Last Friday was going to be busy. My wife and I are currently sharing a car and, between her being at work and some errands that I needed to run, I knew I'd be out of the house for most of the day. Normally, that would have been cause for alarm—I've never been someone who felt like they could really count on their laptop. I would always need to be posted up next to an outlet, lest it die at an inopportune time, and even when it was working, I would be self-conscious about how loud it got when I tried to run anything more complicated than a word processor.
That was Old Jacob, though. New Jacob had his hands on an OMEN MAX 16, a premium laptop that promised to be portable, approachable, and (most importantly) offer tremendous next-gen performance. I got it as an early holiday gift for myself after my old laptop gave up the ghost. This long day away from my home base was a perfect way to put it through its paces. Could it keep up with me in a way all previous laptops failed? Could I learn a thing or two about how a laptop like the OMEN made my everyday simpler? I hoped so. I had to get out the door.
Morning: Work at a coffee shop
Since my wife needed the car to get to work, she dropped me off at a coffee shop so I could get some work done. I found a table and opened the OMEN MAX 16. I immediately connected my HyperX mouse via the “Instant Pair” technology (Ultra Low Latency (ULL) Gen 3), saving me from touchpad hand cramps and having to plug in a dongle.
As I switched from word processor to videos to streaming to OMEN's universal game launcher, I was impressed with the power it was delivering. OMEN MAX 16 laptops come with up to an Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 processor. That meant my multitasking was seamless, as opposed to my previous processors where multiple applications would grind my work to a halt. I didn't experience even a mild stutter as I worked my way through three cups of coffee. By the time my wife came to pick me up at lunch, I was jittery, but pleased with how much I was able to get done. That had never happened with any of my other laptops.
Afternoon: Get an oil change
After a quick lunch with my sweetie, I dropped her back off at work and took the car to get it serviced. I knew I'd be there for a while, so I decided to give the laptop's gameplay a try—and I was truly blown away. Even while playing in a fully lit room, the 16” OLED display was vibrant, and the 0.2 ms response time let me react at the speed of thought. The NVIDIA® RTX™ 5090 Laptop GPU is a beast, and when the DLSS 4 feature is active, it makes a huge difference in performance.
My old laptop had 16GB of RAM, which I thought was enough, but the load times and smoothness of the games were massively improved with my jump to 64GB. It's easy to think to yourself, "Higher number go up make brain go brrrrrr," but I was able to see the difference it made on the screen.
I started off playing some indie pixel art games because that's what I had come to expect out of my previous laptops. Eventually, though, I wanted to put it through its paces by diving into a big-budget shooter. I'm not much of a tinkerer, but the OMEN's Unleashed Mode is approachable for a newbie, letting me manually overclock my CPU and GPU without needing to explore an unfathomable country (read: the BIOS). It ran so smoothly, the mechanic needed to physically come over to hand me my keys because I was too invested in the game.
As a sidenote, I'd normally be pretty stressed about bringing my brand-new laptop into a gritty environment like an auto mechanic, but the fan-cleaning technology (called, appropriately, Fan Cleaner) is a first-of-its-kind solution. The fans automatically change direction between gaming sessions to release dust, keeping your components fresher than the first day of school.
Evening: Watch a movie at the in-laws'
After I picked up my wife, we took the long trek to her parents' house. They live far from the city, so we tend to spend the night at their place after having dinner with them. After the meal, I showed my father-in-law (the gearhead of the family) my new laptop. After twenty minutes of playing with it, he seemed like he wanted to add it to his holiday wish list as well. Soon after, they called it a night, so we retreated to her childhood bedroom to watch a movie on the OMEN MAX 16.
During a particularly quiet scene, I was taken out of the movie to appreciate how silently the fan was operating. The OMEN Tempest Cooling PRO architecture provides more space for air to move freely throughout the laptop's chassis, uses liquid metal to dissipate heat on the CPU and GPU, and reduces the distance between components, heat sinks, and thermal vents. This results in a computer that doesn't have to work as hard to get rid of heat.
After my wife went to bed, I paired my headphones with the OMEN and played some more games before drifting off myself. For the first time, I didn't have to worry about my laptop's fan keeping my wife awake. It's already my gift of the season. ("Thank you, Jacob." "You're welcome, Jacob.") The OMEN MAX 16 made my life easier, changing the way I felt about how a laptop fit into my day-to-day. Now, wherever my day takes me, I know I can bring my work, my games, and my life along.
