Asus Scar III vs HP Omen 15 2019 Review
Scar 3 is a very eye-catching laptop. You have a metal lid with a brushed aluminum texture and the ROG logo that you can light up with RGB colors. On the back, it has an extended exhaust section, but when you open the laptop it doesn't stick out too much thanks to a well-designed hinge mechanism. On the front and on the sides there is one large light bar that makes the laptop look like it's hovering above the ground. The deck is made of solid plastic with few extruded lines and a keystone slot on the left-hand side. Thanks to the carbon fiber pattern the fingerprints are not so visible on it. The build quality is another thing to mention, and I think that Omen is the winner here. It feels more premium as it is all made of metal. The chassis was perfectly stiff and solid. I was surprised because you can usually find such top-end quality in over $2000 laptops like Asus ROG Zephyrus or Razer Blade 15. Scar 3 has only a metal lid, but the deck and bottom are made of solid plastic. It's still well built and sturdy, nothing creaks, but compared to Omen the Scar 3 feels much cheaper to the touch. Both laptops come with a thin-bezel display, but only HP managed to fit a 720p webcam properly on the top bezel. On the other hand, Asus decided to not include any webcam even though there is a lot of space under the display. If it comes to size the Omen is smaller in almost every dimension and despite being all metal it's also about 200g lighter than Scar. If you pay much attention to portability this is the way to go, but in practice, Scar 3 is not a very big gaming laptop as well. The keyboard in HP Omen 15 looks clean and it's pretty good. It's still the same keyboard as in the previous generation, so it has 1.5mm key travel, good spacing, it's comfortable to type on and easy to get used to. It has one dedicated key to open the CommandCenter app, but unfortunately, there is no button for instant boosting the fan speed and the arrow keys are pretty small.
You have 4-zones of RGB where the 4th zone includes only WSAD keys. The light is strong and vivid, but the black keys hide the light when you look at the keyboard at certain angles. There are also configurations of 2019 Omenwith red keyboard-only so make sure that you buy the right one. In my opinion, the keyboard in Scar 3 is better in every way. It has long 2mm key travel, good spacing and5 additional useful keys. It's not full size, but don't worry - you have the number pad displayed on the touchpad after touching the right top corner. The useful feature that it has is the "over stroke" technology which registers the keypress before you actually press the key all the way down. In Asus Scar 3 you have also a very vivid per-key RGB. You can customize every single key the way you want or use one of many built-in effects. You can find the effects in Armoury Crateapp, but to customize the lighting you have to download a free Aura Creator app that allows you to customize the keyboard, light bar, and the logo on the lid. If it comes to touchpads it was more comfortable for me to use Omen's touchpad. It uses Elan drivers and it is surprisingly precise. As same as Scar, it has 2 dedicated buttons for left and right-clicks. The touchpad in Scar uses Windows Precision drivers, so you can take advantage of better gesture controls. The tracking is very good as well, but felt like Omen's tracking was smoother and nicer to read. As for the ports selection, another point goes to the HP which offers much more. Except for the I/O that both laptops have the Omen have, in addition, a full-size SD card slot, MiniDisplay port, and USB C with Thunderbolt3 support. In Scar 3 you can find a new feature called keystone which is a magnetic NFC chip that you can plug into the slot on the right-hand side. It can save your gaming and lighting profiles and also unlock the secret Shadow Drive where you can store your files. If it comes to display my Omen came with a 1080p144Hz IPS panel with about 9ms response time and before you ask, this one doesn't support-Sync, because I had the configuration with RTX 2060. If you want G-Sync you have to choose the model with RTX 2070 or 2080. There are also other display options that you can choose including 1080p 60Hz, 1080p 240Hz, and 4K 60Hz. The color coverage of my 144Hz panel was95% of sRGB color gamut, 73% of AdobeRGB, and the brightness of 329 nits.
