HP Victus 16 review

The Victus exudes a sense of cleanliness and sophistication - it’s probably a bit too bland for someone who is a hardcore gamer, but could be appealing to someone who is looking for a do-it-all kind of vibe. It blends well with the other work laptops around in the office and isn’t afraid to have some fun either.

The overall build is plastic and it is clear that the Victus is built on a budget. That’s not to say it isn’t quality stuff, although it suffers the usual issues that plague this category… mainly the susceptibility of the chassis to bend and flex around the keyboard area and the hinge being finicky and not passing the ‘one-finger opening test’. Apart from this there’s no real complaints here. In fact, HP has done a wonderful job of the design as it doesn’t strike you as a 16in laptop, it feels nice and compact and isn’t bulky.

I recently reviewed the HP Envy X360 and the OLED panel on there was the star of the show. You get a FullHD IPS panel here with 60Hz as standard and an option to upgrade to 144Hz for a little more money (Rs. 3000). It doesn’t make much sense in 2023 to be frank and I feel HP should have just standardized the 144Hz option. That isn’t our only gripe here. The display isn’t bright enough to enjoy certain games that rely on specific night-time gameplay for eg. our Arma III missions were almost unplayable and even the night time in DayZ felt a bit odd. The colours are just okay here and nothing to write home about. 

The keyboard on the Victus supports single-zone RGB lighting and isn’t flashy at all. It’s a very simple unit that gets the job done. The inclusion of the number pad is amazing and I wasn’t expecting that. It seems to be borrowed from the higher end Omen series and it also has shortcuts that can be customised through the Omen hub. The trackpad also seems to be borrowed from the high-end cousin and feels great to use for everyday tasks.

With the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H at its core, the Victus is a productivity monster. It dismisses regular tasks quite easily and won’t stutter at all throughout your work day. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of over 13,000 gives us a good hint of the prowess and even the 1423 single-core score is just great for this level. Paired with the 16GBs of RAM, it makes for a great work companion while also being efficient when it comes to power consumption. The 6GB  Nvidia RTX 3050 Ampere chip is known to offer about 25% more cuda cores compared to the 4GB predecessor and churns out great results for the Victus. Let’s not forget this comes on a budget so don’t expect benchmark breaking performance. With that being said, the 3D Mark Fire Strike benchmark score of 11,232 is commendable and below are a few FPS numbers for a more clear idea. All games were set to Ultra and run on 1080p. 

Cyberpunk 2077 -   42fps

The Witcher 3 - 54fps

GTA V - 65fps

Arma III - 51fps

DayZ - 56fps

F1 22 - 34fps

Lies of P - 31fps

Dota 2 Reborn - 102fps

The Victus series offers a lot of options for casual gamers with prices ranging from as low as Rs. 53,000. Those wanting a bit more should know that there is also a Rs. 1,29,990 variant with an RTX 4050 taking up the heavy lifting for a better gaming experience. But the price opens up many other options that have their own idiosyncrasies. However if the Victus ticks all your boxes, then you shouldn’t hesitate to click buy.