HP OMEN MAX 16 (2025) Laptop Review

The HP OMEN MAX 16 is available in a Shadow Black or Ceramic White colorway. See the bottom of the laptop.

The HP OMEN MAX 16's build quality is excellent. Its full-aluminum chassis feels very sturdy, exhibiting only a small amount of flex. The screen has a slight outward curve; however, it isn't noticeable unless you look from the side, and it's unlikely to be an issue in terms of durability. The finish doesn't scratch easily. Fingerprints and smudges don't show too much from occasional manipulation, but they accumulate over time and are quite visible. The Ceramic White model likely won't show smudges as much. The feet feel solid and stick firmly to the bottom.

The hinges feel smooth and solid. They move a little bit when manipulating the screen near the top corners, but that shouldn't be a major concern. There's very little screen wobble when typing heavily.

Accessing the HP OMEN MAX's internals is relatively straightforward; you need to remove six screws and use a prying tool to release the bottom panel's clips. One screw (at the top of the panel) is captive, meaning it remains attached to the panel. The other screws are of two different sizes, so it's best to keep them organized to facilitate the reassembly. There are protective covers on top of the memory modules, wireless adapter, and SSD. The memory's protective cover comes off easily with no tool required; however, you need to remove additional screws to get to the wireless adapter and SSD. The storage slots support M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 and Gen 5 NVMe SSDs.

See the maintenance and service guide here.

• 330W power adapter
• Documentation

Note: Models with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 or 5070 come with a 280W power adapter.

The HP OMEN MAX 16 is available with the following displays:

• 16" IPS 1920 x 1200 165Hz (matte, 100% sRGB)
• 16" IPS 2560 x 1600 240Hz (matte, 100% sRGB)
• 16" OLED 2560 x 1600 240Hz (glossy, 100% DCI P3)

The QHD+ resolution looks very sharp on a 16-inch screen. You can see individual pixels a few inches away from the screen, but even then, you'd have to look intensely to really see them. With a pixel density of 142 PPI, the FHD+ panel will show individual pixels more, making it less ideal for text-heavy productivity tasks. However, the lower resolution is easier to drive, allowing for higher frame rates when gaming. Regarding the OLED panel, OLEDs are susceptible to permanent burn-in, but it isn't really an issue for gaming.

You can get this laptop with a 165Hz IPS, a 240Hz IPS, or a 240Hz OLED panel. The 240Hz QHD+ IPS display we tested has a decent response time, showing only a small amount of ghosting behind fast-moving objects. The 165Hz FHD+ IPS panel has the same advertised response time of 3ms, while the 240Hz QHD+ OLED panel has a faster advertised response time of 0.2ms. All three displays support G-SYNC.

The 240Hz QHD+ IPS display gets bright enough for use in most indoor settings. You can even use it outdoors in broad daylight, though you may have trouble seeing some content under direct sunlight. It also gets pretty dim at the lowest brightness setting, which helps reduce eye strain when viewing content in the dark. The 165Hz IPS and the 240Hz OLED panel have a lower advertised brightness of 400 cd/m² in SDR.

The display's coating is technically matte, but in practice, it's somewhere between a true matte and a semi-glossy finish, as you can make out the outline of some reflections. This coating handles reflections well—you'll only have trouble with reflections when viewing dark-color content. The OLED panel has a glossy finish and will struggle more with direct, mirror-like reflections.

The QHD+ OLED panel's black uniformity is perfect since OLEDs can turn off individual pixels to produce pure blacks.

The 240Hz QHD+ IPS display's out-of-the-box accuracy is okay. Most color inaccuracies are minor, but the white balance is visibly inaccurate, especially at higher brightness levels. Except for some over-darkening in dark scenes, the gamma is pretty good, following closely the target curve.

The 240Hz QHD+ IPS display is essentially an sRGB panel, meaning it only has full coverage of the sRGB color space used in most content. The 165Hz FHD+ IPS panel has the same advertised color gamut, while the 240Hz QHD+ OLED panel has full coverage of the wider DCI P3 color space.

Our unit's 240Hz QHD+ IPS panel is entirely flicker-free. The 165Hz FHD+ IPS panel is likely flicker-free as well. The OLED panel flickers; other reviewers have reported that it flickers at 960Hz, though we can't confirm it since we haven't tested it.

The HP OMEN MAX has a good keyboard. There isn't anything particularly weird about the layout itself, though it might take some time to get used to the location and size (especially Up and Down) of the arrow keys below the right-Shift. The zero-lattice design (meaning there's no space between the keys) might also require some adaptation. While some keys feel a little wobbly, most of them are very stable. As for the typing experience, the keys have decent travel and are easy to actuate, but they're a bit mushy, providing only a moderate amount of tactile feedback. You can customize the per-key RGB backlighting via the OMEN Gaming Hub app; the backlight shines well through the legends and around the pudding keycaps. This laptop is also available with a 4-zone RGB keyboard backlighting.

