HP goes big on gaming with new Omen laptops and desktop
HP gave us a brief taste of the legendary Voodoo PC gaming brand with its Omen laptop over nearly two years ago. Now, the company is bringing the Omen name to all of its gaming hardware — a new lineup of laptops and desktops, as well as a 32-inch quad-HD monitor.
Context & Ripple Effects
HP had been testing the waters with a single Omen laptop for nearly two years; this announcement turns that experiment into a full gaming sub-brand spanning laptops, desktops, and a 32-inch quad-HD monitor. The bet paid off in the coverage that followed: within months HP shipped a VR-capable OMEN X desktop alongside an OMEN 17 laptop on NVIDIA's GTX 1000 series.
The expansion also fits HP's broader habit of running distinct branded families per audience — its consumer Spectre and Envy lines got their own design-and-spec refreshes in parallel coverage — but Omen is the one aimed at a segment where enthusiasts buy on GPU and thermal performance rather than office polish.
First-order effects
- Gaming buyers get an HP option at every form factor — laptop, desktop, and now monitor — instead of a lone halo laptop, letting HP capture a full desk build rather than a single purchase.
Second-order effects
- The dedicated gaming brands from Dell, Lenovo, and Asus face a deep-pocketed rival committing across categories, while GPU suppliers like NVIDIA gain another volume channel — visible when the OMEN X and OMEN 17 launched carrying GTX 1000 series cards.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, gaming becomes a permanent tiered architecture inside mainstream PC portfolios rather than a niche sideline — confirmed by the line surviving to a Max-Q-equipped Omen 15 refresh in 2018 and a premium $1,600+ Omen Transcend 14 with OLED by 2024.
The trend: Mainstream PC makers are consolidating their consumer lineups into durable branded sub-families that span price tiers and form factors, with gaming as the most defensible tier.