I have been searching far and wide for a budget gaming laptop that I could recommend for shoppers looking in the sub-$800 range. I was hoping and praying that the HP Victus 15 — which has been one of Best Buy’s most popular products this year — would be it.
HP Victus 15 review: an $800 laptop that can game
My takeaway, having been gaming on the Victus ($799.99 for my Core i5/8GB/512GB/GTX 1650 model) for the past few days, is that it’s not the slam dunk I hoped it would be. The low price is quite attractive (and will be even more so if you can find it on sale), but the dated GPU inside our test model is not delivering the frame rates that I’d hope to see from a modern gaming laptop. That doesn’t mean that the Victus is a unilaterally bad purchase — just that, as is often the case with budget gaming laptops, you should go in with realistic expectations.
The Victus has an unobtrusive design. My review unit is almost entirely black with modest backlighting and a simple “V” on the lid (which, as you may notice in the photos, picked up a mess of fingerprints quickly). It’s more of a “could bring to the office” device than a “chaotic mess of RGB that will not leave the basement” device. At 5.06 pounds, it’s fairly portable (for a gaming