Remember Razer’s concept laptop with three displays? Yeah, that was awesome. Unfortunately, it’s also unlikely to ever become a consumer product. Truth is, if you want a multi-screen experience on the road, a portable secondary display will always be your best bet. Now, if you only want a second screen for very specific uses, though, the dual-screen HP Omen X 2S might offer enough of a solution.
No, it’s not a full-fledged dual-screen laptop that lets you do the same things as a dual-screen setup at home. Instead, the gaming laptop adds a secondary 6-inch screen, so it feels more like using a laptop and a small tablet to go along with it.
The HP Omen X 2S puts the keyboard at the bottom half of the base enclosure, in line with the trackpad to its right, with the second display situated on the upper half for easy visibility. While the 6-inch size makes it impractical for showing full games, desktop-layout web pages, and many types of content (despite having 1080p resolution), the secondary display should make a suitable solution for showing others, such as Discord, Twitch chat, and Spotify while something else occupies the main display, saving you from the trouble of having to alt-tab to keep up with your multi-tasking activities. According to HP, the second screen should make a viable alternative to gamers who use a mobile phone for messaging, making it easier to stay in touch without switching to a different device.
Aside from chat, messaging, and AV playback, the small display can also be used to zoom in on a particular section of the main screen, allowing you to use it to better see across a distance, keep tabs on the mini-map, or monitor stats more closely during games. Of course, you can also use it to show individual tabs and menus for specific applications, making it potentially useful for much more than gaming.
The HP Omen X 2S has a 15.6-inch display, with two available configurations, namely 1080p at 144Hz and 4K at 60Hz. At the top end, the laptop can be fitted with a 9th-gen Intel Core i9, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics, up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and up to two 1TB SSDs. Yep, this is one powerful gaming computer. Other specs include a 1080p webcam, a dual-array mic, built-in stereo speakers with B&O audio, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, and a healthy selection of ports (three USB Type-A, one Thunderbolt 3, an RJ-45, a 3.5mm slot, an AC smart pin, HDMI 2.0B, and gigabit Ethernet.
As is the norm with most laptops today, it comes in sleek dimensions, with the metal chassis measuring 14.3 x 10.3 x 0.78 inches (w x d x h), leaving the whole thing with a weight just of 5.2 pounds. It comes with Omen’s Tempest Cooling Technology, which uses a 12-volt fan module, a three-phase motor, and a fluid dynamic bearings to produce five-way airflow to keep the laptop cool in the heat of the action.
The HP Omen X 2S is slated to come out in June, priced at $2,099.99.