HP Omen X 2S 15 review – Core i9 and two screens in a super tight chassis

Okay, we’ve seen a super thin gaming device. We’ve seen a super light gaming laptop, we have even seen a second display embedded underneath the touchpad (ASUS ZenBook Pro 14 UX480), however, we were yet to see a laptop like this one. It houses a Nintendo 3DS-like display in its base, so you can use it for an infinite amount of purposes. HP says that most of the gamers are either on social media or are watching game-related streams on their smartphones during gameplay, so they decided – why don’t we take away the strain of these poor handheld devices.

Not only that but they state they use a slightly different method to increase thermal efficiency than other manufacturers – liquid metal out of the box! This is certainly a risky first as we imagine they have gone through millions of dollars perfecting the automatization of this process in order to reduce the faulty units. The result? Core i9-9880HK and RTX 2080 Max-Q in a 20mm chassis. What more can you possibly need?

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-omen-x-2s/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP Omen X 2S Tabelle der technischen Daten

Acer
Not available
Anzeige
15.6”, 4K UHD (3840 x 2160), IPS
HDD/SSD
1024GB SSD NVMe
M.2 Slot
2x 2280 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 Siehe Foto
RAM
32GB DDR4, 2666 MHz
Abmessungen
362 x 262 x 20 mm (14.25" x 10.31" x 0.79")
Gewicht
2.35 kg (5.2 lbs)
Ports und Konnektivität
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 3x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI 2.0
  • Displayport mini
  • Ethernet LAN Gigabit Ethernet
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2x2)
  • Bluetooth 5.0
  • Audio-Buchse TRRS audio jack
Merkmale
  • Fingerabdruckleser
  • Web-Kamera HP Wide Vision Full HD
  • Beleuchtete Tastatur RGB
  • Mikrofon
  • Lautsprecher Bang & Olufsen
  • Optisches Laufwerk

What’s in the box?

This laptop comes in a pretty box, that is very well organized on the inside. In fact, it kind of resembles a smartphone unboxing experience. Upon opening the box, you are greeted by the laptop, carefully hidden in a protective sleeve. Underneath it, you’ll find the charging brick and when you pick up the plastic stand, you’ll see the power cable.


Design and construction

Given the hardware inside, we are speaking of a very tight package here. It is made out of aluminum and has a 20mm profile, while the weight is 2.35 kg. Well, certainly we’ve seen thinner, and definitely lighter gaming laptops, but they are not nearly as bold as the one here. We found the build quality to be extremely robust.

Additionally, you can easily open the lid with a single hand and here is where the device actually stands out. Firstly, we are happy to finally see an adequate Full HD camera on top of that display and second just take a look at the base.

In fact, this design looks a lot like what we’ve seen on Acer Predator Triton 700 and Triton 900, as well as the Zephyrus series from ASUS. They have pulled the keyboard towards the user and changed the place of the touchpad. However, here it is not done in order to show off heat pipes or fans. Quite the opposite actually – the free space is meant for the second 6-inch screen. In addition to that, this screen has a touchscreen and works as an “extended display” in Windows. By default, HP’s Omen Command Center should open directly on that screen, instead of your main one.

Let’s talk a little about that custom keyboard. First, you can notice a total of four rubber legs, designed to hold the lid when the laptop is in a closed position. Then there is the entire keyboard, which looks normal until you reach the place where the NumPad keys sit usually. However, here, you can find the touchpad, and the custom controls for the second display. Left to right they act to – show the numeric section on the display, turn the second screen on/off, adjust the brightness of the second display and finally, toggle the content to show on the main or on the secondary screen.

By the way, we forgot to mention that the keyboard has a designated click to it, but feels a little on the mushy side. However, we are happy with the travel of the keys and we have to note that it is going to stay even under heavy load on the laptop.

Looking through the bottom plate you can clearly see the fans and the heat pipes of the laptop – this means there is a good breathing room for the cooling, while the hot air comes from the back and from the right side.

Ports

Its I/O starts with the charging plug, an HDMI 2.0 connector, two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports, an RJ-45 connector and an Audio jack on the left, while on the right there is another USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port paired with a Thunderbolt 3 Type-C connector.


Disassembly and upgrade options

At first, it looks like it is extremely easy to dig inside this laptop. There are only 6 T5 screws – no hidden screws, no rubber covers – nothing. However, as soon as you start prying up the plate, you’ll realize it is not that easy at all. If we can give you any hints – use a suction cup to lift the middle of the bottom plate and stick your pry tool (no pun intended) into the front of the plate. Make sure your tool is strong enough, by the way.

So after we are inside we see a very substantial part of the chassis is taken by the cooling system. There are two rather big plates covering each of the chips. Additionally, there are a total of four heat pipes – one is shared between the CPU and the GPU, two are allocated only to the graphics card and one only for the processor, respectively. Not only that but HP state they use Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal to enhance thermal conductivity.

