In the interest of esports and fast-action gameplay in general, more attention than ever is being paid to refresh rates, even on laptops. As such, HP is upgrading its Omen 15 with a 240Hz display.
As of right now, the Omen 15 is the only gaming laptop in the world with a 240Hz panel, and that will likely the be the case when it starts shipping later this year. It's a 15.6-inch TN display with a 1920x1080 resolution, though 240Hz is still a tall order at that resolution.
To take advantage of the high refresh rate, HP is outfitting the Omen 15 with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 20 series GPUs, and specifically a GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q on the 240Hz model (according to PCWorld). This sits alongside an Intel 8th generation Core i7-8750H processor and 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR4-2666 RAM.
There's no mention of G-Sync support, which is a bummer, though HP is clearly taking aim at fast visuals. On the storage side of the equation, the Omen 15 comes standard with a paltry 128GB M.2 solid state drive and a 2TB hard drive. HP didn't say if the SSD is SATA or NVMe (PCIe), as both are available in the M.2 form factor. Either way, we wish it was at least twice, if not four times, as capacious.
HP is also updating the Wi-Fi controller to support Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), according to our friends at Anandtech. However, you'll want to pay close to attention to exactly what you're buying, and when, if you're interested in the Omen 15. HP is staggering the release.
Starting next month, the Omen 15 will be available to buy, though the initial models will have an IPS display with a much lower 60Hz refresh rate and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) connectivity. There could be variations in the other hardware as well. Pricing will start at $1,369.99.
Users who want the 240Hz display will have to wait until July. HP hasn't announced pricing for that model yet
