HP Victus 16 review
Our Verdict
The HP Victus 16 delivers respectable performance for its toll. But with a design that isn't very portable, it'south probably best used as a mid-range gaming desktop.
For
- Solid performance for the price
- 1080p 144Hz display looks great
- Abrupt design
- Speakers sound good, when y'all can hear them
Against
- Heavy, even for a gaming laptop
- Nether 2 hours of portable gaming time
- Keyboard is awkward to use
- Fans make headphones a skilful idea when gaming
Tom'south Guide Verdict
The HP Victus 16 delivers respectable operation for its price. But with a design that isn't very portable, it's probably best used equally a mid-range gaming desktop.
Pros
- +
Solid performance for the price
- +
1080p 144Hz display looks corking
- +
Sharp pattern
- +
Speakers sound proficient, when you tin hear them
Cons
- -
Heavy, fifty-fifty for a gaming laptop
- -
Nether 2 hours of portable gaming fourth dimension
- -
Keyboard is awkward to use
- -
Fans brand headphones a good idea when gaming
HP Victus 16 specs
Price: $809 to commencement, ~$i,429 every bit reviewed
CPU: Intel Cadre i7-11800H
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060
Display: 16.1-inch FHD 144Hz IPS LED (1920x1080)
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: 512GB SSD + 32GB Intel Optane
Dimensions: fourteen.57 ten 10.24 x 0.93 inches
Weight: 5.4 pounds to start
The HP Victus xvi ($809 to starting time) is the first entry in HP'southward new Victus line of gaming laptops, which seem intended to be more affordable alternatives to HP's existing Omen gaming laptops. Only don't allow that dim your involvement: configurable with the latest CPUs from Intel and AMD plus some of the hottest Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-serial graphics cards, the HP Victus 16 is more than respectable every bit a gaming car.
If you're looking for portability, nonetheless, the Victus is hard to recommend over other gaming laptops on the market place. Plus, it has some design issues that make it a bit abrasive to use on a daily basis without plugging in a fair number of peripherals.
This HP Victus xvi review will outline this laptop's strengths and highlight its weaknesses, which are surmountable just ultimately continue it from challenge a spot on our list of the best gaming laptops you can purchase.
HP Victus 16 review: Price and availability
- Toll ranges from $800 to $two,000, depending on configuration
- Look to pay at least $1k if you want the latest Nvidia graphics cards
The Victus is available for club direct from HP's website, likewise as at third-political party retailers like Newegg and Best Buy. The base configuration starts at $809, but that model comes with an older Nvidia GPU. To get a model with one of the latest Nvidia GeForce RTX xxx-series laptop cards, y'all should expect to pay at least $i,000, and close to $2,000 if y'all kit it out with all the bells and whistles.
Our Victus review unit came configured with a 16.1-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) 144Hz brandish, an Intel Cadre i7-11800H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD with an additional 32GB of Intel Optane memory. For this configuration you lot'll typically pay about $1,400, though since this review is beingness published during the holiday shopping flavor HP currently has some Victus models on auction or out of stock.
HP Victus sixteen review: Design
- Sharp, angled design looks slick and offers enough of ports
- Fans get loud enough to drown out the speakers when playing games
- Weighs in at over 5 pounds, making information technology not great for daily carry
The Victus 16 sports an understated dark argent (or bluish if you lot pay an extra $10) chassis that has a lot going for it.
The two built-in fans proceed the automobile nice and absurd even in high-operation situations, and with three USB-A ports, one USB-C port, an HDMI out and even an Ethernet port, information technology'due south got plenty of options for plugging stuff in. Heck, I've looked at desktops that cost every bit much equally this laptop and don't accept as many ports.
The Victus 16's pattern does take some bug, though. For starters, the laptop's sharp, angled artful pairs with the big sans serif V emblazoned on the superlative of the instance to give the Victus a vibe that shoots directly past "serious gaming machine" and approaches "visitor laptop for an evil corporation in a sci-fi movie."
