I cannot hide my obsession with beautiful panels and displays. My fixation began when I got my first OLED TV back in 2020, and since then, it hasn’t been the same. I obsess over the settings on every monitor I test, am especially critical when laptop displays aren’t up to snuff, and will praise something to high heaven if it’s beautiful to look at. After all, screens are our windows into everything these devices are capable of, so why settle for a dirty window?
I’ve tested plenty of stunning laptop displays until now, with some highlights being my beloved Lenovo Yoga 9i and Acer Swift Go 14. But the consistent trait in these products is that they’re not gaming laptops, as finding a compelling panel in that realm is far more challenging. High brightness and alluring color depth are often at the back of the priority list when it comes to designing these graphical powerhouses.
But there are always exceptions, and this week, my encounter with the HP Omen Transcend 14 offered a window into the most stunning gaming laptop display I’ve ever tested.
The Omen Transcend 14’s stunning OLED panel
Before I fawn over my own experiences with the Omen 14’s 2,880 x 1,800-pixel OLED panel, let’s jump straight into how the technical tests paint this absolute behemoth. It reproduced 135% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is exceptional. This is nowhere near as high as the Swift Go 14 (176%) or Yoga 9i (142%), but it is still impressive for a product of this kind. Prior to this, the highest color score I’d seen on a gaming laptop was with the MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbow Six Extraction Edition with a DCI-P3 score of 117%.
While color is often pretty disappointing in gaming laptops, brightness is a whole different level. Because many games are expected to be played in darker rooms, there isn’t much necessity in having a brighter screen, but it is a huge problem for those who like to play on-the-go or use the laptop for something more than just gaming.
In the previous comparison, I noted that it still couldn’t compete with those two productivity laptops, but hitting 392 nits on average in our brightness tests tells a whole new story. This easily crushes the Yoga 9i (353 nits), and while it is technically less than the Swift Go 14 (395 nits), the scores are too close for it to truly matter.
But beyond just what the laptop can do on paper, seeing how it performs in action is what sells it. Combining the glossy panel with the infinitesimally deep blacks is always my favorite thing to look at. The text of the Elden Ring title screen floating against an inky pool of nothing, with only my reflection visible in it, feels like I’m staring down at a black ocean. It’s truly magical.
I rode my steed throughout The Lands Between and couldn’t believe my eyes. The all-encompassing glow of the Erdtree brought a warmth to my gameplay that I’d never experienced before. Walking into the forest outside of Limgrave’s opening and seeing a series of patrolling knights with nothing but torch light reflecting against their shiny armors popped exceptionally well.
I teleported to Caelid and my jaw dropped as I basked in the glory of its red sky. How vivid the occasional gray towers and bright yellow trees appear in contrast to that deep crimson fog permeating everything above will never not give me shivers. It’s especially compelling as the clouds aren’t just bright red, but have these bottomless spots of darkness all over, and considering OLED is inherently amazing at representing blacks, the contrast between that vivid bright red and endless black makes my eyes damn happy. Moments like these make me want to play Elden Ring all over again.
More gaming laptops need panels this good
While the Omen Transcend 14 is stunning to behold, it’s far from a perfect laptop. I gave it a 3.5/5 due to its many flaws elsewhere, including underwhelming gaming performance, poor audio, an awful touchpad, and subpar battery life. To know that a display as fantastic as this one is limited to a laptop that could be way better is unfortunate, but it goes to show how badly the industry needs more gaming laptops that aren’t afraid to go this far with its display.
I love console games on my LG OLED TV and enjoy playing on my computer using an OLED monitor. Why should gaming be any different on a laptop? There’s no reason these portable beasts can’t pull out the stops in color and brightness, and from now on, I hope more follow the HP Omen Transcend 14’s lead.
