HP Victus 16 gaming laptop review

Are you looking for a laptop that can provide high-quality components at a reasonable price? Well, the HP Victus 16 gaming laptop can be one of your options.

There are many options on the market for gaming laptops; the price is determined not only by the hardware with which the device is equipped, but also by the design and features. It’s a little difficult to choose your new gaming laptop because they’re all so different, and some outperform others. Only a few brands can make gaming laptops with good parts that are still affordable.

The HP Victus 16 is one of the few budget laptops that can provide an excellent 1080p gaming experience. This small laptop is positioned somewhat below the high-end Omen range, and it will replace HP’s Pavilion series.

The Victus 16 has a stunning 16,1-inch screen with a 1920×1080 resolution at 144Hz, a solid Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU. It comes with a 512 GB NVMe solid-state drive and 16 GB of RAM.

HP Victus 16 – CPU and GPU

The essential components that will give you with a fantastic work and gaming experience are an outstanding Intel Core i7-11800H CPU and an exceptional Nvidia RTX 3060. Furthermore, the 16GB of RAM will not limit your activities.

The 11800H has a 2.3 GHz base clock, 8 cores and 16 threads, 24 MB L3 cache and 4.6 GHz turbo frequencies, which will give you excellent multitasking and gaming performance. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU with 6GB of VRAM is inside the HP Victus 16 and is powerful enough to run the latest games at Ultra-High settings at 1080p, and if we go to the competitive gaming side like Apex Legens, Overwatch 2, CS:GO or Valorant, the 144Hz display will be fully utilized, resulting in an immersive competitive gaming experience. For 1080p gaming, the RTX 3060 achieves an excellent combination of price and performance.

HP Victus 16 – Design

With its sleek black lines and reflective logo, you might think the HP Victus 16 is a high-end laptop at first glance. The center of the soft, dark blue hood is where this reflective logo in the shape of a large V is located. On the hinge is the Victus emblem.

On keyboard, the HP Victus 16 features white backlighting, which works well for gaming and is pleasant to type on for a long time, it also features a full-size numeric keypad. Regarding ports, the HP Victus 16 has an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a USB Type-A port, a Thunderbolt 4 port, a headphone jack, and an SD card slot are located on the left, while two other USB Type-A ports are located on the right.

HP Victus 16 – Screen

For the price of this HP laptop, the 16.1-inch screen and its 1920 x 1080 resolution can’t give you premium quality, but it’s worth mentioning that its display is considered one of the best in the mid-range. Additionally, it offers 7 milliseconds of responsiveness and a 144 Hz fluid refresh rate, both of which are helpful in competitive gaming.

HP Victus 16 – Storage

For storage, we have a 512GB SSD, somewhat disappointing, but not surprising coming from a laptop, although you can change it to increase its capacity, it is an additional cost that you have to think about. Some other brands have come to offer up to 1TB SSD at a considerable price, such as the Acer Nitro 5 AN517-54-79L1.

Despite its small SSD capacity, it has 16GB of DDR4 RAM, which is especially useful if you are one of those who tend to have too many browser tabs open or software that requires more than 8GB such as editing programs. Nowadays, 16GB of RAM is more than perfect for optimal performance for gamer computers.

HP Victus 16 – Keyboard and Trackpad

Generally, the keyboard is decent, it has a white illumination, it is not a customizable RGB keyboard, which in our opinion is fine, as it goes with its style. It has a very functional numeric keypad, for example, if you have Num Lock disabled, it activates the Home, End, Page Up and Page Down buttons, as well as cursor arrow keys that are arranged in the shape of +, something quite common on slim keyboards.

Typing on the Victus 16 keyboard is a comfortable experience. However (and as always) it may feel a little strange at first, but it’s just a matter of getting used to it. The size of the arrow or directional keys makes them amazingly comfortable to use.

Regarding its trackpad, it feels very precise and smooth. It is worth mentioning that the trackpad is automatically deactivated when a mouse is plugged in, which reduces accidents of unintentional movement with the trackpad.

HP Victus 16 – Ports and Connectivity

Two USB 3.2 Type-A ports are the only connectors on the right side of the system, while an HDMI video output, USB Type-C port, Ethernet, headphones, SD card slot and power connector are located on the left. Also, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 are present. In the end, the HP Victus 16 boasts a solid set of connections.

HP Victus 16 – Battery

The HP Victus 16’s battery life is quite short. The battery lasts no more than 4 hours of light work and less than 2 hours of gaming, making it less appealing if you plan to go somewhere with no power connections to charge it.

HP Victus 16 – Webcam

The webcam offers the typical 720p resolution and has no place to hide. It records images with a lot of noise or static that are generally dark. So, if you plan to use this laptop for streaming, we do not recommend the HP Victus 16 webcam at all.

If you want to learn more about affordable gaming laptops that could interest you, we invite you to read our article on the 5 best cheap gaming laptops for 2023 to see the best options.