The HP OMEN MAX 16 has a great touchpad. Although it's on the smaller side for a 16-inch laptop, it works well for most uses. The size is only an issue when performing actions like dragging and dropping over a long distance. It tracks all movements and gestures well, even near the edges, and palm rejection works as intended. This is a diving board touchpad; you can perform clicks pretty far up (almost three quarters of the way up), but it doesn't work consistently. The actuation feels satisfyingly tactile.

The HP OMEN MAX's speakers are at the bottom of the laptop, near the front (the grills above the keyboard are air vents). The speakers get reasonably loud with minimal artifacts at higher volume levels. They sound okay—clear and relatively natural, but slightly boxy, with only a small amount of bass.

The HP OMEN Max 16 has a good webcam. The image looks fairly detailed but a tad noisy, and the colors look slightly unnatural. There's also some haloing throughout, softening the whole image. Voices sound loud and clear over the microphone with little to no background noise. Activating the physical privacy cover also disables the camera at the software level.

The HP OMEN MAX 16 has an outstanding port selection. Both USB-As support USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer speed (up to 10Gbps). The USB-Cs support Thunderbolt 4 data transfer speed (up to 40Gbps), Power Delivery, DisplayPort 2.1, and HP Sleep and Charge. The latter lets you charge a mobile device connected to the port even when the laptop is in sleep mode. You can charge the laptop via USB-C, but the USB-C ports can only take up to 100W, meaning the battery will drain if you perform intensive tasks at the same time. The Ethernet port has a maximum speed of 1Gbps.

The HP OMEN MAX 16's wireless adapter is an Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200. You can also configure this laptop with an Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 adapter. Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 have faster speeds, lower latency, and less signal interference than previous Wi-Fi standards. However, you need a Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 router to benefit from these features. Check out our best router recommendations if you want to upgrade your home wireless network.

The HP OMEN MAX 16 is available with the following CPUs:

• Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX (20 cores/20 threads, up to 5.2GHz, 30MB L3 cache)
• Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (24 cores/24 threads, up to 5.4GHz, 36MB L3 cache)

Based on Intel's Arrow Lake architecture, these are high-performance mobile CPUs used in gaming and workstation laptops. They can handle nearly every type of workload, from general productivity tasks to intensive simulations and 3D graphics. Regarding core composition, the Ultra 7 255HX has 8 performance and 12 efficiency cores, while the Core Ultra 9 275HX has 8 performance and 16 efficiency cores. Unlike previous generation Intel CPUs, neither supports Hyper-Threading. Both have an NPU with a rated performance of 13 TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second) to handle AI tasks like image generation in photo editing apps and background blurring during video calls.

See Intel's Quick Reference Guide for more information about these Arrow Lake CPUs.

The HP OMEN MAX 16 is available with the following discrete GPUs:

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR7 (unknown TGP)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR7 (unknown TGP)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU 12GB GDDR7 (unknown TGP)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU 16GB GDDR7 (175W TGP)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU 24GB GDDR7 (175W TGP, Core Ultra 9 only)

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series Laptop GPUs are largely an incremental upgrade to the 40-series GPUs, providing only a minor increase in raw performance. Other than quality improvements to existing features like Super Resolution (upscaling) and Ray Reconstruction, the only new feature exclusive to the 50-series is Multi-Frame Generation (MFG). MFG allows the GPU to generate up to three frames per rendered frame (up from one on the 40-series GPUs), resulting in higher frame rates and smoother gameplay in supported games. That said, at the time of writing, MFG is still in its early days. It often causes visual artifacts, especially in challenging scenes with heavy, more unpredictable movements, and it can cause noticeably higher latency.

As for the performance difference between the available GPUs, the RTX 5060 and 5070 are primarily for 1080p gaming. They can handle some games at 1440p, but with only 8GB of VRAM, you'll likely experience stutters in demanding games. The RTX 5070 Ti, 5080, and 5090 are all suitable for gaming at the QHD+ resolution; the choice ultimately comes down to what kind of performance you expect and your budget.

HP doesn't specify the TGP of the RTX 5060, 5070, and 5070 Ti, but based on the capability of the cooling system, they likely run at their maximum wattage, which means the RTX 5060 and 5070 would run at 115W, while the RTX 5070 Ti would run at 140W.

See NVIDIA's specifications page for more information about the NVIDIA 50-series Laptop GPUs.

You can configure this laptop with 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of RAM. The 32GB and 64GB configurations are available with 5600MHz or 6400MHz modules. The memory is user-replaceable.

