Ben Madilynn
The HP Victus 16-s0010ca Gaming Laptop is manufacturer HP’s newest iteration of the Victus laptop line. Featuring some solid specs, the Victus 16 aims to find the middle road between gaming performance and a budget-conscious price point. Supported by HP’s very own OMEN software, the Victus 16 has lots to offer without indulging in all the extras generally associated with gaming laptops.
Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, the HP Victus 16-s0010ca carries over many of the design features of the previous generations. A matte finish plastic shell protects the hardware and while effective isn’t overly impressive at first glance. After a couple of weeks of usage, the Victus 16 has become a magnet for fingerprints and smudges, making keeping it clean a never-ending task. Despite this small critique, the Victus does feel sturdy when closed up and sits comfortably on the table or lap.
The Victus 16 features a single zone RGB backlit keyboard that, while simple, does offer nice, bright backlighting effects. Using the included OMEN software, users can easily manage the key colours and effects. As for the keys, they feel quite nice to use, offering some decent feedback over long typing or gaming sessions. While the caps are constructed of standard plastic, they do feel coated in a light rubberized finish, making them quite soft to engage. The result is a pleasant typing experience.
The touchpad on the other hand, while functional, isn’t spectacular. From a design perspective, HP has opted to place the touchpad off the center of the keyboard. This is a common issue I’ve seen on gaming laptops over the years. While it does function fine, more often than not I find myself bumping the trackpad while typing, unintentionally moving the mouse or clicking the pad causing all sorts of fun shenanigans on the screen. It’s not a devastating design flaw, but it would be nice for manufacturers to align the touchpad with the middle of the keyboard, alleviating this common frustration.
“The Victus 16 features a single zone RGB backlit keyboard that, while simple, does offer nice, bright backlighting effects.”
As for the responsiveness of the pad, for the most part, it gets the job done but feels cheap when compared to the keyboard. Pressing down on the pad to activate the left and right mouse buttons provides a fairly weak feedback response which, once again, cheapens the user experience. To clarify, the touchpad works fine it simply doesn’t feel as premium as I’d prefer.
As for IO, the Victus 16 ships with a decent IO load out. The Victus features 3 USB Type A 5Gbp signal rate, 1 USB Type C 5Gbp signal rate (supports power delivery and DisplayPort™ 1.4a) and a single HDMI 2.1 port. This is a solid offering of IO that allows for multiple peripheral connections simultaneously, a feat that has become more difficult with recent laptop design trends. It was nice to be able to connect my HyperX Cloud Stinger 2 Wireless (one of HP’s other gaming brands) and my wireless mouse, and still have ports available.
Additionally, users will find an RJ45 and headphone combo jack available for when wireless simply isn’t enough. On the note of wireless connection, though, the HP Victus 16-s0010ca gaming laptop does support Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, making it easy to get connected to wireless networks in range. In testing the wifi easily handled online gaming while streaming content with no lag or buffer issues.
The final note on the build is the hinge system for the Victus screen. While the hinges feel tight enough when opening and closing, there is a bit more play when it’s being held in an open position than I’d like to see. It simply means that when opened the screen wiggles easily if bumped or if the table it’s placed on is bumped. It only happened a handful of times but it was notable during testing.
“On the note of wireless connection, though, the HP Victus 16-s0010ca gaming laptop does support Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, making it easy to get connected to wireless networks in range.”
Looking at the internal specs of the Victus 16, we start to see a very different picture, which is a good reminder not to judge a book by its cover. Featuring an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU, the Victus 16 pushes out some solid numbers on Geekbench with a single-core score of 2375 and a multi-core score of 11071. To translate, this means that the Victus 16 weighs in at a decent spot on the benchmark scale, actually doing quite well in the single-core scores and landing somewhere in the middle of the pack for multi-core scores.
When paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8GB and 16GB of DDR5 RAM, the Victus 16 is quite the gaming powerhouse. In testing, it crushed the Assassins Creed Valhalla benchmark easily, maintaining an average of 96 FPS during the test. Other titles such as Diablo 4 and DOOM Eternal had no issues maintaining over 100 FPS with ease.
In productivity testing the Victus 16 managed multi-tasking with ease. Even more complex tasks, such as editing and rendering video in Davinci Resolve, were responsive and showed no signs of struggle while working. Even the render test, which included editing multiple timelines, adding them all to the render queue then letting Davinici run in the background while performing other tasks, was a smooth experience.
“…it feels like HP made the right choices when it comes to where to pull back a little with the HP Victus 16-s0010ca Gaming Laptop and where to double down. “
As for the display, the 1080p FHD IPS LED panel is rated for 144Hz refresh and maintains 300 nitt brightness. While it does lack full HDR support (HDR video streaming is supported, however) The display still produces a solid viewing experience. The 144Hz refresh is ideal for gaming and the 1080p resolution pairs perfectly with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060.
As for the battery life on the Victus 16, while it does house a 4-cell, 70 Wh Li-ion polymer internal battery, in testing it didn’t hold up to any meaningful gaming. While it did manage to handle 4-5 hours of productivity work, it was a stretch to get 2 hours of gaming while on battery. While a bit disappointing it’s not uncommon for gaming laptops to not have great battery life.
While there have been a few critiques throughout this review related to design choices to reduce the cost of the laptop, it feels like HP made the right choices when it comes to where to pull back a little with the HP Victus 16-s0010ca Gaming Laptop and where to double down. While I understand the appeal of high-end gaming laptops, the Victus 16 is the kind of laptop I would buy myself. Sure, it lacks some of the premium external elements that make laptops like the OMEN line stand out, but the Victus 16 knows what it is, and it leans into it. The result is a powerful 1080p gaming laptop that won’t break the bank and will keep you gaming for the long haul.
The Victus 16 Gaming Laptop is my kind of laptop. It sheds some of the frills that raise the price in favour of offering a powerful 1080p gaming experience for users. With a solid keyboard, performance specs and an overall solid build, the Victus makes up for any shortcomings by doing what it sets out to do. While it might not have some of the flashy bells and whistles, the Victus 16 has it where it counts.
