HP’s dual-screen OMEN X 2S gaming laptop looks like a super-sized Nintendo DS
HP’s new OMEN X 2S laptop is apparently a ‘world first’ – a gaming laptop with two displays, which is intended to let you ping messages to mates on Discord while playing, instead of having to rely on your phone for chat purposes.
While it’s not the first laptop to boast a second screen – Asus ZenBook Pro 14 and Pro 15, anyone? – and nor is the multi-screen gaming laptop concept in itself exactly new, the HP OMEN X 2Ss are certainly attention-grabbing, and full of promise.
The main display (resolution options currently unknown) will measure 15-inches across the diagonal, while the secondary 1080p Full HD screen measures six inches – a little bigger than the ZenBook Pro’s 5.5-inch ScreenPads, then.
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A really interesting-sounding feature is a screen mirroring tool that’ll see you able to cut and magnify portions of the main screen – like maps and inventories – which would undoubtedly be useful for some titles. No titles or developers have been tipped to support this as of yet, however.
Packing 9th Gen Intel Core i7 and Core i9 processors (the Core i7-9750H and Core i9-9880H, to be exact), and 20 Series Nvidia graphics cards (RTX 2070 and RTX 2080), both OMEN X 2S models feature plenty of power under the hood.
Little else in the way of specs have been confirmed, but HP has announced indicative UK prices.
An OMEN X 2S with the Core i7 processor option coming with a 512GB SSD, 16GB of RAM and an RTX 2070 will likely set you back £2499.99, while the Core i9 version coming with a 1TB SSD, 32GB of RAM and an RTX 2080 would cost you something in the region of £3499.99 – that’s about par for the course for some high-end gaming laptops these days, but none of which feature a second screen.
Such demanding specs will no doubt place a strain on the HP OMEN X 2S’s battery, throw in the additional strain of a second touchscreen and we’re not expecting performance here to be great – again, we refer to you our review of the ZenBook Pro 14.
That said, HP is promising that the 20mm-thin chassis will be kept nice and cool, thanks to Thermal Grizzly’s Conductonaut liquid metal coolant being applied to the thermal system – which HP says offers 10 times the heat dissipation compared to silicon thermal grease.
The HP OMEN X 2S range is due to go on sale in the UK at some point in July this year.