HP Omen X 2S Review: A Sleek, Dual-Screen RTX Gaming Beast

Our Battery Life testing is performed using a custom 1080p HD video loop test we developed here at HotHardware. We conduct the tests with Windows 10 Quiet Hours enabled and the display's brightness calibrated as close to 115 lux on our meters as possible. Brightness calibration is vital to ensure a fair comparison with other notebooks in our group, since it greatly affects battery life.

However, every notebook has different brightness ranges, so it’s critical to rely on a light meter, instead of a Windows brightness setting percentage, in order to level the playing field on brightness output. The HP Omen X 2S required less than 50-percent brightness to achieve 115 lux, which is a good early indicator. We turned off its second screen for the battery life tests.


You might be able to finish a single movie on the HP Omen X 2S, if its under 2 hours. However, don’t expect any movie marathons when away from an outlet. We’re not surprised though, since gaming notebooks typically place minimal emphasis on battery life and much more on overall performance. 


We were curious how the second screen impacted battery life and reran the video loop test with the second screen set to the lowest brightness setting, which puts it close to our 115-lux target of the primary display. The HP Omen Command Center was left running to display the system temperatures during the test.

Strangely, having the second screen on resulted in slightly better battery life, which does't make much sense unless the minimal additional power draw pushes some voltage regulation circuitry into a more efficient zone. And, of course, there is also a small margin of error with a battery life benchmark with a real-world workload such as this. We reran the test to confirm our results though, and it always came out higher. Nevertheless, it’s only a three-minute difference.

Final Thoughts On The HP Omen X 2S

There’s a lot to like with the HP Omen X 2S – the excellent performance, a fast 144 Hz display, included DTS:X Ultra, comfortable keyboard and the stealthy and sleek design. Its an excellent gaming notebook that delivers the framerates and gaming smoothness you'd expect. However, the second screen is the headlining feature of the Omen X 2S and our opinion is that it is of limited benefit at this time. We can imagine, however, that some content creation users and gamers of different game genres might find some additional utility that we didn't in the second display.


We love the second display’s resolution, multi-touch capability, viewing angles and software features, but the flat placement and reflective glass panel detract from the user experience. Compared to the single-screen HP Omen 15t, you’re paying almost $500 extra for the second display, which is no small investment.

Overall, if you've got the budget, the HP Omen X 2S exudes style and backs it up with outstanding performance. HP engineers did a remarkable job cramming so much performance and dual displays into a chassis that's under an inch thin and weighs under 5.5lbs. There's also a lot of attention to the hidden details, like the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut thermal compound and SSD thermal pad, that we appreciate. Regardless of our opinion of the second screen implementation, this is an excellent gaming notebook that delivers on multiple fronts.