You can easily use this laptop for color correct work, the games look great and smooth and the viewing angles are good. If it comes to Scar 3 I've got the unit with1080p 144Hz IPS-level display with 3ms response time. Despite it doesn't support G-Sync it's the smoothest 144Hz display that I've tested, which in combination with powerful hardware allows you to take advantage of the fast refresh rate. The color accuracy is good as well, the colors are vivid and sharp with a cold tone. I find them very accurate, the games look great, but I can recommend this laptop for content creation as well. You have 97% of sRGB color gamut, 73% of AdobeRGBand the brightness is 320 nits. This is an IPS-level display, but the viewing angles were as good as in Omen's IPS and the quality of both pannels was good. The camera was able to capture some backlight bleeding in both cases, but it was not visible to my eye during normal use even when the screen was black. Alright, so now let's talk about available configurations and approximated prices of both laptops, but please note that the prices may change with time.
Amazon links for the USA and other countries to check the current prices of certain configurations that I found. Let's talk about the Asus Scar 3 as first. It's only available with full-size RTX 2060and RTX 2070. For the processor, you can choose between i7-9750Hand i9-9880H, but if you want a wider range of configurations there is also a budget option, the Asus Strix G which you can buy with GTX 1650, GTX 1660Ti, and i5-9300H processor as well. There is also the Asus Hero 3 which except for a few visual changes look the same as Scar, but you can mostly find it with a 17" screen. The HP Omen 15 has a wider range of configurations starting from budget models with GTX 1650 + i5 processor and finishing on top-end RTX2080 with i9. You have also 4 display options but the G-Syncis only available with 240Hz and 144Hz one when you have at least the configuration with RTX 2070 or 2080. Worth mentioning is that for the 15" models the RTX 2070 and 2080 are actually Max-Q while the 17" models come with full power versions of those graphics cards. Speaking of 17" display both laptops have their 17" versions and the most interesting deal seems to be the HP Omen 17 with full-size RTX 2080. It is actually the cheapest laptop that I've seen with this GPU. It costs just below $2000 when for that price you can have Scar 3 with only RTX 2070. In general no matter the configuration it looks like the Omen is usually cheaper than Scar with the same configuration, but of course, this may vary between countries. Alright, coming back to the review let'stalk about speakers. The Omen uses Bang & Olufsen audio and it sound good. It can get loud without distortion and the sound I crispy and clear. There is some bass, but it's nowhere close to something like Asus Scar 3. As always a definite winner in this category is the Asus Scar 3 which has the best sounding speakers on the gaming laptop market right now.
I was surprised by the amount of bass that they can produce. Every shot and every explosion in the game was full and punchy so there was no real need to use the headphones. Mids are just on point but the highs may seem to be a little bit overwhelmed by lows. You can always equalize the sound the way you want using a Sonic Studio III software. The performance comparison is probably the most exciting part of this review. I've got both laptops with the same specs, so the comparison will give you a better idea of what to expect from each device. I pushed both laptops to the limits, so for testing purposes, I set the performance mode in Omen for more CPU power, and I enabled the maximum fan speed for better cooling. Unfortunately, there's no button for that, so you have to set it each time manually in the Omen's Command Center app. In Scar 3 you have the button to switch between3 performance modes, but you can also set it all manually. For testing purposes, I manually overclocked the GPU and set the max fan speed in the Armoury Crate app. Here is a quick preview of the game performance, but if you want to see more games tested, check out my gaming benchmark article were tested 20 games on each laptop. Please note that in the benchmark article of car 3 I showed the results of the overheating unit that I had previously, but in the comments section and in the article you can also find the results of a proper unit that I'm talking about now.
