Who knew that industry giant HP (Hewlett Packard) made accessories for mobiles…

I sure didn’t until STG was sent a HP Sprocket unit to try out.

HP are synonymous with serious PC peripherals including screens and they also have the Omen PC Gaming franchise and sure, they have made inkjet and commercial sized printers for decades, so following that suit comes the Sprocket – a pocket sized colour sticker printer that will turn your best picture perfect moments in to 2 x 3 inch stickables that you can apply to, well, pretty much anywhere.

The Sprocket is both light weight and about as large as a 5 inch smartphone.

Rechargeable via micro USB the Sprocket connects to your smart device or PC via bluetooth. Then you will need the HP Sprocket App from Google Play or the App Store and within less than a minute you’ll find yourself snapping pics either within the App itself or using existing ones from your phone or social media (Facebook and Instagram), then applying fun filled filters and overlays and printing them off to adorn your Journal, Lunch Box, Bag, Wall, Ceiling and pretty much anything that you like to place a sticker on to.

Also when printing the photo sticker the Sprocket will embed A.R. experiences in to the printed pic for you to experience by scanning the printed sticker and using the sprocket App and your phones camera. Brilliant.

The blank sticker cards come in boxes of 20 sheets (there’s 10 in the devices box) and to load them in is simple. You slide the top off the Sprocket, place them in the inner tray wit the supplied barcode card face down and away you go.

We had alot of fun with the Sprocket during our time with it and found that we managed to gobble through the supplied sticker sheets in no time.

Priced at $250.00 (NZD) it is on the heftier side as far as a mobile accessory goes and you need to factor in the eventual cost of more sticker sheets too.

An extremely fun to have accessory for the Selfie taker or to take away with you on holiday. With Christmas fast approaching the Sprocket is a good contender as a gift for that snap happy friend or family member.

Super simple to setup and even easier to use, you know you want to have a Sprocket in your pocket.

The post HP Sprocket Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Recently HP New Zealand supplied their top of the line gaming Desktop PC, the Omen X to us at Shane the Gamer (StG) for review. Last week we received the more portable version – the HP Omen 15″ Laptop!

Just like it’s much bigger brother the Omen Laptop is a force to be reckoned with.

Much like the mighty Omen X unit – the 15″ Laptop we tested was their top shelf unit with 16GB Ram and a 6th Generation Intel Core i7 processor to get that full gaming experience without any hang ups.

Very sleek in a matte dark grey finish and slenderly thin, the Omen Laptop did not fail to impress us aesthetically.

Under the hood, graphic wise there is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M with 4GB GDDR5 dedicated memory. Having this much accelerant for graphic prowess and rendering one would expect the Omen to heat up immensely when trying to push it to it’s limits.

It didn’t. The Omen infact hardly broke a sweat as we played hours of Gears of War 4, Mad Max and Dishonored 2, without anything turned down.

But gaming is not always about eye candy, it also needs to be immersive – and to do this you MUST have killer audio. HP thought of this.

The built in Bang & Olufsen with HP AudioBoost brought home the immersion that was so needed when using Gaming headphones. The Omen Laptop itself does have Dual speakers with the same audio enhancement, however, it was not a full experience until we used a headset.

The ports were interestingly stock standard, and myself I prefer to use a Xbox 360 Games Controller where possible when PC Gaming, this naturally takes up one USB Port of the three built in. In all there’s one HDMI port, two USB 3.0, unsure why but one USB 2.0 and a headphone / mic combo jack and your standard RJ-45 for ethernet.

Supplied for the OS (Operating System) is a 128 SSD and a 1TB HDD for the storage of all of your digital goodness. Being a laptop it is expected that there will be a on board web cam. There is and a very powerful HP Wide Vision HD Camera which also has a dual array digital microphone. The red accented keyboard is backlit, as we hoped for a high end gaming Laptop but without the usual options that we see from other external gaming keyboards.

