HP, Alienware race to launch 240Hz gaming laptops

HP and Dell subsidiary Alienware have announced a race to become the first company to release a gaming laptop featuring a Full HD display with a 240Hz refresh rate - and it's looking like Alienware will pip its rival to the post.

Announced during the Consumer Electronics Show 2019 (CES 2019), the HP Omen 15 upgrades the company's existing Omen family of gaming laptops with a new 15.6" Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) display panel. While based on twisted nematic (TN) liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology, rather than the higher-quality in-plane switching (IPS), HP has a reason behind its decision: It has allowed it to drive the display at 240Hz, up from the 60Hz refresh rate of its IPS-based equivalent.

To be the first company to release a 240Hz refresh rate gaming laptop would have been impressive, but shortly after HP had announced that the device would be on shelves in July 2019 - with the 60Hz IPS version arriving in February - Dell's gaming-focused subsidiary Alienware announced its own m15 240Hz 15" gaming laptop, to hit shelves in March and thus pip its rival to the post.

Neither company has shared pricing information for the 240Hz laptops, but initial specifications point to the HP coming at the top end with an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 128GB SSD and 1TB hard drive, and Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2070 GPU with Max-Q design and 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM. Alienware's equivalent, meanwhile, will top out at an as-yet unspecified Intel Core i9 processor, 32GB of RAM, and the higher-end Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU.

The Alienware m15 is due to launch in March 2019, with the HP Omen 15 following in July. Dell has also announced it will be launching an OLED version of the Alienware m15, but without the same high-end refresh rate.