HP Omen Photon – Review 2020
Most ambidextrous gaming mice tend to be pretty plain. It’s as if most companies think the very act of making a mouse that left-handed people can use is a novelty unto itself. HP, under its Omen gaming brand, has finally made a sufficiently feature-rich mouse for all users, not just righties. Its wireless flagship, the $129.99 Omen Photon, employs a modular design that allows players to easily swap out magnetic fixtures that create a right- or left-handed grip, including side buttons and a thumb wing. Though this still isn’t quite the same as making a high-end left-handed mouse, it’s a huge win for left-handed players looking for a high-quality mouse with the bells and whistles normally reserved for right-handers.
One Wing or Two?
The Omen Photon looks a little odd. Measuring 1.75 by 2.3 by 5.1 inches, its base is tall and thin. When you add a thumb wing, the mouse gets a little wider (2.8 inches across), but the portion that you grip remains unchanged, and that’s what’s most important. The design, smooth black panels ascending off a textured black body, looks very spacey, but in a way that also feels pretty conventional for gaming hardware.
Because it’s ambidextrous, the base does not create a supportive shape for your hand: The base panel curves across the top from right to left and sharply down from front to back.
The shape leaves the base of your hand hanging off the back of the mouse, though it’s tall enough to keep your hand from dragging behind it as you move. Unfortunately, a lackluster shape is generally the price you have to pay for ambidextrous functionality. There are a couple of exceptions, such as the Razer Viper, but even they are more comfortable than supportive.
The Photon functions as a nine-button mouse, though it technically has 11 if you count both the left- and right-handed options. There are seven inputs on top: the two main clicks, a scroll wheel that clicks when you push it down or tilt it in either direction, and two DPI-cycling buttons in the center column. You have the option to choose whether you want side macros on the left or right side—or on both sides, like a conventional ambidextrous mouse.
The Photon’s click panels feature opto-mechanical switches, just like its HP Omen Sequencer keyboard teammate. Optical mouse switches, like optical keyboard switches, use a laser to actuate and send the signal from the mouse to your PC. Vendors claim that optical switches make for faster actuation and more accurate detection when you’re clicking rapidly. (HP says each click should go through in 0.2 millisecond.)
As I’ve said in other reviews, the real-world difference is imperceptible without special equipment, so the best thing I can say is that the panels feel like they should. It’s worth noting that the Omen Photon’s switches are rated to last through 50 million clicks, which is standard for a high-end mechanical mouse but low for hyper-durable opto-mechanical gear.
The sensor, on the other hand, is quite impressive. The Photon features a PixArt PAW3335 that tracks at up to 16,000dpi, which has become the new standard for top-of-the-line mice. In general, I found the tracking to be fast and accurate in games like Doom (2016) and Teamfight Tactics.
Optical switches, though, have nothing on the Photon’s true secret weapon: magnets! Rather than simply making the left and right sides of the mouse identical, HP added magnets to the sides so you can swap out the side buttons for a non-clickable panel. You can also remove a panel directly under the buttons and replace it with a thumb (or pinky) support wing. There are extra pieces in the box so you can choose to put buttons on one or both sides, and use the mouse with one, two, or zero wings on the sides.
While adding customizable components clearly adds a lot of useful functionality, I suspect that the biggest impact of the mouse’s modular design may be psychological. For once, users don’t need to look at their mouse and see a compromise. If you put the macro buttons and/or wing on the right side, the Photon is a left-handed mouse, plain and simple. There are very few true left-handed options out there, and I can see that being very meaningful for some players. (Sinister players? —Ed.)
Little Bits
As a rightie, I opted for the conventional right-handed buttons and thumb wing, which gives the HP an FPS mouse feel similar to Razer’s Basilisk series. The thumb wing is smooth and therefore a little slippery, but it’s the right shape and size to keep your hand perched atop the mouse without dragging or straining. Adding a second wing for your pinky doesn’t add much support, but the wider frame makes the mouse less maneuverable. Plus, at 4.8 ounces with just a thumb wing, adding the pinky support makes the Photon pretty hefty.
The magnetic components do come with one small downside: They’re small pieces of plastic that are very easy to lose. There’s no storage in the mouse, and no container that comes with it. Realistically, many wireless mice have this problem, as few companies add a storage slot for their matching wireless dongles, but that’s only one piece to lose while the Photon comes with 11 (four side buttons, one button cover, two support wings, two non-wing side panels, the USB dongle, and a USB to micro USB adapter). Do yourself a favor and make sure you have a plastic bag handy when you open the mouse for the first time.
The Photon’s wireless-specific features are very good, though not quite best-in-class. Reporting in at 1,000Hz polling, there’s no noticeable lag or issues that make it any less viable than another standard mouse. It gets decent battery life, a reported 50 hours with RGB lighting on and 72 hours with the lighting off. I found it took about five days before I needed to charge, which suggests those numbers may be a little aspirational. Luckily, the Photon supports Qi wireless charging, so it’s easy to top off the battery.
By Your Command
HP’s Omen gaming peripherals come with a configuration app called Omen Command Center. The program will let you change the Photon’s lighting, remap all 11 buttons, and reset its DPI presets. All these features are clear and easy to understand. The app also looks very polished, which I think makes it more pleasant to use.
And yet Omen Command Center is one of the lesser configuration apps from a major manufacturer. It has two major problems that hold the Photon and other Omen products back.
First, Command Center’s approach to configuration profiles is less than stellar. You can create as many as you please, but each one must be synced with a specific game or other app when you make it. (There’s no real benefit to this beyond organization. Your configuration does not automatically change to match a custom profile.) There’s also no onboard profile storage, so you cannot bring your profiles with you—a fairly common feature, so it’s strange to see it missing.
As I’ve written in other HP Omen reviews, Command Center is also very aggressive about trying to collect your personal information. You must create and log into an HP profile to save custom configuration profiles, so users are forced to give away some data—at a minimum, your name and email—in exchange for access to the product’s full range of features.
In addition to the configuration functionality, Omen Command Center offers a small suite of other features. Among them is a Rewards app that will grant you access to third-party sweepstakes in exchange for hitting gameplay milestones. To access Rewards, you must give HP access to your PC usage data and your location. It’s a cheap attempt to grab users’ personal data, and not a flaw you need to worry about with other configuration apps.
The Mods Make the Mouse
Despite HP’s problematic software, the Omen Photon is still worth considering, especially if you’re in the market for an ambidextrous mouse. Though other mice have modular designs, this is the only one I know that uses them to make a mouse equally viable for left- and right-handed players.
Wireless ambidextrous mice are still relatively rare, and this one has a lot of great features, including tilting scroll wheel inputs and Qi wireless charging. The Omen Photon isn’t cheap, but it brings a lot of functionality to users who don’t always get a robust range of options.