HP OMEN Transcend 14 (2024) Laptop Review

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is available in the Shadow Black or Ceramic white color scheme. See the bottom of the laptop here.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 feels well-built overall. It has a full-aluminum chassis and feels hefty despite its compact size. However, there's a fair amount of flex on the lid, and the display twists when manipulating it. The keyboard deck also flexes, albeit not as much as the lid. The finish doesn't scratch easily, but like most dark-color finishes, it's a fingerprint magnet. There are no complaints about the feet; they feel solid and stick firmly to the bottom.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 has a good hinge. It feels smooth when opening and closing the lid, with just the right amount of resistance to allow for a one-handed lift. Unfortunately, there's a fair amount of screen wobble when moving the laptop or typing heavily, and it's hard to set the screen in an exact position.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14's serviceability is sub-par. Accessing the internals is relatively easy; you only need to remove four Philips screws and undo the bottom panel's clips with a prying tool. Be careful, though, as the clips can break, especially near the center. Also, the screws are of two different sizes, so it's best to keep them organized to make the reassembly easier. The storage slot supports M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs.

See the maintenance and service guide here.

• 140W USB-C power adapter and cord
• Documentation

The HP OMEN Transcend 14's 2.8k display looks very sharp and is well-suited for gaming, general productivity, media consumption, and content creation. Its 16:10 aspect ratio doesn't affect gaming much, but it's great for productivity, as the extra vertical space lets you see more information at once when reading a document or website, so you don't have to scroll as much. OLEDs are susceptible to permanent burn-in, especially with static elements like Windows' taskbar; however, it's unlikely to be an issue for those viewing varied content. Check out the Dell XPS 16 (2024) if you want a laptop with a bigger screen.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is only available with a 120Hz display. It doesn't feel quite as responsive as the displays on other gaming models, like the Dell Alienware m16 R2 (2024)'s 240Hz panel, but it's still better than the 60Hz screens typically found on productivity laptops. The response time is on the slower side, resulting in some visible ghosting behind fast-moving objects. This display supports Dynamic Refresh Rate, meaning it can change the refresh rate depending on what you're doing and whether you have the laptop plugged in to prolong battery life; however, it isn't the same as FreeSync and G-SYNC, so you'll likely still see some screen tearing when gaming.

The display's contrast ratio is effectively infinite since OLEDs can turn off individual pixels to produce perfect blacks. The posted contrast ratio is the measurement taken using the checkerboard pattern above. Measuring the contrast using a YouTube HDR video results in a higher contrast ratio of 121,670:1.

The display gets bright enough for use in most indoor settings but not outdoors in broad daylight. You may also have trouble seeing some content if there's light shining directly on the screen due to its glossy finish. It gets very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which is great for dark room viewing as it causes less eye strain.

The display's reflection handling is decent. Its glossy finish mainly struggles with bright light sources, like a lamp or open window during the day. The reflections are visible even with the screen at maximum brightness.

The display's horizontal viewing angle is decent. Like most OLED panels, colors shift fairly quickly as you move to the side.

The display's vertical viewing angle is decent. Again, color shift is the main issue when viewing from above or below. It isn't too bad if you're only viewing documents, but you'll have to look at the screen more or less straight on if you need perfect accuracy for color-critical work.

The display's accuracy is good out of the box. Most white balance inaccuracies are minor and hard to spot, but the color dE is high due to oversaturation. Some people may like this oversaturated look; it just isn't accurate. The gamma is too high throughout, making everything look darker.

The OLED display's color gamut is superb. It has full coverage of the sRGB and DCI P3 color spaces and near-full coverage of the Adobe RGB color space. It's suitable for media consumption, professional photo editing, as well as for viewing and producing SDR and HDR content.

The display's flicker is unlikely to be an issue for most people, as the flicker frequency is relatively high. However, it may still cause eye strain for people sensitive to display flickering.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 has a great keyboard. The keys have a good amount of travel, require little force to actuate, and provide clear tactile feedback. They bounce back quite forcefully, which can be slightly tiring over an extended period. The layout feels spacious, though it might take some time to get used to it, as the edge-to-edge keycaps can lead to more typos. The keycaps have translucent edges similar to HyperX's pudding keycaps, allowing the backlight to shine through. Unfortunately, the backlight doesn't shine through the legends. You can get the laptop with a 4-zone or per-key RGB backlight.

