HP Omen 27u 144 Hz screen test: design and image quality

The Omen 27u displays a fairly original design in the monitor market the game. The materials are noble, especially the screen housing and the stand, both of which are aluminum.

The rear of the monitor offers a bit more character and takes on a style of its own the game. The foot incorporates a fairly basic but effective cable routing, and above all, the design is even more ambitious. A gaming monitor requires a glossy border surrounding the housing that groups the electronics. It is quite beautiful and above all very well done. Note that this monitor is VESA 100 x 100 mm compatible, but requires a 45° swivel stand.

It also includes under-panel lighting that should reduce eye strain by creating additional illumination. Like the backlight, it can be configured via OSD (color, intensity, pulse, random change, etc.).

The stand also incorporates a rather practical helmet holder that prevents misplacing your favorite helmet.

The leg is not too big, nor the power supply to fit under the table. It is less discreet than an integrated power supply, but makes it easier to replace in case of failure.

The display focuses on the basic parameters, i.e. height adjustment of more than 13 cm and tilt between -5° and +20°. The manufacturer omits left and right rotation, as well as portrait rotation, but this is not really important on a dedicated gaming monitor.

Connectivity consists of two HDMI inputs, including one HDMI 2.1 compatible (4K 120 Hz, VRR), a DisplayPort 1.4 input, a headphone output, two USB 3.0 ports and a USB-C port (only used to duplicate USB ports). It is angled at 45°, making it accessible without bending over the back of the monitor. This is especially useful for easier access to USB ports.

The HP uses a single joystick to navigate the OSD menus. For us, this is the most effective system for quickly installing a monitor. HP also lets you change sources, select a picture mode, adjust brightness, and more. allows you to use four directions as customizable shortcuts for Good idea! The OSD also allows you to adjust the blue light filter to four levels and change basic settings (brightness, contrast, temperature, overclocking, etc.).

On our 120 x 80 cm table, the HP Omen 27u is particularly comfortable with its compact dimensions. The leg is still 25.6cm deep, but its design frees up desk space. The latest versions of the Windows and macOS operating systems perfectly handle the Ultra HD image and allow effective upscaling up to 150% or even 200% (Full HD equivalent). Text elements are large enough to be legible and the image is perfectly sharp. On the other hand, a 27-inch panel’s native definition of 3840 x 2160 pixels, or 163 pixels per inch (ppi), is almost unusable without scaling. In games, the contribution of Ultra HD on a 27-inch panel is not necessarily clear, and still the choice of a Quad HD monitor, especially in this diagonal, seems to us more intelligent, especially to reach 144 frames / s, apart from playing with consoles.

Out of the box, the HP Omen displays accurate countable colors; as proof, we measured a delta E of only 1.7. The color temperature is very good, with a stable curve and an average of 6990 K very close to the reference value (6500 K). Only the gamma curve lacks some stability, with dark grays underexposed. Logically, the average measured in 2.1 is slightly lower than the reference (2.2). Dropping the brightness to 150 cd/m² does not affect the image quality, which remains equivalent. Finally, calibrating the monitor with a probe allows you to perfectly smooth the temperature curve and improve color accuracy. The colorimetric profile is available at this link.

The average contrast ratio measured at 1040:1 is pretty average, with blacks dropping to just 0.14 cd/m². In the picture, this turns into washed out blacks that look grayish in the dark. In daylight, this contrast ratio does not cause any particular problems. The Omen 27u monitor is still a notch behind the best IPS monitors like the Asus VG27AQ or AOC 27G2U with a contrast of 1220:1 and 1250:1. Of course, the HP Omen 27u is far from the best VA monitors with a contrast ratio of more than 4000:1, such as the Huawei MateView GT 34 or the MSI Optix MAG271CR.

The average difference in brightness homogeneity is measured at 5% across the entire 28-inch panel; very good value that guarantees good homogeneity of the slab. The model we tested was not affected by any phenomenon cloudiness. The IPS panel is compelling, the viewing angles are very wide and there is little change in brightness when viewing the screen with an offset of 45°.

The Omen 27u does not use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to adjust brightness; therefore, it lacks vibration and does not cause headaches for those who are sensitive to this phenomenon.

This monitor handles FreeSync between 48 and 144 Hz and therefore works optimally when the graphics card is sent between 48 and 144 fps. Therefore, the supported range is very wide and covers all areas of use. We’d still recommend a high-performance graphics card like the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 to take advantage of native Ultra HD resolution and a large number of images. In all cases there is fluidity and the image does not suffer from tearing problems (to tear) or crushing (micro stuttering).

The 7.5ms response time is good for an IPS panel. This value is achieved with the overdrive setting at “level 2” with very little effect reverse dream. With more aggressive settings (Levels 3 and 4), it reverse dream there are too many. This monitor is no better than the Asus VG28UQ, and also Ultra HD at 144 Hz, which drops to 6 ms. The Asus VG279QM with a Full HD 280 Hz panel flashes in just 4.5 ms, just like the VA Samsung Odyssey G7 27 and 49G9 models. This Omen still boasts slightly better performance than the Asus VG27AQ, the benchmark for Quad HD IPS 144 Hz monitors.

We measured screen lag (input delay) at 17.5 ms. This is slightly more than the 10-11 ms observed on other monitors for gaming, but the delay between the action performed with the keyboard, mouse or controller and its observation on the screen remains very small.