HP introduces new Omen 15 laptop

Gamers can turn happier as HP (HPQ) is bringing out a smaller yet powerful Omen 15 laptop with more horsepower coming from Nvidia’s (NVDA) GPU and Intel (INTC) processor. For HP, gaming has become a billion-dollar business and this remains one of the world’s fastest-growing PC categories.

The Omen 15 laptop, which HP has announced at the HP Gaming Festival in Beijing, comes with a 15.6-inch diagonal display, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU, 8th generation Intel Core i5-plus or i7-plus processors with up to six cores, and up to 32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM. The device comes with larger fans, a 3-phase motor to cool things down.

HP has also unveiled another variant of Omen 15 laptop that comes with 2.2GHz Intel Core i7, Nvidia GTX 1050Ti with 4GB memory or GTX 1060 graphics with 6GB memory, 8 or 16 GB DDR4-2666MHz RAM, and dual storage setup either 128 or 512 GB SSDs and 1TB hard drive.

It is expected that both the variants will come with a 70WHr battery with up to six hours of mixed usage. The laptop is expected to be available on July 29 with a starting price of $979.99, along with HP Reactor Mouse for $79.99 and HP Mouse 400 for $39.99.

For HP, gaming has become a billion-dollar business and this remains one of the world’s fastest-growing PC categories.

In addition, HP unveiled a pair of headphones specifically for whole-day gaming sessions that come with patented thermoelectric cooling technique, instead of fans or cooling gels. The headset comes with 7.1 virtual surround sound, 3D spatial awareness, and noise-canceling unidirectional microphone. It will be made available from the second half of 2018.

In the recently completed second-quarter, strong double-digit sales growth in both the PC and Printer divisions drove HP’s revenue higher by 13%. Consumers’ focus shift to high-growth high-margin products for the gaming and commercial market drove the company’s PC shipments in the upward direction. High-end computers, including gaming machines, lifted the company’s market share.

According to a Bloomberg report, HP will cut about 1% of its 49,000 employees through the end of fiscal 2019. The company projects the restructuring cost to rise by $150-$200 million, including both labor and non-labor related actions. This workforce reduction is more than what HP has originally planned in fiscal 2017 of cutting 3,000 to 4,000 jobs.