HP has smushed together the HyperX and Omen brands to create its new HyperX Omen range of gaming laptops, and I'm over here playing spot the difference

We are gathered here today to celebrate the uniting of two households, both alike in dignity. Or alternatively, two HP gaming brands, HyperX and Omen, which have now been smushed together to create... HyperX Omen.

The first offspring from this union is the HyperX Omen Max 16 gaming laptop, which, in terms of its chassis design, looks a whole lot like the HP Omen Max 16 of old with two letters removed from the bottom of the screen. Yep, blink and you'll miss it, but it now sports a dose of HyperX branding beneath its 16-inch display, along with a big "HX" logo on the rear lid.

The chassis design looks to be pretty much the same, but HP has made some changes underneath the hood. While the GPU options still range between the RTX 5070 Ti mobile and the top whack RTX 5090, the CPU choices are now either AMD's newly-announced Ryzen AI 400-series chips, or a "next gen Intel processor", according to the press release.

No prizes for guessing what that might be. The mega-spec lappy also comes with a new GAN power brick that's capable of delivering 300 W total platform power, without weighing the same as a boat anchor.

We haven't received any images of it yet, but the pre-CES HP briefing I attended made special note of the fact that the new brick isn't a backpack dominator, probably because us travelling tech journos like to moan about hefty ones every chance we get.

The cooling system of the HyperX Omen Max 16 has had an overhaul, too, adding a third fan in an effort to keep things chill. Our biggest critique of the old HP Omen Max 16 was the fan noise, alongside some choppy gaming performance that was very likely thermal-related. It remains to be seen whether the addition of an extra fan might solve some of its woes, but it seems like a good start, at the very least.

And finally, there's the keeb. Our Ian rather liked the keyboard in the old model, but the new one has a 1000 Hz polling rate for that all-important esports cred, alongside some anti-ghosting tech and full size arrow keys.

And while the HyperX Omen Max 16 tops out the lineup, the non-Max Omen laptops also get a dose of HyperX branding, along with some cooling system changes and the odd slightly re-jigged specs sheet. It's less of a revolution, more of a rebrand and a refresh—as you would expect given that we're currently in a space where the GPUs, CPUs and other components of this generation are getting into their middle age.

Still, brand unity is here, and now we have something of a tech marriage. HP bought the HyperX brand back in 2021, and now it's been double-barrelled with the, err, ominous-sounding Omen, I'll have a whole new sequence of words to remember when I update our gaming laptop deals page. Cheers, HP. Do I at least get a party bag to go home with?