HP's latest 16-inch gaming laptop is designed to be thin and portable. The aptly-named Omen 16 Slim, set to release this spring, packs up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H "Arrow Lake" CPU and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU in a chassis that's 16% slimmer than the standard Omen 16.
The height at the front of the laptop is just 19.99 mm (where HP gets that 16% number), though at its thickest point, the Omen 16 Slim is 22.7 mm tall. The laptop weighs about 5.35 pounds.
In a brief-hands on with the system, it felt slim, but wasn’t necessarily featherweight. Most of the ports are on the back, a move that has been popular among slimmer gaming laptops to maintain a sleek aesthetic from the side profile. I didn't get to stick it in a bag, but having jammed plenty of gaming laptops into my backpack for testing, I suspect this one would fit just fine.
The Slim will start at a Core Ultra 5 225H and go up to a Core Ultra 7 255H before the bump to Ultra 9. At the moment, the RTX 5070 is the only discrete GPU on the laptop's spec sheet, though an "up to" suggests that others may be announced down the line. HP claims that using its "Unleashed Mode," you can get up to 105W of power.
You can get the laptop with 16, 24, or 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and either 512 GB or 1TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSD storage.
The laptop has a 16-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, and will have resolution choices of 1920 x 1200 or 2560 x 1600. The 2560 x 1600 option will go up to 250 Hz, while the 1200p version will come in 144 Hz or 165 Hz versions.
Connectivity options include a USB-C port, 3 USB Type-A ports (one at 10 Gbps, the others at 5 Gbps), as well as an Ethernet jack, 3.5 mm audio jack, and HDMI 2.1. There will be options for a Wi-Fi 6E card from Intel or a Wi-Fi 6 card from Realtek, but not the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard.
HP hasn't announced pricing for the Omen 16 Slim, but I'm told it should be released sometime this spring.
In addition to the Slim, HP is also refreshing the HP Omen 17, Omen Transcend 14, and Victus 15. The Omen 17 will use AMD's Krackan and Strix Point processors (up to AMD Ryzen AI 9 365) while the portable Transcend 14 will stick with Intel, but both will top out at an RTX 5070.
The Victus, positioned as a more budget offering, will have a vast array of options (likely depending on market), including 13th and 14th Gen Intel CPUs, as well as the Intel Core 5 210H processor. On the AMD side, there are options ranging from Ryzen 8000 up through 200 and 300-series Ryzen AI. Graphics on the Nvidia side range from an RTX 2050 to a 4060, along with unspecified "Next Gen" laptop GPUs, while AMD will have a range of integrated graphics and the Radeon RX 6550M.
These refreshes are also expected in the spring, though HP has yet to list any prices.