The HP OMEN 14 has an excellent touchpad. While it could be a bit wider, the size is pretty good for a 14-inch laptop. It tracks movements and gestures, and there are no issues with palm rejection or actions like dragging and dropping over a long distance. The buttons feel a tad mushy and are only clickable in the bottom half of the touchpad.

The speakers get decently loud with minimal compression at higher volume levels. They have a vocal-forward tuning with very little bass or treble, so they're best suited for speech-heavy content rather than music.

The HP OMEN 14 has a mediocre webcam. The image looks soft, noisy, and overexposed. It also has an unnatural, overly warm tint. The microphone is great, though, as voices sound loud and clear, with almost no static or background noise.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14's port selection is excellent. Both USB-A ports support USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer speed of up to 10Gbps. The USB-Cs are slightly different in specs; the one on the laptop's left side supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, while the one at the back supports Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gbps). Both USB-Cs support DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery—the latter lets you fast charge the laptop and other PD-compatible devices connected to the port. The HDMI is a true HDMI 2.1 port that can output a 4k @ 120Hz signal. This laptop charges over USB-C. You can use a third-party charger, but it has to be of a certain wattage (likely a minimum of 100W), and even then, HP will continually remind you to use an HP-branded power adapter. Lower-wattage chargers don't work at all.

The wireless adapter is an Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200. You can also get the laptop with an Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is available with the following CPUs:

• Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (16 cores, 22 Threads, up to 4.8 GHz, 24MB Cache)
• Intel Core Ultra 9 185H (16 cores, 22 Threads, up to 5.1 GHz, 24MB Cache)

Both are high-performance CPUs from Intel's Meteor Lake family. Unlike Intel's 14th Gen processors (13th Gen Raptor Lake refreshes), these CPUs have two additional low-power E-cores (LP-E) to further improve efficiency and an NPU (Neural Processing Units) to handle AI-based tasks, like background-blurring on video calls. They can easily handle general productivity tasks, as well as more demanding workloads like gaming, programming, and video editing, though the experience won't be as smooth as on laptops with a higher wattage CPU—like the Dell Alienware m18 R2 (2024)'s Intel 14th Gen HX processors—and tasks will take longer to complete. The Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 9 have the same core composition, meaning they both have six performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and two low-power efficiency cores (6P+8E+2LP-E). Both CPUs have the same Neural Processing Units (NPU).

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is available with the following GPUs:

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU 6GB GDDR6 (unknown TGP, Core Ultra 7 only)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6 (65W TGP)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6 (80W TGP, Core Ultra 9 only)

The available GPUs range from entry-level (RTX 4050) to the mid-range RTX 4070. They all support the same features, like DLSS, ray tracing, Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex. If you want to play all of your games at the display's native 2.8k resolution, it's best to get a model with an RTX 4070. The RTX 4060 can handle games at that resolution, but you'll have to play with most of the settings at or near minimum and rely on DLSS and Frame Generation to get playable frame rates. You'll have to lower the settings on models with an RTX 4070, too, just not as much. As for the RTX 4050, it's mainly for 1080p gaming. Again, you might be able to play at the 2.8k resolution in lighter games, like platformers and older or highly optimized titles, but only with the lowest graphical settings.

You can configure this laptop with 16GB or 32GB of RAM. The memory isn't user-replaceable.

You can configure this laptop with 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage. The SSD is user-replaceable; the slot supports M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14's overall score in Geekbench 5 is outstanding. Its Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 can handle a variety of productivity tasks and heavy multitasking. The Core Ultra 7 155H CPU is only slightly slower due to its lower clock speeds. Switching to the Performance mode doesn't impact the scores in Geekbench 5, as it only seems to affect gaming performance.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 2024's overall score in Cinebench R23 is outstanding. The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU can easily handle intensive, multi-threaded workloads and general heavy multitasking. This level of performance is somewhat middle of the pack when considering the entire market; it's certainly better than the low-wattage processors in most thin and light laptops but far behind high-wattage CPUs, like the Dell Alienware m18 R2 (2024)'s Intel Core i9-14900HX.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is outstanding for Blender work, as its NVIDIA discrete GPU renders 3D images very quickly.

