In the highly contested mid-range gaming laptop segment, HP has established its distinct position with the HP Victus line of gaming laptops. With options of different configurations that start at an attractive price of INR 67,999, HP Victus 15.6 gaming laptop will surely be on top of the list of gamers looking for a budget-friendly gaming laptop. The laptop that we received for review is an HP Victus 15.6 gaming laptop that’s equipped with AMD Ryzen 7 5800H octa-core CPU coupled with a discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU (4GB), 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM, 500 GB NVMe M.2 SSD, and 70 Watt-Hour battery. With such powerful specs and priced competitively at INR 87,999, let’s see if this laptop is a bang-for-the-buck purchase or not for budget-conscious gamers.
Design and Specs that matter
With its lid down, the striking feature of the HP Victus 15.6 gaming laptop is its shiny and reflective “V” on the lid and the word “Victus” subtly imprinted on the hinge. Having no flashy LED logos or strips, HP Victus 15.6 laptop is designed with mature aesthetics and refined looks that do not reveal the capable gaming beast it houses within it. This makes the laptop a perfect fit for any professional who’s seeking a laptop that delivers decent performance for both his office work and gaming needs. Its overall plastic chassis is sturdy and gives a feel of robustness. HP Victus’ sophisticated design makes for a fashion statement that is rarely realized in the gaming space.
Once you lift the lid, the slim bezel IPS display of 15.6 inches, 1920 x 1080 pixels, and 144 Hz refresh rate delivers crisp and detailed visuals. The edge-to-edge keyboard features a separate numeric keypad, which becomes a handy thing to have in some games. The keyboard is backlit with white light and thankfully doesn’t have an RGB backlight. The touchpad is appropriately positioned so that while typing there aren’t any non-intentional touches to inadvertently move the cursor around the screen. The power button is just placed next to the delete key, and that would raise some eyebrows and questions. The HP engineers have addressed smartly about the power button getting pressed by mistake instead of the delete key, as the power key only functions on a long press. The top function key row also features a dedicated key to initiate OMEN Gaming Hub, which lets you monitor system vitals and optimize the laptop for a better gaming experience.
HP Victus 15.6 laptop boasts Wi-Fi 6 for improved and faster performance with lower latencies. There are plenty of connectivity ports with right-side having an Ethernet jack, HDMI 2.1, USB 3.2 Type-A and USB Type-C ports. While the left side has a microSD slot along with a 3.5 mm headphone jack, an additional USB 3.2 Type-A port and a power adapter port. The laptop has a dual arrangement of Bang & Olufsen speakers, one set of dual upward-firing speakers is just above the keyboard and the other two bottom-firing speakers are on the underside of the laptop. The speakers deliver a good output and are decently loud too. One thing that one might miss is the webcam privacy slider that covers the camera. The webcam placed on top of the display is 720p and gets grainy in low-light conditions, so for video conferences, one would need a well-lit room.
Performance that counts
At the heart of the HP Victus 15.6 gaming laptop sits the octa-core AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor, which is of Zen 3 architecture and delivers about 19% higher instructions per clock when compared to AMD’s previous Zen 2 platforms. This tremendous horsepower when given the boost of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU results in an immersive gaming experience. While playing games such as Call of Duty: Warzone or Counter-Strike, the game experience was great with consistent performance with no noticeable frame drops. We stressed HP Victus 15.6 gaming laptop with UL’s 3DMarks Time Spy DirectX 12 benchmark to simulate the performance of gaming PCs/laptops with discrete GPUs at 1980 × 1080 resolution, and it delivered respectable benchmark scores.
We even monitored the CPU and GPU temperatures for long-duration gaming, where the CPU and GPU core temperatures clocked almost 100°C, however, the cooling fans and ventilation of the laptop are so efficient that the surface temperature around the keypad, touchpad and palm-rest remained cool. HP has cleverly channelled the heat out from multiple vents on the bottom and sides and the areas that you hardly touch. Coming to battery endurance, the 70 Watt-Hour battery doesn’t last more than 5 hours of casual gaming, work on office productivity suites and web surfing on WiFi – this can solely be attributed to the power-hungry hardware. Whereas, for a non-gaming usage the laptop’s battery will last from morning till evening.
Verdict
HP Victus 15.6 gaming laptop with its potent hardware and sophisticated design is a worthy candidate for any professional who wants a capable gaming laptop that can easily double up as a work laptop as well. At this price point, the combination of AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU makes this laptop a bang-for-the-buck purchase for someone looking for a budget-friendly gaming laptop, which delivers performance and has future-ready specifications.
