01-05-2025
HP Omen Transcend 16 (2024): Big power, slick design – but is it the right pick for you?
The HP Omen Transcend 16 is designed to offer serious power in a slim, stylish package. Aimed at gamers, creatives, and professionals who need high-end performance, this laptop promises a lot, from an OLED display to a strong cooling system and excellent connectivity.
Design and build quality
HP has kept the design simple yet premium. The Omen Transcend 16 looks clean and professional, making it versatile enough for gaming sessions and work meetings. While it boasts an impressive hardware lineup, including a mobile version of the RTX 4070, it doesn't scream "gamer laptop" in its design.
The borderless display design gives the laptop a modern, seamless appearance. The chassis feels sturdy, with rounded edges that are comfortable to carry.
At around 2.16kg, it strikes a good balance between portability and performance. While the 230w charger adds some weight to your bag, the overall package remains manageable for travel.
Opening the lid with one hand is smooth thanks to a well-balanced hinge. There is a slight amount of screen wobble when using the laptop on unstable surfaces, but it's not enough to cause concern. While I love the matte finish on the laptop, it tends to show fingerprints easily.
Display
There are several variations of the Transcend — some featuring a mini-LED display — but my review unit came with a 16-inch 2560x1600 OLED panel (16:10 aspect ratio), and it's absolutely stunning. It sports a 48- 240Hz refresh rate and a 0.2 ms response time, ideal for gaming and fast-paced work. It has an SDR peak of 400 nits and 500 nits in HDR mode. Colour coverage is impressive too, with 100% sRGB, 100% DCI-P3 colour space — perfect for photographers, video editors and designers.
However, the glossy finish on the display can be quite reflective, particularly under bright lights or outdoors. I'm a fan of glossy displays as they produce the best contrast and sharpness, but if you often work in sunny or bright environments, this could be a minor annoyance to keep in mind.
Keyboard and ports
Typing on the Omen Transcend 16 is a pleasant experience. The keyboard layout is spacious, with full-sized arrow keys and additional shortcut buttons for quick access to features like the Omen Gaming Hub, calculator, and screen capture. The RGB backlighting is bright, even, and customisable through the Omen Gaming Hub.
The WASD keys have a translucent design that sets them apart visually, although the lighting on these keys can look slightly washed out under direct light. Overall, HP has done a very good job with the keyboard.
Port selection is generous. There are two USB-A ports for traditional peripherals, two USB-C ports offering 40 Gbps transfer speeds, DisplayPort support, power delivery, and an HDMI 2.1 output for external displays. An RJ-45 Ethernet port and a headphone/microphone jack complete the list. It would have been nice to see an SD card slot included, particularly for creators, but most users will find the available connectivity more than sufficient.
Hardware and performance
The review model I tested came equipped with an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU (8GB), 32GB of DDR5 RAM (16GB x2), and a 1TB SSD (PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2). Performance is excellent across the board. It handled everything I threw at it, from 4K video editing and gaming to heavy multitasking, without a stutter.
Inside, two RAM slots are user-accessible, making upgrades easy. The Wi-Fi card can also be replaced. However, there's only one M.2 slot for storage, which is already occupied by the default 1TB SSD. That limits future expandability somewhat, which is a minor disappointment given the size of the laptop.
A heat pipe system handles cooling. While effective, fan noise is noticeable even during light tasks and becomes quite loud under heavy load. If you prioritise near-silent operation, this laptop may not suit your needs.
Battery life is surprisingly good for a high-performance laptop of this calibre. Using Eco mode with battery saver settings and the screen at 25% brightness, I achieved around five hours of use, enough to cover a full day of lighter work or a long-haul flight. You can expect even longer battery life with lighter workloads and a dimmed display. However, if you're playing AAA titles, running on battery power isn't ideal — it significantly reduces performance, and you'll likely get less than two hours of runtime.
Gaming performance
Gaming performance is excellent, but it's important to remember that this is the mobile version of the RTX 4070 with 8GB of VRAM, so you shouldn't expect the same level of performance as a desktop RTX 4070.
I played several games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 5, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, and Red Dead Redemption 2. The 240Hz display is excellent for competitive shooters, delivering smooth and highly responsive gameplay.
In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, I averaged 71fps using the game's built-in benchmarking tool, with the resolution set to native and graphics on Ultra High. CPU utilisation averaged around 20%, while the GPU was fully utilised, peaking at 70°C. Despite being very pleased with the image quality and frame rates, I was curious to see if I could push the FPS closer to the monitor's 240Hz refresh rate. I experimented with lowering both the graphical settings and resolution, but even at the lowest graphics and a resolution of 1280 × 768, I got an average of 215fps.
Overall, the gaming experience was excellent — I never felt the need for more frames per second in any games I played. That said, I'm not a competitive gamer, so take that into account.
Thermal performance holds up during extended gaming sessions, although the laptop can get very warm around the keyboard area and underneath. Still, the cooling system manages heat well enough to avoid bad thermal throttling, keeping performance consistent.
The dual speakers are a casualty of the slim design — they lack real bass impact and overall loudness, but they're still perfectly serviceable. Perhaps that's why HP bundles the laptop with their HyperX Cloud II wireless headphones.
Verdict
The HP Omen Transcend 16 (2024) is a stylish powerhouse that blends gaming, creative work, and everyday productivity into one package. It combines a superb display, an excellent keyboard, strong port selection, and top-tier performance.
There are a few compromises to consider, such as the glossy, reflective screen and limited internal storage upgrade options. Fan noise is also something to keep in mind if you prefer a quieter machine. However, these points are fairly minor compared to what the Omen Transcend 16 gets right.
If you're looking for a high-performance 16-inch laptop that can easily handle everything from gaming to professional creative tasks, the HP Omen Transcend 16 is a fantastic choice. However, if you're a hardcore gamer chasing the latest power, even more powerful options are available with the newest RTX 50-series graphics, and more are on the way.
