HP OMEN Transcend 14 review: Gorgeous, premium, unfortunately underpowered

At a lower price, though, it’d be a lot easier to recommend over its rival.

This review was made possible with a review sample provided by HP.

The company did not see the contents of the review before publishing.

Thinner, lighter, more powerful, and $100 cheaper for the equivalent configuration? The Zephyrus G14 seems unstoppable in this comparison.

The equivalent Zephyrus G14 retails for$1,999.99 at Best Buy, too.

Of course, you might also configure your own HP OMEN Transcend 14 at HP for more granular control.

you’ve got the option to also always configure your own.

Among the OMEN gaming laptops, however, the Transcend 14 stands supreme.

After using the OMEN Transcend 14, I think it’s… fine.

Weird design or not, these RGB lights aren’t the most vibrant or smoothest I’ve seen.

This is an attractive laptop, even if its matte black coating is extremely prone to picking up fingerprints and smudges.

I prefer the design and construction of the Zephyrus G14, too.

First, let’s get the basics out of the way.

The display on the HP OMEN Transcend 14 is positively gorgeous.

One USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm audio jack… strangely in the middle of the chassis.(Image credit: Windows Central | Zachary Boddy)

However, for regular usage, I still prefer the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14.

These are tiny advantages, but they exist.

I want to be clear this laptop isn’tslow.

Two USB Type-A ports exactly where you expect them.(Image credit: Windows Central | Zachary Boddy)

The hardware is far too good for that.

That’s not good.

One area where I can praise the OMEN Transcend 14 is with thermal management.

The 140W Thunderbolt 4 port and an HDMI 2.1 port, perfect for charging, docking, and hooking up to an external monitor.(Image credit: Windows Central | Zachary Boddy)

Overall performance isn’t as good as the competition, but at least your laptop will never run hot.

Unfortunately, HP goes too far in that direction without gaining any meaningful advantages.

At 1800p, the OMEN Transcend 14 struggled even to hit 30 FPS.

This display is wonderful, which I fully expected.

Unfortunately, it onlyoccasionallydoes that.

I also ran aWindows Battery Report, and it returned what I had observed myself.

Other times, I struggled to see a few hours of usage.

This display does indeed meet 100% of the DCI-P3 cinematic color gamut.

In this case, I believe the issue lies with HP’s optimization, given the general instability.

Having to pay extra for per-key RGB lighting is odd, though.

However, the keyboard itself is great!

This OMEN badge and RGB keyboard don’t quite match the performance at this price point, but at least the thermal management is awesome.

As for the touchpad, it’s as good as we’ve come to expect from Windows laptops.

Glass surface, spacious, and usingMicrosoft Precision drivers.

Plus, there’s sadly nohaptic touchpadhere, but those are still uncommon among laptops.

A fast SSD means you usually don’t have to wait long for things to load.(Image credit: Windows Central)

The audio is experience is also a mixed bag.

These speakers are mediocre, but at least you get the interesting added feature of an integratedHyperXwireless receiver.

If the OMEN Transcend 14 is on sale, it can be an excellent option, however.

This CPU-centric task sees the OMEN Transcend 14 fall behind the ROG Zephyrus G14.(Image credit: Windows Central)

Check out our list of thebest gaming laptopsfor some other recommendations.

For many that value premium, compact design, though, that’s not a bad thing.

For the same (or even lower) price, why wouldn’t you choose the Zephyrus G14?

In the newer version of Cinebench, the roles are actually reversed.(Image credit: Windows Central)

I want to be clear on two points, though.

1. The HP OMEN Transcend 14 isnota bad laptop.

With updates and a price cut, though, this could be an absolutely wonderful laptop for many people.

In CrossMark, the gaming-focused Zephyrus G14 actually struggles to compete.(Image credit: Windows Central)

History is repeated in Geekbench 6, apart from the Zephyrus G14’s strong single-core performance.(Image credit: Windows Central)

The Zephyrus G14 pulls way ahead of the OMEN Transcend 14 in this multi-purpose benchmark, likely due to the more powerful GPU.(Image credit: Windows Central)

When encoding 4K footage, the Transcend 14 is a fair bit slower than the Zephyrus G14.(Image credit: Windows Central)

The Zephyrus G14 runs circles around the OMEN Transcend 14 in real-world and gaming performance, but it runs hotter than HP’s laptop.

You can still have a blast gaming on this laptop, but the price-to-performance ratio is well below average.

3DMark Time Spy shows the difference between the OMEN Transcend 14 and its closest competitor, despite being better than many other Ultrabooks.

I love the rear-mounted USB Type-C charging port, one of the advantages of this lower wattage system.

As always, this test is done with default settings (Balanced performance profile, keyboard backlighting enabled, dynamic refresh rate) with brightness set to ~200 nits.

You’ll love or hate this keyboard design, but overall this is a good keyboard and touchpad setup.

You have enough apps on here, HP?

When the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 exists at this price point, it’s genuinely difficult to recommend the OMEN Transcend 14.

The OMEN Transcend 14 would be an excellent laptop if only it cost less.