Equally stiff as that artful statement is, the fans may be fifty-fifty stronger, sometimes drowning out the laptop'southward speakers when playing graphically-demanding games.
The machine'southward weight is also a chip of an upshot. HP's website says the Victus "starts at" 5.44 pounds, and though I didn't have a digital scale handy my judge is this configuration adds to that estimate. It's a heavy laptop, and though carrying it around your home shouldn't be an issue, lugging information technology around in my shoulder handbag while I'one thousand out and about seems like it would be a real task.
These functional design foibles are that much more than painful because overall, I like the pattern of the Victus. Every bit much every bit I'm poking fun at it for having a lot of blueprint elements that feel, for lack of a better term, evil, I actually adore the Victus team for taking a big swing on the design hither instead of producing some other boring black gaming laptop. The design of the Victus might brand information technology expect like Lex Luthor's personal computer, but I can at least option information technology out of a lineup — which is more than I can say for a lot of laptops on the market.
HP Victus 16 review: Display and audio
- 16-inch 144Hz 1080p display looks great, and can be upgraded
- Speakers evangelize excellent audio quality, only can be hard to hear while gaming
The Victus sports a 16.1-inch FHD (1920 ten 1080 pixels) display capable of achieving a 144Hz refresh rate by default. All the same, yous can pay $40 extra to configure ane with a slightly brighter screen, or pay $110 actress for a higher-resolution (2560 x 1440 pixels) version with a 165Hz refresh rate.
The model we reviewed came with the standard xvi.1-inch 144Hz FHD display, and I really like it. The 16.ane-inch screen looks big and vivid for a laptop, and while the monitor's resolution is only 1920 x 1080, the Victus is specced (and priced) to deliver the best gaming operation at 1080p anyway. The display might feel a bit minor if you're used to playing games on a larger desktop monitor, merely luckily the Victus' HDMI port makes it like shooting fish in a barrel to plug in a second monitor.
I was also impressed by the sound quality of the sound coming out of the Victus' speakers. They've been tuned by Denmark-based Bang & Olufsen, and in my experience they're every bit cracking for listening to music or watching streaming video. Yet, it's a bit harder to speak to their sound quality while playing games, because (as previously mentioned) they're oftentimes drowned out by the sound of the fans spinning up during graphically-intensive gaming.
HP Victus 16 review: Operation
- Plays most games very well at 1080p
- Performance is on par or slightly backside the competition
The Victus performs equally well as most gaming laptops in the $1-$2k range. It can run well-nigh games well at 1080p, and in my hands-on testing I didn't have whatsoever problem playing through my Steam library.
Yet, our lab testing reveals that the Victus delivers somewhat anemic performance compared to similarly-priced gaming laptops. For example, the 17-inch MSI Katana 76 we recently reviewed has most the same specs (i7-11800H CPU, GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, xvi GB RAM, ane TB SSD and a 1080p, 144 Hz screen for $1,500) as our Victus review unit, nonetheless managed to deliver slightly better performance in games similar Assassinator's Creed Valhalla and Blood-red Expressionless Redemption 2.
The 14-inch Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 ($one,449), one of our top picks for the best gaming laptop you can buy, is in the aforementioned price range as the Victus yet delivers nearly twice the performance in M Theft Car V. Nonetheless, the Shadow of the Tomb Raider graphical benchmark ran quite a bit better on the Victus compared to the Zephyrus G14.
| HP Victus 16 ($1,429) | MSI Katana GF76 ($1,500) | Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 ($ane,449) | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 59 | 61 | N/A |
| Grand Theft Automobile V | 78 | 84 | 115 |
| Ruddy Dead Redemption 2 | 51 | 53 | 34.eight |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 67 | 69 | 49 |
That said, the Victus delivers solid overall performance for a xvi-inch gaming laptop in this price range. Which is good, because this laptop ofttimes feels like information technology's made compromises in the name of delivering affordable gaming performance.
