Review: The HP Victus 15 – an ideal gift for first-time gamers

Gaming laptops are always seeking to rival the specs of desktop computers. 

They have the benefit of portability, but with this comes the challenge of being able to deliver high-end specs in a portable package.

Make them too bulky, and they lose the portability factor; make them too slim, and you run the risk of them not being powerful enough to keep up with their desktop counterparts. 

HP’s Victus Gaming Laptop series offers a number of models varying in price depending on the combination of processor and graphics card options that appeal the most. All are around the $2,000 mark.

The Victus I reviewed had an AMD Ryzen 7 processor and an AMD Radeon RX 6500 graphics card. This retails for $2,348 at Harvey Norman.

There is a slightly cheaper version of the Victus 15 that comes with an Intel Core i7 processor and a Nvidia 3050Ti graphics card; Harvey Norman is selling this model for $1,999. Although I didn’t check it out, on paper, it has very similar performance results to the AMD model I reviewed. 

A Victus 15 with an AMD Ryzen 5 processor is also available through HP from $1,919.

I appreciate that not everyone speaks computer language, and I know how confusing it can be for a parent trying to pick the right laptop to please a Minecraft addict or for a casual gamer just wanting something that is going to handle the majority of popular games. 

Hopefully, as a casual gamer myself, I can give some clarity as to whether this is the laptop that suits your needs. 

On the outside

To look at, the HP Victus 15 is an attractively put-together laptop with a solid, plastic build. 

It boasts a larger touchpad than the average laptop, a full-sized keyboard with a full numerical pad, and a 15.6-inch screen. At around 2.3kg, it has an excellent size-to-weight ratio. 

Personally, I didn’t like how big the touchpad was. The distance my thumb had to travel to use the spacebar during gaming was further than I would have liked. 

This meant I had to keep re-aligning my hand on the WASD keys – the four used to interact with video games in lieu of arrow keys or a controller – which pulled me away from the screen. 

I understand the benefits of a larger touchpad, but given that gamers will always use an external mouse to play with, I do question the benefit of this on a gaming-specific laptop. 

Having a full-sized, backlit keyboard as well as a full numeric keypad is an awesome touch and really makes you feel like you are playing on a full-sized computer. 

The keyboard had a nice white backlight, but the lack of RGB colour lighting options was missed by this casual geek.

On the inside 

Thanks to its solid-state hard drive and AMD Ryzen processor, the Victus is a fast machine.

Within minutes, I had set it up, downloaded and installed the Xbox Game Pass and was using the two-week $1 trial to test what the laptop was capable of. 

It was nice to have a laptop that was able to run every AAA game I downloaded from Xbox Game Pass. 

Whether it was Halo 4, Gears of War 5, Plague: Requiem or Atomic Heart, the Victus had no issue providing a smooth gaming experience with decent HD graphics and a flicker-free display. 

The AMD Ryzen 6500M graphics card – which is most suited to playing games at 1080p with high settings – combined with the 16GB of DDR4 RAM handled the technical demand of these games with ease. 

The 512GB SSD, whilst not huge, is sizeable enough to have several games downloaded at once, so even the most indecisive gamer will be able to keep occupied for hours. 

Sound

On the sound front, the speakers are decent, although not exceptional. 

They are fine enough to play without headphones, although you aren’t going to be blown away. After all, this is still a laptop and laptop speakers, no matter how well they're made, are never going to be able to provide an immersive audio experience. 

As with an external mouse, most gamers would use headphones while playing, but if you do use just the built-in speakers, you will find them serviceable enough. 

Headphones will also help to minimise the noise emitted by the fan, which at times was loud enough to notice over the in-game sound unless this was turned up to max volume. 

Battery

Although the Victus claims to have over six hours of battery life, this isn’t overly relevant as far as gaming goes, as the laptop is unable to play any graphically demanding games unless plugged into a power source. 

This is the norm for gaming laptops; the battery is not able to provide enough power to run modern games, so if you think you can just take the Victus anywhere and play without a power source, you will be disappointed. 

I tried several games, and even with a full battery, the lag made them unplayable. 

However, for non-gaming activities, the battery life proved decent enough. 

Overall

The Victus 15 is a good entry-level gaming laptop suitable for a casual gamer and would be an awesome gift for parents to give a teenager keen to get into gaming. 

Its sturdy build, full-sized keyboard and decent-sized screen provide a solid gaming experience, and as far as a budget or entry-level gaming laptop goes, it’s not likely to let you down. 

There are laptops from competitive brands with similar or better specs that can be found for a similar price, but the HP Victus 15 will deliver what you’d expect from the price range.

● All images supplied.