Speaking of temperatures I had to test 2 units of Scar 3 because the first one that I got was overheating due to bad thermal paste application in the factory. It happens sometimes, so I decided to test another unit with exactly the same specs, and this time I was able to see it's full potential. The average temperature of the CPU was 84degrees Celcius and the GPU average was only 74 degrees. The 2019 Omen is a really crazy laptop soi made extensive tests to find the best settings. I'm not going to talk about every test separately, because you can already see it, but it looks like the most optimal settings for both good temperatures and performance was to set the performance mode and undervolt the CPU by-0.130V. In my case, it made the power limit to stay at the same constant level of 49W. The laptop could still reach the maximum possible clock speed, surprisingly low temperatures without thermal throttling, and practically the same good performance as with other settings that cause much more heat. The default mode which limits the CPU power to 30W is worth considering as well when your game doesn't need the full power of the CPU to reach the highest frame rate. For more casual users I think that Scar 3may be a better option thanks to the dedicated button for swapping between the performance modes conveniently without tweaking. But if you wanna play around with undervoltingand have wider control over the power limit then Omen is a good option too. Alright, enough about performance, now let'stalk about upgradability and storage.
I tested the M.2 SSD speeds on both laptops and here are the results. If you'll buy any of these laptops with the only SSD you'll probably wanna add more storage, so if it comes to accessibility I find them easier to upgrade. You have to unscrew only 6 screws to get access to your RAM, 2.5" hard drive, and one M.2 PCIe slot. In Scar, you have also 2 Ram slots, one 2.5"drive bay, and one slot for M.2 PCIe drive. To get access to the components you have to take off the whole the bottom lid as well, but there are also 2 hard to access the ribbon cables that you have to disconnect as first. I made a step by step detailed guide showing how to disassemble and upgrade each laptop, so if you're planning to add more RAM, swap out your hard drive or SSD, you can check it out. As for battery life, I managed to use the car for up to 5,5 hours when browsing the web and doing light productivity work. When gaming battery died after 1,5 hours. The Omen which doesn't have Optimus was a little bit behind - it ran for up to 4,5 hours when light work and 1 hour and 10 minutes when gaming. Alright, it seems to be everything that you need to know to wisely choose one of these laptops, but before we finish let me share my closing thoughts. So if it comes to the 2019 HP Omen 15 I think that it's a very good and interesting laptop for those who are into tweaking CPU power settings to get the best results. It's one of the fastest RTX 2060 laptops that I've tested this year and with a slight touch of undervolting the temperatures are good as well. It has few advantages over the Scar, for exampleThunderbolt 3, SD card slot, G-Sync with higher specs models, and a wider range of configurations including full-size RTX 2080 for under $2000. It feels more premium thanks to full metal build and despite being metal it's also slightly lighter. The price speaks for Omen as well, because it's usually cheaper than Scar 3 with the same specs.
For the downsides, we can also include shorter battery life, high temperatures on performance mode without tweaking, and no dedicated button for boosting the fan speed. On the other hand, we have the Asus ROG StrixScar 3 which I think is a great choice for those who have some extra dollar to spend. It's not the cheapest out there, but it has many features that will take your gaming experience to the next level. The performance is good as well. RTX 2060 can play most of the current games on ultra settings at a smooth 60fps and above. All of that at respectable temperatures without throttling. Buying Scar 3 you're also getting a great and very useful per-key lighting keyboard, tons of RGB, the best sounding speakers on the market, and the fastest 144Hz 3ms response time display with good color accuracy. For the weak sides, we can include the lack of a Card slot and MiniDisplay port, no webcam, and a higher price tag. Alright, so which one is better? In this case, I give the win to the 2019 HPOmen 15, because it offers more useful features, it's cheaper, more portable, and full metal build makes it more premium. Nonetheless, Asus Scar 3 is a great laptop as well, so I'm curious about what is your choice. I hope that this article helped you decide, so if you know which laptop you're gonna buy now, let us know in the comments. If you're new to the website it would be awesome if you consider following Tech News Update. On my website, you can find detailed laptop reviews, laptop comparisons gaming benchmarks, and more. Now thanks for your time and see you in the next article!
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