting it on par with several desktop-class setups. But again, that performance drops off significantly when unplugged, and the battery can’t keep up with sustained creative workloads for long. All in all, battery life is clearly not the strong suit here, and some better NVIDIA Optimus tuning or a manual toggle would go a long way toward improving the experience for mixed-use scenarios.
Lastly, to refill the juice, HP includes a 330W charger in the box. Yes, it’s a chunky brick, but it’s fast, taking the laptop from 0 to 50% in just about 30 minutes, which is great if you need a quick top-up before heading out. There’s also support for USB Power Delivery charging up to 100W. While you can’t game on that kind of power, it’s a useful backup if you forget the big adapter and just want to browse or get through meetings for a few hours using a USB-C charger.
Verdict
In India, the HP Omen Max 16 is priced at Rs. 3,09,999. This configuration includes the Intel Core Ultra 9 processor, RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB Gen5 SSD. It’s available as a single variant, which is a bit of a letdown when you consider the options available overseas. In global markets, the Omen Max 16 can be configured with an OLED display, an even more powerful RTX 5090 GPU, 2TB storage, or 64GB of RAM — all of which add a layer of flexibility that Indian buyers currently don’t get. Then again, at ₹3.1 lakhs, even this base model is an expensive proposition, putting it well beyond reach for most mainstream buyers.
So, for the few who can afford it, is it worth it? If raw power is your top priority, then absolutely. The HP Omen Max 16 is easily one of the most capable gaming laptops of 2025. It brings together cutting-edge performance, a vibrant high-refresh display, premium build quality, and thoughtful software features into a single, no-nonsense package. It handles AAA gaming with ease, powers through content creation tasks, and doesn’t shy away from heavy multitasking either.
That said, it’s not flawless. At this price, the lack of a Mini-LED or OLED panel, and a touchpad that feels just okay, all feel like missed opportunities. The battery life is also underwhelming unless you’re strictly on integrated graphics, and NVIDIA Optimus could use some optimisation. Still, for hardcore gamers, professional creators, or anyone looking for a desktop-class experience in a portable form factor, the Omen Max 16 delivers where it counts. It may not be perfect, but it’s still one of the most powerful laptops you can buy today, and that alone makes it worth a serious look.
Editor’s Rating: 8.5 / 10
Pros:
- Top-tier performance with RTX 5080
- Excellent 16-inch 240Hz IPS display
- Sleek, premium design
- Good thermals and sustained performance
Cons:
- No OLED or Mini-LED panel option
- The touchpad could have been better