HP Omen

@MissyMarieLove  The tech section is a perfectly reasonable place to post a question about a new laptop, and it's where most of these questions land; game info would also be fine.

I've heard horror stories about Omens too, but most of those stories are at least a couple of years old.  These days, the brand seems fine, not great and not terrible, with maybe the odd lemon here and there.  In other words, it's just another brand, one that's usually a bit overpriced but can be perfectly reasonable during sales.

This particular Omen looks like a good laptop, with a graphics card that may or may not be able to run all current and future Sims 4 packs together on ultra settings.  Since we don't know what those future packs will look like, or how demanding they'll be, we can only guess, and the Nvidia 1650 is kind of on the border.  The processor is quite powerful, in fact overkill for Sims 4, not that that's a bad thing.  But the lower tier i5-9300H and AMD Ryzen models are also more than fine for the game, and they should always be, barring some very strange developments.  So between the two components, it's best to buy the fastest graphics card you can reasonably afford.

If you were comfortable with the Nvidia 1650, you could spend significantly less on an HP.  This one is $680 before tax and has a 1650, but it has twice the storage, a weaker Ryzen 7 3750H processor, and 16 GB memory:

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-pavilion-gaming-laptop-15z-7nh35av-1

This laptop can be customized too.  Upgrading to a slightly weaker processor (by about 5% from the default configuration) and a much faster graphics card would cost $720; getting the same CPU and the faster GPU would cost $840.  So while the processor would still be significantly weaker than the one in the Omen, all the other specs would be clearly better.  In particular, the Nvidia 1660 ti offered in the upgrades is over 30% faster than the 1650, and while that's overkill for Sims 4, you might want that extra margin.

If you really do want the stronger CPU and are fine with the Omen's graphics card, this MSI is$884 and comes with a $100 rebate.  It has the same specs as the Omen except for a hard drive that's twice the size.

https://www.newegg.com/black-msi-gl-series-gl65-9sc-003-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834155298?Item=N82E16834155298

There aren't many options around your preferred price range with both the strong processor and the faster graphics card.  This MSI is $950 and comes with a $150 rebate.  Other than the faster graphics card, its specs are the same as the Omen.

https://www.newegg.com/black-msi-gl-series-gl73-9sd-409-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834155241?Item=N82E16834155241

If you really want an HP, this one has the same specs as the MSI immediately above.  It's $980, but the website will apparently pay the salex tax if you sign up for its card.  (I wouldn't normally, but that's a lot of money to save.)

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1501636-REG/hp_6qx96ua_aba_pavilion_i7_9750h_8gb_256gb_ssd_gtx_1660ti_w10h_15_6.html

All other options with an i7-9750H and a 1660 ti that I saw are $1,000 and up.