HP Victus 16 review: Keyboard and touchpad
- Touchpad is big, accurate and unremarkable
- Full-sized keyboard is awkward and difficult to use
The Victus' 4.9 10 3.2 touchpad feels quite big and performs well for casual tasks. Unfortunately that feels a niggling like wasted endeavour. Information technology's no replacement for the precision of a mouse, or the extra inputs of the all-time gaming mice. Equally a result well-nigh people are going to be plugging in a mouse to do any serious gaming.
Then in that location's the keyboard.
On the positive side, the Victus' Keyboard comes with a total number pad. The keystrokes are nothing to write home about, just the keys feel responsive and it's articulate whether yous take or haven't depressed them completely. The trouble is that the improver of a number pad means the rest of the keyboard is slightly off-center which, quite frankly, drove me slightly mad.
It'southward possible that given more fourth dimension and practice, I could adjust to this. I gave information technology a real attempt, worried that I was being unreasonable and as well item, but my typing muscle retentiveness fought me at every turn.
Some pocket-sized design decisions on HP's part too fabricated the aligning difficult. There are bevels on the F and J keys so yous can reset to typing position by feel, but to my fingers they're also small to exist very useful. Considering this is a gaming laptop, I'd as well have appreciated a touch guide of some kind to the WASD keys.
On the third day of trying to adjust to the Victus' keyboard I only gave up and plugged in my own.
HP Victus 16 review: Heat
- Serious gaming turns the Victus into a lap-scorcher
Rut's some other area where you lot may be better off treating the Victus a bit more similar a desktop when it'southward time for serious gaming. In more coincidental use cases like web browsing or watching videos the Victus stayed at a relatively cool 91 degrees.
After 6 back to back runs of the Metro Exodus benchmark however the underside of the machine reached 117.v degrees, even with the same noisy fans working overtime. That's not hot enough to affect performance, merely probably hot plenty yous'll want to keep the laptop away from your lap.
HP Victus xvi review: Bombardment life
- Wait over four hours of spider web browsing
- ...simply only an hour and a half of gaming
The battery life on the Victus doesn't blow the competition out of the water, but I besides didn't find it a hinderance in any way. Information technology took over four hours of more casual employ to get a depression battery warning. Running a graphics-intensive game cut into that battery life significantly, but in practice you're going to want to plug in so much stuff for serious gaming that the Victus should probably be stationary and positioned most a ability outlet anyway.
In our gaming laptop battery test, which tasks the laptop with looping a 3D-rendered scene in PCMark 10, the Victus 16 an hour and thirty minutes. That's better than the hour the MSI Katana 76 lasted, though the power-sipping Zephyrus G14 outlasted both.
HP Victus 16 review: Verdict
In the finish, how much you like the Victus is going to depend on you prioritize the gaming and laptop aspects of your gaming laptop. If your emphasis is on gaming, the Victus tin can button out some impressive graphics for not too much money. In fact, I'd say the Victus actually shines when used equally a kind of budget gaming desktop. Though the blueprint is stark, I think information technology's a handsome gaming automobile. And if you plug in a practiced keyboard and mouse it'south not bad for getting things done, either, particularly when hooked upwardly to an external display for an impromptu two-monitor setup.
Once I'd plugged in my mouse, keyboard, headphones, second monitor and ethernet cablevision though, it felt pretty lightheaded calling this a laptop. Whenever I tried to use the Victus as an actual portable computer, some design misstep or missing feature made me long to plug it back into the half-dozen peripherals that fabricated it fun to use.
If you're judging by pure performance, the Victus delivers a pretty good showing for its price. But with a design that isn't very portable, the Victus also left me wondering why I shouldn't but purchase a similarly-priced model of one of the best gaming desktops to save myself some hassle.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/hp-victus-16-review
Posted by: parkbeces1998.blogspot.com
0 Response to "HP Victus 16 review"
Post a Comment