HP – Victus 15.6″ Gaming Laptop – Intel Core i5-12450H – 8GB Memory – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 – 512GB SSD – Mica Silver

After watching and reading online reviews this laptop was better than expected. The buid and design feel very sleek and modern. The screen – while not super high end – is plenty bright and colorful for indoor use.
Games like fortnite run fine on high quality settings (about 60fps) or you can run them on medium to low settings to get more frames. It’s also easier to add more ram for better performance as others have mentioned but I haven’t found that necessary yet.
I plan on using this laptop for some video editing in addition to gaming. While I wouldn’t recommend this for full time professional creative work I think it is perfect for somone on a budget looking to get into making videos for youtube etc. 1650 graphics card is fine for video editing as long as you arent trying to make the next pixar movie.
Overall I think this is perfect for casual gamers who plan on also using the laptop for school, work, light creative work etc. It has the power of an entry level gaming laptop but the design makes it feel appropriate for any use.

For the sale price I got this laptop, $520 before taxes, this was an OUTSTANDING deal. It blows my mind how much I got for that price. I had been keeping my eye on ‘gaming laptops’ in the $1500 range – those with honestly much more cable GPUs like 3060s, and 3060ti’s. But this last 2 years CPUs and GPUs have gotten SO much better SO fast, I was hesitant to spend that much only to have a computer be twice as fast in 2 to 3 years. So, I thought, what’s the min I can spend on a capable work and gaming laptop. This fit the bill.
This is bare min laptop GPU/graphics card, and it’s not a good enough GPU to power PC VR games. So FYI on that. You need a min of 1460 GPU for VR, and if you want a laptop to power VR I’d suggest looking at the $1250+ range of laptops with 3060 and higher GPUs.
Even before I spent $33 to add another 8GB of 3200mhz DDR4 ram to it, I was getting 140 fps in Overwatch with it’s auto-detected settings in game. The settings ranged from high on some, low on a few settings, but overall I couldn’t tell what settings it tweaked to hit that fps. I read in a review that people were hitting 40fps in Cyberpunk 2077 on ‘high’ settings, so not bad!
The laptop runs pretty quiet. It only spins up a bit when gaming (of course), and even then it’s really pretty quite. One of the benefits you get with such a low-powered GPU= less heat, meaning slower spinning laptop fans, means quieter laptop.
The 144hz screen I love. Wish it had some kind of free-sync/g-sync tech, but at this price I can’t complain.
I like the HP chicklet keyboard. Maybe because I’m used to it. I also appreciate the numpad on it!
The drawbacks you have to live with at this price range are:
1) The monitor at 100% brightness outside is just BARELY good enough to overcome a bright sunny day. I often just sit in the shade, and I’m good though.
2) The battery is pretty pathetic. THose $1400 laptops I mentioned can go 12hrs with heavy use. This can go maybe 3hrs realistically. BUT at least it fully charges quick, something like 30min.

If you’re looking for a more specific review on the specs, I’d recommend looking at other reviews. For the past 2 months I’ve been looking for a laptop that I could play some light games on and do schoolwork after my old one began slowing down and randomly restarting. When I came across this, I was skeptical because of the lack of reviews but I’m so glad I bought this. Lucky for me, there was a July 4th sale happening around the time. Out the box was the laptop, weighing about 5 pounds and the charger which had a 150w power brick. After setting up windows and reinstalling all my previous apps I was ecstatic. This model came with a GeForce GTX 1650 including 4 gigs of vRam which is good enough for light games like Fortnite and Valorant so don’t expect 144+ fps on high or ultra settings in AAA games. The 12th Gen Intel core i5 processor is good for handling most tasks and multitasking. It comes with 8 gigs of ram and 512 GB of ssd storage. I’d recommend upgrading the ram to 16 gigs and storage up to 1 TB of storage if you plan of having a big game library. The 144hz and 15.6 inch screen provides a smooth and nice experience. I can’t say much on the battery life as I’ve had it plugged in the whole time although you can expect and 1-2 hours of gaming and 6 hours of mixed usage so having your charger near you is ideal. I’ve seen the temperature reach up to 90 degrees Celsius or 190 degrees Fahrenheit so make sure to not block the airflow and perhaps consider buying a laptop cooler. The fan is noticeably loud (I could hear it across the room) but using headphones should block out most of it. There is an option for quiet mode (inside the omen gaming hub that’s allows you to see system vitals and whatnot) that does help. The laptop comes with a 720p camera and a microphone built it that can be used for meetings and chats. The model comes with a MediaTek Wi-Fi 6 mt7921 which is ok but doesn’t provide a faster speeds as described (in my experience). Note: I’ve seen others on the internet have problems with this Wi-Fi card. The dual speakers give a loud and clear listening experience. The only changes I’d like to see is moving the power button to its on spot instead of near the backspace button and centering the mousepad as it’s a little closer to the left than I’d like.

My girlfriend and I love it! Not the best gaming laptop out there for AAA gaming titles, but a great budget one ($450 open-box) that will still run everything smoothly especially if you play competitive esport titles like PUBG, League of Legends, Valorant, etc. Just make sure to upgrade the RAM to at least 16 GBs and you’ll be golden!