You can configure this laptop with 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage. These storage options use a single SSD. There's also a dual storage option with two 512GB SSDs. The storage is user-replaceable; both slots support M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 and Gen 5 NVMe SSDs.

The HP OMEN MAX scores remarkably well in the Geekbench 5 benchmarks. Its Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU has strong single- and multi-thread performance, making it suitable for common, everyday tasks and heavy multitasking. The Core Ultra 7 255HX is slower, as it has fewer cores and lower clock speeds, but it can still handle most common productivity tasks with little trouble.

As for the GPU, all the available discrete NVIDIA GPUs are suitable for heavy GPU computing tasks; the higher-end options will simply complete tasks faster and provide a smoother experience.

The HP OMEN Max 16's Core Ultra 9 275HX scores remarkably well in Cinebench R23, nearly matching the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2024)'s top-end M4 Max chip in single-thread performance and beating it in multi-thread performance. This performance is suitable for intensive multi-threaded applications and heavy multitasking. The Core Ultra 7 255HX is slower, but still capable of handling demanding tasks.

The HP OMEN MAX is outstanding for Blender work. Every available NVIDIA GPU can handle 3D rendering, so the choice of GPU depends on the complexity of your work and the speed at which you expect to complete tasks.

The HP OMEN MAX with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU scores remarkably well in the Basemark GPU benchmark. As mentioned in the GPU section, the RTX 5080, along with the 5070 Ti and 5090, are well suited for 1440p gaming, so choosing between them depends on your budget and expectations regarding frame rate and visual fidelity. The RTX 5060 and 5070 are best suited for the FHD+ display; they can handle some games at 1440p, but you'll have to dial down some settings like textures and shadows to avoid performance issues.

Battery life depends on the configuration. Models with the 165Hz FHD+ display and/or a lower-end GPU will likely have a longer battery life.

Borderlands 3 runs exceptionally well at 1080p on the HP OMEN MAX with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU. Except for a few minor stutters, the gameplay is very smooth. You can play this game at the display's native QHD+ resolution with no problems. Models with an RTX 5060 might struggle a bit at 1440p, but can still push over 60 fps with some tweaks in the settings.

Switching from the Unleashed mode to the Performance mode has very little impact on performance, but switching to the Balanced mode significantly reduces the average frame rate (with high settings) to 168 fps, a 24.63% drop.

Every configuration of the HP OMEN Max 16 can run Civilization VI and other similar games smoothly at 1080p, 1440p, or even 4k, as these types of strategy games generally don't require a lot of graphical processing power. The average turn time is decent but slower than on models with Intel's older 14th Gen CPUs, like the ASUS ROG Strix G16 (2024) and the Razer Blade 18 (2024).

Again, switching from the Unleashed mode to the Performance mode only affects the performance slightly, but switching to the Balanced mode reduces performance by 27.27%, dropping the average frame rate with high settings to 262 fps.

Every configuration of the HP OMEN MAX 16 can deliver smooth gameplay at 1080p in Counter-Strike 2. You can also play at 1440p or even 4k with no problems.

Switching to the Performance mode sees a small dip in the average frame rate (at 1080p with high settings) to 401 fps, roughly a 4% drop. The Balanced mode causes a bigger performance drop of 15%, lowering the average frame rate to 355 fps.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider runs very well at 1080p on the HP OMEN MAX with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU. Every configuration can handle this and other similarly demanding games with no trouble, even at the QHD+ resolution. 4k is possible, though you may need to tweak the settings a bit and turn on DLSS to get high frame rates on models with an RTX 5060.

Switching to the Performance or Balanced mode has virtually no effect on the performance.

The keyboard deck remains relatively cool despite the CPU reaching a boiling 100 °C (212 °F). Unfortunately, the fans are extremely loud. You can change the power mode and fan speed in the OMEN Gaming Hub app. See video for a quick tour of the OMEN Gaming Hub app. The Automatic Fan Cleaning feature in the app helps keep the fans clean by spinning backward, reducing the need for maintenance.

The posted results are measurements taken in the Unleashed power mode. Here are the measurements in the Performance and Balanced modes:

Performance

• Keyboard Temp Under Load: 35.5 °C (95.9 °F)
• Fan Noise Under Load: 52 dBA

Balanced

• Keyboard Temp Under Load: 34.9 °C (94.82 °F)
• Fan Noise Under Load: 48 dBA

The HP OMEN MAX 16 has many pre-installed applications; see this video for the full list.

The HP OMEN MAX 16 has a Windows Hello facial recognition camera. You can use it to log in quickly, authorize purchases in the Windows Store, and auto-fill saved passwords on supported websites.

In addition to RGB keyboard backlighting, there's also a 4-zone RGB light bar at the front of the laptop. You can customize this light bar in the OMEN Gaming Hub app.