Initial Impressions of the $499 Walmart 4050 HP Victus

Pros:

  • At $499 (Ongoing Black Friday Deal in the US), this is the lowest-priced RTX 4000-series laptop available.

  • Comes with 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR4 3200MHz RAM, which is better than the typical 8GB found in other entry-level laptops.

  • Storage was relatively easy to upgrade. Support for Gen 3 and Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD.

  • RAM is also easily accessible if you want to upgrade.

  • Build quality feels decent, though there’s a bit of give when pressing on the lid while it’s closed.

  • Sturdy hinge with minimal wobble.

  • Speakers are acceptable, volume is loud enough for me. Not very much bass though.

  • Keyboard and trackpad are OK, not amazing, but decent for a $500 laptop.

Cons:

  • The display isn’t very bright (likely around 250 nits), but side by side with my 500 nit laptop, it doesn’t look much dimmer.

  • Only 55% sRGB, so colors aren’t very accurate, making it unsuitable for professional work that requires precise color representation.

  • There’s a constant low fan noise, even when totally idle. As another commenter pointed out, there is a BIOS setting to disable them from being always on. Disabling that option keeps the fans off until active cooling is needed, such as when gaming.

  • Only the most basic fan customization via Omen Gaming Hub, though it doesn’t get particularly loud during benchmarks. No way to set a totally custom curve, just a few presets (ECO, Quiet, Default, Performance) with a separate toggle for Auto or Max fan speed. It’s a lot quieter than my Zephyrus, even on max.

  • Battery life during setup, while download/installing various updates and programs, was around 3 hours. After further testing and ensuring all unnecessary background apps and processes were closed, a full hour of idle time at max brightness drained 20%, suggesting 5-6 hours of battery life in that scenario. I also tested playing a 1080p YouTube video for 30 minutes and it drained 11%, indicating around 4-5 hours of video playback.

Cyberpunk 2077 In-Game Benchmark Results:

  • High Preset 1080p Native: 64 fps average (85 max, 44 min)

  • High Preset 1080p DLSS Quality: 82 fps average (115 max, 46 min)

  • High Preset 1080p DLSS Quality with Frame Generation: 120 fps average (153 max, 47 min)

I did not test anything else, but for eSports titles, you can likely expect well over 100 fps to make full use of the 144Hz display.

Overall, I think it’s a great entry-level option for an RTX 4000-series laptop. The display’s limitations can be mitigated with an external monitor.

More Complete Tech Specs @ HP

realtalk, 60 fps on cyberpunk high settings 1080p is awesome for a $500 laptop. like i think this sub sometimes overdoes it on “future proofing” and if 50series is a waste of money. this entry level laptop seems well worth it as a first computer for a young gamer or something

Nice break down, what I think is best about it despite the shortcomings, is before that deal the best choice was RTX 3050 graphics - still with the same shortcomings such as meh screen. At least now you get more perf per dollar.

@Noel
Do you think you can do a dGPU gaming performance comparison between 13900H/14900HX vs Meteor Lake?

Thanks for the write-up!

We rare get these nowadays and it’s always great to see more in-depth look, however brief than just specs listings all the time.

This does open my options a bit more as someone from a third world country, as this is leagues cheaper than a Legion, even if I do have to upgrade the ram myself down the line (they cheapest option here is one with a 1x8gb stick for around 50,000 pesos or around 950 USD)

Really my only letdown here are the ports and the battery.

I just barely got one of these as a Christmas gift for my younger brother, after it was sold out nearly everywhere. I had to drive 90min for the nearest available one (delivery was not an option unless it costed $700+).

Glad to see from the perspective of more than one person that the quality surpasses the price tag, as someone who for obvious reasons can’t verify myself. Even with a mediocre screen, that’s easily mitigated with an external monitor. $500 for a brand new decent gaming laptop is super rare.

@Van
Same here! My lil bro is going to love this thing (:

Laptop

Cyberpunk 2077 High 1080p Native

Cyberpunk 2077 High 1080p DLSS Quality + Frame Gen

It’s a good deal for $500. Almost all the negatives disappear when using an external monitor and k/m.

I’m a little surprised and happy to hear that these have 16GB of dual-channel RAM. Most entry level gaming laptops only offer single-channel RAM.

Personally, I don’t mind the base screen on most of these Victus 15s. It’s not standout by any means, but it’s usable and, more importantly for me, it doesn’t ghost nearly as badly as some other panels in the segment, like the Lenovo LOQ’s 1080p 144Hz panel.

@Blair
Yeah, honestly if I didn’t have my other laptop here to compare, I wouldn’t think anything is wrong with the colors. I pulled up some random nature vid on youtube and I thought it looked pretty good.

Hey what did you do to get your battery up to 4 hours? I just got this laptop yesterday and I can only get 2 and a half

Shawn said:
Hey what did you do to get your battery up to 4 hours? I just got this laptop yesterday and I can only get 2 and a half

Went ahead and retested for about 90 mins. A full hour of idle max brightness drained the battery 20% and then I threw up a yt video for 30 mins and it only drained another 11%. Pretty light work all things considered. If you’re getting 2.5 still, maybe check System → Power & Battery → Battery Usage, and see if there’s something you can identify that may be draining it quickly.

@Vega
Interesting… Have you touched Nvidia GeForce experience at all or update your GPU drivers at all?

Shawn said:
@Vega
Interesting… Have you touched Nvidia GeForce experience at all or update your GPU drivers at all?

As far as I am aware, all my drivers are updated. In GeForce experience, the only thing I changed was that I set it to use integrated graphics only.

Shawn said:
Hey what did you do to get your battery up to 4 hours? I just got this laptop yesterday and I can only get 2 and a half

One more note, I also set the fans to ECO mode in the BIOS to keep it quieter and probably help conserve power.