I sit here writing this feature on a brand-spanking-new HP Omen Transcend 14, one of computer giant Hewlett-Packard's flagship gaming products, which I've got on loan for a full test and review to see its suitability for creatives like myself and you, my sweet, beloved reader. Equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, 32GB of RAM and a very pretty little OLED screen that's already impressed me in my first informal video and gaming test session this past weekend (as well as my first firing-up of Photoshop), it sounds like a gaming monster.
But it doesn't look like a gaming monster. At all.
We like gaming laptops on Creative Bloq because they tick most boxes creative pros are looking to tick, as they have powerful discrete graphic cards, oodles of memory, bright high-resolution screens and plentiful internal cooling for rendering and processing-heavy jobs. Plus, gaming laptops sport the refresh rate needed for high-velocity, stress-release gaming many of us enjoy after work has finished.
But apart from a very small lip extruding from behind the display, there's almost nothing to indicate that the Omen Transcend I'm writing this piece on is anything other than a (slightly stylised) hybrid-working laptop; it's all matte black sandblasted anodised finish, rounded corners and subdued branding.
And the Omen Transcend isn't the only gaming laptop in disguise in 2024.
All winter and spring, I've seen the same story told with different logos emblazoned across 'sleekified' laptop lids:
• The Acer Predator Triton may have retained the angular edges, but in every other respect, it looks as much like an Aspire-line creative laptop as the gaming behemoth contained within.
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• The new, smoother ASUS ROG Zephyrus has discarded last year's oversized LED-screen lid for a simple, sleek diagonal light strip, and the external presentation is more in line with Vivobooks than with ROG's 'hardcore' gaming machines.
• Even gaming specialist MSI's flagship line, the almighty (and mightily expensive) Titan series laptops look like they have more in common with ASUS' Studiobooks than they do with Dell's Alienware in the aesthetics department.
• Oh, and speaking of Dell; its new battle-spec Alienware m16 has discarded the signature cut-in underneath the display to make it indistinguishable from your regular, everyday, civilian XPS at first glance.
These are just a few examples of well-known gaming laptops getting 'sleekified' this year, perhaps coincidentally alongside the release of AI-boosted 14th-gen Intel Core Ultra processors, which have blurred the lines between general-use machines and gaming-ready laptops. And I can only guess as to why it's happening.
With hybrid working having firmly established itself as a much more normal way of life since [gestures frantically at 2020] all that happened, the line between home and workplace, jobs and hobbies, work and play, has blurred to become all but invisible. So we've been presenting more of our 'home persona' in a professional setting. And showing up to a board meeting or a 1-to-1 with your line manager holding a three-kilogram RGB festival in the form of a bulky, blocky gaming behemoth may make some people look or feel a little sheepish.
And laptop makers seem to have noticed. So in response, we're getting more laptops than ever that are capable of heavy-duty gaming but can also pull double duty as work machines, especially for creatives, without sticking out like a sore thumb in an office or meeting room, where you're exposed to the full glare of daylight.
As for me, I don't really care what my computers look like, as long as they can do what I need them to, but I realise I'm in the minority here. Also, portability is a big consideration today, so if you have a brick that's heavier than a newborn baby, with edges that could take someone's eye out, the idea of lugging it around for your hybrid job several times a week isn't exactly appealing.
So we're seeing a rise in smaller-screen and lighter gaming laptops alongside this, where weight-saving is a premium demand (hence the smaller frame, thinner lids, fewer LEDs and rounded corners), turning them into 'laptop crossovers', to butcher a car analogy.
Of course, just like we still have off-road modified, three-ton Ford Rangers on the roads, you can still get RGB-festooned, blunt-assault-weapon gaming Godzillas from most of your favourite laptop makers. The ROG Strix still looks like it was designed by a 10-year-old whose favourite film is Pacific Rim, The Predator Helios Neo looks every bit as intimidating as its 2023 predecessor, and the big Alienwares are still very much big Alienwares, ready for syncing their RGB setup with your external gaming monitor, mouse, keyboard, LED wall decal, your dog's smart collar and the garden Christmas lighting. While mulching every creative task into fine dust, obviously (but maybe causing a few looks from your company's senior leadership team)...
