HP Victus 15 review: budget laptop is beginning to show its age

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There are a fewer versions of nan HP Victus 15 floating around, but nan 1 we’re reviewing present has an AMD Ryzen 7 processor and an Nvidia GeForce 3050Ti GPU, which would beryllium capable to put it firmly successful nan best fund gaming laptops bucket moreover if it didn’t person conscionable 8GB of RAM. This limitation isn’t going to clasp it backmost excessively severely successful nan world of gaming, wherever games that really usage 16GB of representation are rare, but imaginative apps editing immense documents are going to munch done it beautiful quickly, putting a mobility people complete its capacity successful that sector.

Luckily, it has value successful its favour, being disposable for little than £900 arsenic portion of HP’s fund gaming line. The AMD processor (actually an APU pinch integrated graphics) has capable cores to support nan likes of Photoshop happy, while nan abstracted RTX 3050Ti graphics spot offers capable punch for accelerated effects rendering. 

HP Victus 15: Key specifications

Design, build and display

The Victus 15 houses a 15.6-inch show successful a achromatic chassis pinch a keyboard and numpad. It’s a restrained-looking machine, pinch a chevron-like Victus logo connected nan lid but very small successful nan measurement of garish decoration. There's a plain achromatic backlight but nary transparent WASD keys arsenic seen connected nan HP Omen Transcend 16, conscionable a achromatic and achromatic array of keys pinch a trackpad offset somewhat to nan left. 

Build value is mostly excellent, pinch nary grounds of flexing erstwhile you usage it connected your lap. There are a decent number of ports on nan edges of nan laptop, including some Type-A and Type-C USB ports (all tin of transferring information astatine 5Gbps, pinch nan Type-C besides acting arsenic a video output) and a full-size HDMI 2.1. There's a gigabit Ethernet port, an SD paper reader, and pinch Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 connected board, it’s well-equipped for wireless connection arsenic well. 

The surface is simply a 1080p IPS which tin scope arsenic precocious arsenic 144Hz, thing much important to gamers than imaginative pros. Its colour reproduction leaves overmuch to beryllium desired, however, managing to show only 64% of sRGB, 48% of Adobe RGB, and 47% of P3. Use of nan HDMI larboard to connect a calibrated show will beryllium basal for immoderate graphics work. Its brightness of 250 nits, though modular for galore laptops, besides lags down nan champion screens connected nan market.

Keyboard and trackpad

While a bully size, nan Victus’ keyboard has a numpad squeezed successful adjacent to it which people intends that nan arrow keys are alternatively small, but astatine slightest it’s not a tiny, half-sized numpad for illustration nan examples creeping successful connected immoderate ultrabooks. It’s useful for entering a PIN, arsenic nan Victus has neither a fingerprint scholar nor a facial nickname camera. The powerfulness cardinal is nan sixth cardinal on from nan correct connected nan apical row, which doesn’t consciousness for illustration a earthy position for a cardinal pinch specified a pivotal domiciled successful really utilizing nan laptop. Then again, arsenic you’re only apt to property it erstwhile per session, possibly it doesn’t request to beryllium anyplace much prominent. There are dedicated keys for nan Windows calculator and HP’s Omen Gaming Hub package that unrecorded person to nan separator of nan keyboard.

The keys themselves person a decent extent of recreation and consciousness bully to type on. The backlighting, though disconnected by default and incompatible pinch HP’s ain gaming hub software, tin beryllium switched connected via a cardinal combo - a plain achromatic backlight tin make a immense quality to nan usability of a keyboard moreover successful a lit room. 

The trackpad feels bully nether nan finger, but we had a problem pinch our clicks registering if they were somewhat excessively adjacent to nan centre statement of nan pad - nan pad would flex and click, but thing happened on-screen. This is successful opposition to nan broader acquisition of utilizing nan trackpad, which showed it to beryllium responsive and accurate. A nudge of nan clicking digit person to nan left-hand broadside of nan pad was capable to correct it, but it took immoderate getting utilized to.