Extremely light weight at only around 2KG and battery life (will always depend on usage of course) varied from 4 hours (gameplay) through to 18 – 19 hours on standby.

The actual size of the Omen Laptop is 15.6 inches. The screen, although brilliant, had a very wide and disappointing bezel to it. I felt as though HP could have made use of the available real estate here and made the screen all that much more epic than it is.

The i7 model with 16GB RAM came with Windows 10 x64 BIT pre-installed and asides from gaming (which to be fair is what the Omen series is built for) the Laptop itself can also be slated as a powerful workhorse, expertly crafted for multitasking and if you are anything like me and doing a thousand things at once, the necessary beast to have if you never, ever, ever close down applications as you work.

The Omen Laptop series will also handle VR without any compromise, much like the Desktop HP Omen X. We were interested to see how well it would do and if we could get those internal fans whirring by using a HTC Vive.

The Vive experience on this Laptop was more than pleasing. The Omen Laptop still purred like the sleeping king of the portable computing jungle that it is.

As with the Omen X it is a bit pricey, with this model being just shy of $3K (NZD) but this is not out of the norm for a good solid Gaming Laptop.

The one we are reviewing is the 15-AX010TX. There is a cheaper model with slightly lesser specs; the 15-AX003TX which would be a great contender if you are wanting to get your feet wet with PC Gaming.

The HP Omen 15-AX101TX is not just a feet wetter, it’s the full immersion.

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The post HP Omen 15″ Laptop Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

There has always been a belief with true PC Gamers that to have a killer Rig, you must build it yourself.

And for the most part that is very true. You select the best of the best components, slot it all together in supreme Casing with specialized cooling and enough lights that it can be seen from space. It’s your Rig, you built it, you know all of the parts inside. It’s built to your specifications.

As a PC Gamer myself I absolutely relate.

But… what if it was all done for you? The elitist of PC gaming technology, doubled inside of a sleek one of a kind Case to give you that necessary processing power to game like a Pro.

HP have just the thing. The Omen X.

Shane the Gamer (StG) was provided with the HP Omen X 900-071a which is the top model for Australia and New Zealand (see our Unboxing HERE).

The cubed Rig already looks like a force to be reckoned with before getting through to the setup. And it’s big, measuring in at 16.54 x 6.5 x 15.79 inches and fully ready to be further customized by yourself. Most notably at first glance is the easily accessible x4 drive bays at the angled front of the Casing. The Omen X can be fully kitted out with additional SSD’s or standard HDD’s to further bolster digital storage capacity.

This model of the Omen X comes with pre-installed 32GB DDR4 RAM.

Your gaming prowess is powered by a Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Processor (Overclockable) and for the digital eye candy, not one – but two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card, all powered by a 1400 Watt PSU and intercooled with Water Cooling.

A 256GB SSD for the Windows 10 OS and a supplied 2TB HDD for anything else. Naturally these can be swapped out.

The Casing is something that of a Scifi flick. Perfectly cubed the Omen X is not designed to sit flat on one’s desk – but to sit on a tilt via it’s stand. Lighting is not over done. The four illuminated squares on the face of the Rig can be totally customized so that each and every square is a different shade of awesome. You can create Profiles in the HP Omen X software pre-installed on the PC to match your Gaming. When you are all done lighting your Case to match your mood – you can also have the lights dance to the explosive DTS Sound.

The Case does have a large footprint, so you will need a sizable desk or a wee bit of floor space near your desk. However being that it sits on an angle you do have a bit of desk space either side.

To say that the Omen X Desktop is a beast is an understatement.

We put it through it’s paces as best as possible. Games such as Gears of War 4 or Dishonored 2 did not even break a sweat. The Omen X continued to subtly purr as we got our game on.

Placing aside gameplay for the moment, while reviewing the Omen X is was also apparent that the Rig had more to it than a high end gaming PC. I can see commercial use here aswell, especially for graphic and video rendering.

