HP releases new Omen gaming PCs with AMD Ryzen and swappable hard drives

HP got back into gaming last year with the debut of its Omen line of gaming PCs, and today the product line is getting a series of updates. The most notable is a backpack PC for VR gaming, but HP is also releasing three much more traditional PCs with brand new designs: a desktop, a 15-inch laptop, and a 17-inch laptop.

The Omen Desktop is meant to be a really scalable option for gamers who don't feel like building their own machine. It starts at $899 and includes a GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card and a choice between Intel’s Core i and AMD’s Ryzen processors. The desktop can be configured up to near $3,000, at which point it’ll have dual GTX 1080 Tis or dual Radeon RX 580s.

There are a few nice tweaks to this year's design of the Omen Desktop. It has two hot swappable hard drive slots on the front; its side can just pop open for tinkering; and it can now be configured with dual graphics cards, unlike last year’s model. The new desktop goes on sale June 6th.

HP is also releasing new designs for its 15- and 17-inch Omen Laptops. They look even more gamery than they did last year, with what HP describes as “fighter jet and spacecraft-inspired designs.” They will not make you many friends at coffee shops.

The 15-inch model can be configured with up to either a Radeon RX 550 or a GeForce GTX 1060; the 17-inch model maxes out at a GTX 1070 or RX 580. Both laptops have Kaby Lake chips, a red keyboard backlight, and several display options: 4K, 1080p with G-Sync, or 1080p with FreeSync. The laptops’ hard drive and RAM are also user upgradable.

Both laptops go on sale June 28th. The 15-inch starts at $999.99, and the 17-inch starts at $1,099.99. At those starting prices, they’re avoiding some of the more formidable gaming laptops — but that also means that, like the Omen Desktop, they seem to be designed more to scale up to many different price and power points, rather than optimize for one sweet spot.