Performance

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800H wrong nan Victus 15 was a beautiful bully spot erstwhile it launched astatine nan extremity of 2021, and it still holds its ain arsenic agelong arsenic it’s not taxed excessively heavily. It’s a measurement up from nan 5800U successful nan Xulu XR1 Max, and comes pinch 8 cores tin of processing 16 threads simultaneously pinch a boost velocity of 4.4Ghz. If you’re browsing, doing immoderate 1080p gaming aliases a spot of agency activity it will beryllium fine. Photoshop won’t problem it excessively overmuch until you commencement moving Camera Raw effects for illustration Lens Blur aliases AI denoise connected 60MP files, but nan large problem pinch nan Victus 15 successful 2024 is that it only has 8GB of DDR4 RAM, which is neither accelerated capable nor capacitous capable to support up pinch imaginative software.

Its multi-core Cinebench R23 benchmark results put it alongside 13th-gen Intel chips specified arsenic nan i7-13700H and HX, which is simply a very respectable spot to be, but nan Cinebench 2024 benchmark wouldn’t run. This mightiness beryllium a bully point from nan constituent of position of nan chip, arsenic its results mightiness person been miserable successful a trial that requires brand-new tech to springiness a precocious people and isn’t straight comparable to nan older benchmarks.

The RTX 3050Ti GPU isn’t 1 of Nvidia’s finest, though it’s still amended than utilizing nan integrated Radeon cores successful nan CPU. The 3000 bid was replaced by nan 4000 chips backmost successful 2022, truthful don’t spell expecting immense amounts of pixel-pushing capacity retired of this chip, which moreover erstwhile caller was only 1 measurement up from nan bottommost of nan range.

What it tin do, however, is put 1080p frames connected nan screen, and erstwhile playing a crippled that trades graphical fidelity for sheer speed, specified arsenic galore competitory online shooters, aliases older games built for older hardware, nan GPU tin make nan astir of nan 144Hz screen. While ray-tracing is imaginable connected this chip, it’s not its strongest point, but its expertise to upscale images utilizing Nvidia’s DLSS tech shouldn’t beryllium ignored: this allows it to tally internally astatine a little resolution, meaning faster framerates connected nan screen.

Battery life is precisely what you’d expect from a fund gaming laptop: not amazing. In our tests, which support nan surface connected astatine 50% brightness and activity nan processors constantly, it managed 5 and a half hours. This is simply a bully clip for a gaming laptop, which thin to sacrifice artillery life for performance,  but it’s still not going to get you done a time of activity without a charge.

And while you’re pushing nan processors, location is of people a fan. It’s wholly audible, but soft without immoderate whine. Hot aerial is vented from nan backmost of nan machine, truthful it’s important to support this portion of nan chassis clear of obstructions.

Price

For a shadiness nether £900, there's a batch of capacity to beryllium squeezed retired of nan Victus 15 successful imaginative apps. There are, however, a batch of different inexpensive gaming laptops retired there, and uncovering 1 pinch much RAM (or bumping up by £100 aliases truthful to nan M1 13-inch MacBook Air, which adds Thunderbolt ports and extended artillery life to nan operation astatine nan disbursal of a small surface size), could nett you a amended woody successful nan agelong run.

Should I bargain nan HP Victus 15?

The HP Victus 15 is champion placed for playing older aliases little technically demanding games, but nan operation of processors intends it’s capable to push Photoshop and Lightroom good enough. The large downsides are nan RAM, which really needs to beryllium doubled to 16GB to make this a much charismatic proposition, and nan artillery life, which intends you won’t beryllium utilizing it for agelong periods distant from nan charger. If you’re looking for thing for contented creation, aliases earthy record processing without excessively galore megapixels (and pinch outer retention that doesn’t request a Thunderbolt larboard to execute astatine its best) past nan Victus 15 won’t disappoint, but it’s important to beryllium alert of a device’s property and limitations earlier buying.