The HP OMEN Transcend 14 with an RTX 4060 GPU scores well in the Basemark GPU benchmark. As mentioned in the GPU section, the RTX 4060 and 4070 are suitable for 1440p gaming (or at the display's native 2.8k resolution); you just have to tweak the settings slightly more on the 4060 to get playable frame rates. The RTX 4050 is best suited for 1080p gaming, and even then, you might have to turn down some settings because it only has 6GB of VRAM. Switching to the Performance mode boosts the score significantly to 99,045, roughly a 15% increase.

Check out the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) if you want a similar laptop with a longer battery life.

Borderlands 3 runs decently well at 1080p on a model with an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. You can get well over 60 fps, even with high settings, but there are occasional stutters due to frame drops. The Performance mode increases the average frame rate to 87 fps with high settings and 188 fps with low settings, a 5% and 15% increase, respectively.

Here are some additional benchmarks in Red Dead Redemption 2 to give you a better idea of the performance on a Core Ultra 9 model paired with an RTX 4060:

Red Dead Redemption 2

• 1080p, High settings (Balanced): 64 fps
• 1080p, Low settings (Balanced): 116 fps
• 1080p, High settings (Performance): 68 fps
• 1080p, Low settings (Performance): 128 fps

Civilization VI runs very smoothly. Every CPU/GPU configuration can handle this and other similarly demanding games with no issues, even at the display's native 2.8k resolution. Switching to the Performance mode noticeably increases the average frame rate, boosting it to 208 fps (+13%) with high settings and 311 fps (+15%) with low settings.

Counter-Strike 2 runs well on the HP OMEN Transcend 14. There are stutters, but they don't happen all that often. Every CPU/GPU configuration can handle this and other similar games at 1080p or 1440p with no major issues. The Performance mode boosts the frame rate slightly to 208 fps with high settings and 356 fps with low settings, a 6% and 5% increase, respectively.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider runs well. The gameplay is smooth for the most part, though there are occasional stutters. Switching to the Performance mode increases the average frame rate to 116 fps (+6.8%) with high settings and 129 fps (+9%) with low settings. The large frametime spikes are scene changes and aren't representative of the performance.

The keyboard gets toasty under load around the number 6, but it isn't hot enough to cause discomfort. Switching to the Performance mode only raises the temperature by 1°C to 46°C, with no change in fan noise. The bottom of the laptop gets to 40°C, as you can see here.

The HP OMEN Transcend has many pre-installed applications, including:

• Dropbox: App for the cloud storage service. (Promotion)
• Energy Star: Link to energystar.gov website.
• HP Documentation: Contains warranty information, regulatory, safety, and environmental notices, and the user guide.
• HP PC Hardware Diagnostic Windows: Diagnostic tools to find and fix PC issues.
• HP Privacy Settings: Lets you choose the type of information you share with HP.
• HP Smart: Companion app for HP printers.
• HP Support Assistant: Helps with system updates and troubleshooting of common issues. Connects you to an HP Virtual Agent for further troubleshooting.
• HP System Event Utility: Lets you program special function keys or shortcuts, like turning the wireless on or off and adjusting the screen brightness.
• HyperX NGENUITY: Lets you customize the keyboard's RGB backlighting.
• McAfee: Antivirus software. Requires subscription.
• Intel Unison: Lets you connect your smartphone to the laptop, allowing you to send and receive messages, view photos on your smartphone, and transfer files, similar to the MyPhone app.
• myHP: Online store for HP products.
• OMEN Gaming Hub: Lets you access your installed games, HP rewards, and picture gallery. It also lets you see system information like CPU and GPU usage and temperatures, optimize the PC, and change the power profile.
• Spotify: App for the music streaming service.

The HP OMEN Transcend has a facial recognition IR camera. You can use it to log in quickly, authorize purchases in the Windows Store, and auto-fill saved passwords on supported websites.

This laptop has a built-in dongle that pairs with the HyperX Cloud III Wireless headset, so you don't have to use up one of the USB ports for the dongle.