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  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Choose your own adventure: HP's new Omen 15 gaming laptop offers choice between AMD and Intel processors

(2020/06/02)


HP has refreshed its Omen 15 gaming laptop, and choice is the name of the game here. This effort emphasises customisation, extending to providing an option between Intel and AMD chips.

Punters can go with an Intel Comet Lake H-Series processor or a Ryzen 7 H-Series chip if they plump for AMD.

That decision determines the extent of customisation, with Intel die-hards getting a wider selection of graphics cards, including an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super-Max-Q card. AMD fans have to make do with the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

In a middle finger to Apple, HP has opted to make the RAM and storage user-replaceable. The Omen 15 2020 supports up to 32GB of RAM, plus 1TB of NVMe. With two PCIe slots available, one can even set up one's own RAID 0 arrangement.

Fujitsu unveils new laptops 'optimized for remote work' – erm, isn't that what laptops have always been for? [1]READ MORE

There are some cosmetic changes. The HP Omen 15 2020 is thinner than its predecessor, with tighter bezels, and a display that can move 180˚ to a flat position.

Cooling gets a bit of attention too. Fans are 15 per cent larger with 25 per cent larger blades. This, HP claimed, results in a 62 per cent increase in airflow. Augmenting this is an IR thermopile sensor, which can more accurately track hotspots within the machine, allowing the fans to respond appropriately.

Overall, there are few surprises here. As is often the case in the personal tech world, the Omen's specs were leaked in April, conclusively proving nominative determinism is a thing for laptops too.

The Omen 15 is available now in the US, with a starting price of $999. So far, there's no word on UK pricing or availability. ®



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/02/fujitsu_tenth_gen_lifebook/

Cool.

Christopher Reeve's Horse

Or probably very hot, being a gaming laptop!

Also, being a gaming laptop, will it look like an 8 year old’s drawing of a Lamborghini engine cover that’s been festooned in cheap Christmas lights? I hope not.

You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form. The
short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified", which
means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears tax-preparation
expert to distinguish between their first and last names. Here's the
complete text:

"(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT)
(2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT)
(3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to
send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF
THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME)
household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way
you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST
NAME), that it pays to file the short form!"

The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your
money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long form.
-- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"