HP Omen X 2S is the world's first dual-screen gaming laptop

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Why settle for one screen?

Image credit: HP (Image credit: HP)

HP has announced the Omen X 2S, which the company claims is the first dual-screen gaming laptop in the world.

As well as having a standard 15-inch display, the Omen X 2S also features a six-inch 1080p touchscreen above the keyboard.

So, while you can't use it to expand your field of view when playing games –like adding an additional monitor would do – this second screen allows you to multitask with ease.

So, you can play YouTube videos on the screen, use it to browse Spotify, message friends on WhatsApp or keep up with Twitch and Discord chats.

It can also be used to mirror parts of the main screen, so you could copy the onscreen map in a racing game and display it on the dedicated screen.

According to HP, "82 percent of people use their mobile phones for messaging during gaming sessions, 61 percent listen to music, and 49 percent watch game related live streams, video content and browse websites," and the HP Omen X 2S aims to bring that functionality to an easy-viewed screen above the keyboard, so players aren't distracted by their smartphones.

Gaming powerhouse

The HP Omen X 2S isn't just the world's first dual-screen gaming laptop – it's also the first gaming laptop that comes with an applied liquid metal compound to the thermal system from Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut, which according to HP results in "phenomenal heat dissipation at 10 times the thermal conductivity of silicon thermal grease."

This means HP is able to cram powerful components into a laptop that is just 20mm thin. By keeping the laptop cool, gaming performance is increased – with HP claiming there's a 28% increase in frames per second in Apex Legends, compared to traditional laptop cooling.

It also features an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics card, a 9th generation Intel Core processor with eight cores and up to 32GB of RAM.

The HP Omen X 2S laptop will go on sale in July for £2,499.99 (around $3,200, AU$4,600) for the version with an Intel Core i7-9750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and RTX 2070 graphics card.

There's also a version with an Intel Core i9-9880H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD and Nvidia RTX 2080 for £3499.99 (around $4,500, AU$6,000).

We'll hopefully be getting in the HP Omen X 2S to find out for ourselves with the second display is worth that high price.

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Matt Hanson
Matt Hanson
Managing Editor, Core Tech

Matt is TechRadar's Managing Editor for Core Tech, looking after computing and mobile technology. Having written for a number of publications such as PC Plus, PC Format, T3 and Linux Format, there's no aspect of technology that Matt isn't passionate about, especially computing and PC gaming. He’s personally reviewed and used most of the laptops in our best laptops guide - and since joining TechRadar in 2014, he's reviewed over 250 laptops and computing accessories personally.