It is fair to say that there has not been a preconfigured, pre-built gaming PC such as this on the market. The Omen X is the one stop where you get all you need and alot of future proofing including the ability to seamlessly handle VR (HTC Vive ready).

Releasing in December 2016 to most it will be a little pricey, you wont see much change left from around $7K for this model. But there are cheaper ones which range from approximately $2K ready to go from the box, or as mentioned earlier, if you want to build your own Rig but have the styling and light show of the Omen X, a bare-bones case is also available for just under $1K. Check out the Omen X range HERE.

The Omen X is an absolutely serious kit and with further customization options with the high end model, it’s also the future of PC Gaming.

The post HP Omen X Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

During mid October 2016 Shane the Gamer (StG) was exclusively invited to witness the dawn of PC gaming unlike we had ever seen.

Unveiled and hands on was the Omen X PC gaming Rig made by HP. Select media were some of the first in the world to witness a super gaming PC experience in association with Microsoft.

Forza Horizons 3 and Gears of War 4 graced the monitors while the super charged Omen X handled the gameplay without breaking a sweat.

With one month before the Omen X releasing to stores we have been supplied an Omen X by the very awesome folk at HP New Zealand and Australia. Like every gamer and tech fan we got right in to see what comes with the Omen X and how it all performs as soon as we got it.

Everything is better in black and the Omen X box does not give too much away about the high end Rig it holds. Super heavy though, weighing in at 28kgs.

Once opened, the Omen X unit remains elusive throughout its tightly organised packaging. First bits that you will encounter is a Manual, power cable and spare mounting screws for any additional drive bays that you may decide to add in future.

It doesn’t take too long until you’re down to the good stuff. The Omen X Rig, although square, is packaged on the angle that it is designed to sit as on one’s desktop. Like a diamond in a box. To ensure that your Omen X is not scuffed in anyway, it is shielded by a cover (and this cover can be reused once the Omen X is unpacked, set up but not being used to keep dust at bay).

Removing the dust cover naturally reveals the awesomeness that is the Omen X… pause and take it in for a few minutes.

The cubed Rig already looks like a force to be reckoned with before getting through to the setup. And it’s big, measuring in at 16.54 x 6.5 x 15.79 inches and fully ready to be further customised by yourself. The first feature you will notice the accessibility to the additional x4 drive bays. The Omen X can be fully kitted out with additional SSD’s or standard HDD’s to further bolster digital storage capacity. The model that we received from HP is the 900-071a which is New Zealand and Australia exclusive.

It is also the top shelf unit of the Omen X’s with pre-installed 32GB DDR4, Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Processor with a dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card. 256GB SSD for the Windows 10 OS and a supplied 2TB HDD for anything else.

To say that the Omen X Desktop is a beast is an understatement.

There’s enough ports to see you right for whatever peripherals you could ever need for a very long time. x8 HDMI’s, x6 USB 3.0 ports – plus x2 at the front, x2 DVI, mixed Mic and Headphone port, Optical Out and split audio ports at the front of the case. Oh and there’s still space at the rear of the unit to add more.

Once powered on you instantly see the case light up. Once you get through the Windows 10 setup (which we assume you are already familiar with you’ll find the HP Omen software.

This allows you to totally customise the light grids to your taste. The entire quadrant can phase between four colours, or you can choose which individual square in the quadrant has which colour. Even further, each line of a square can be tailored and if you like, you can have the light show pulse to audio / music. This in itself is every reason to experience the Omen X.

This model of the Omen X will retail for around 6-7K NZD, but there are much cheaper options. You can also opt to get the barebones and customise yourself. Shortly we will have a full review live based on gaming performance.

The Omen X is very much the Maserati of gaming Rigs and if you have the cash this coming December and looking for an all in one pre-built, this is definitely it.

The post HP Omen X Unboxing appeared first on Shane the Gamer.