On the memory side, there are two RAM DIMMs, that support the whopping 3200 MHz of DDR4 memory with a total capacity of 64GB. Storage-wise there is no SATA connector to be found, however, you can take advantage of two M.2 PCIe slots that support RAID 0 and Optane H10.

On the bottom side of the machine, you can see a 73Wh battery pack.


Display quality

HP Omen X 2S 15’s main display has a UHD panel. It bears a model number AUO30EB and has a diagonal of 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution 3840 x 2160 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 282 ppi, and a pitch of 0.09 х 0.09 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 30cm (12″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

Its secondary display has a Full HD panel, model number ANX7530 and has a diagonal of 6″ (15.2 cm), and the resolution 1920 x 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 367 ppi, and a pitch of 0.07 х 0.07 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 23cm (9″)

Either of them has excellent viewing angles. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

The measured maximum brightness of 324 nits in the middle of the screen and 324 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of just 4%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 8660K – significantly colder than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is even warmer – 8940K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work. The contrast ratio is astonishing – 1440:1 (1240:1 after profiling).

The maximum brightness we measured on the second display is very high – 517 nits.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows HP Omen X 2S 15’s main display color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 96% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

What we saw from the secondary screen was even more impressive – it completely covers the colors of sRGB and even spreads out to the DCI-P3 gamut.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of HP Omen X 2S 15 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 26 ms – definitely not the fastest on the market.


PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

HP Omen X 2S 15 doesn’t use PWM to adjust the brightness of its main display at any point. This makes it comfortable for long work periods, without being extra harsh on the eyes.

Moving to the smaller screen – we saw flickers with extremely high frequency – 107 kHz, which makes it comfortable as well.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

HP Omen X 2S 15’s UHD main screen produces a super crisp image with good contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles and covers 96% of sRGB. Additionally, when you apply the appropriate profile, the colors get in the web design standards. On the other side, gamers won’t be very happy with the 60 Hz nature of the screen.

As far as the second display, it has an incredibly wide color coverage and maximum brightness. It can be super useful as well, as you will never miss a goal, like in the Heineken commercial.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP Omen X 2S 15 configurations with 15.6″ UHD IPS AUO AUO30EB.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Mit dem Kauf von LaptopMedia-Produkten erhalten Sie nicht nur effiziente und gesundheitsschonende Profile, sondern Sie unterstützen auch die Entwicklung unserer Labore, in denen wir Geräte testen, um möglichst objektive Testberichte zu erstellen.

Büroarbeit

Office Work sollte vor allem von Benutzern verwendet werden, die die meiste Zeit mit dem Betrachten von Textstücken, Tabellen oder einfach nur mit dem Surfen verbringen. Dieses Profil zielt darauf ab, durch Beibehaltung einer flachen Gammakurve (2,20), einer nativen Farbtemperatur und wahrnehmungsgerechten Farben eine bessere Deutlichkeit und Klarheit zu liefern.

Design und Spiele

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Gesundheitsschutz

Health-Guard eliminiert die schädliche Pulsweitenmodulation (PWM) und reduziert das negative blaue Licht, das unsere Augen und unseren Körper beeinflusst. Da er für jedes Panel maßgeschneidert ist, schafft er es, die Farben wahrnehmungsgetreu zu halten. Health-Guard simuliert Papier, so dass der Druck auf die Augen stark reduziert wird.

Erhalten Sie alle 3 Profile mit 33% Rabatt


Sound

HP Omen X 2S 15’s sound has a rather good quality and average volume. It’s low, mid and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

As soon as the HP Omen X 2S 15 hits the market we are going to supply you with information about its drivers.

CPU options

We expect the laptop to be sold with the hexa-core Core i7-9750H and the octa-core Core i9-98800H. Certainly, the Core i9 is going to be a huge burden to cool, but we shall see if the liquid metal thermal paste is going to do its magic.


GPU options

GPU-wise, currently there is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q that shines. However, there should be some variants with the RTX 2070 Max-Q and possibly the RTX 2060, which is the cheapest from the bunch but clearly shouldn’t be underestimated.


Gaming tests

Far Cry 5Full HD, Normal (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
Average81 fps84 fps72 fps

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average115 fps71 fps47 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon WildlandsFull HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
Average87 fps77 fps48 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Highest (Check settings)
Average84 fps80 fps56 fps

Temperatures and comfort

We are going to update the temperature section with in-depth results as soon as possible…

Verdict

We had our hands on a clearly revolutionizing device. Of course, it has its pros and cons, as every laptop out there, but we felt that it has more of the first. Its well-built chassis and interestingly designed base will certainly be noticed by gamers. However, if you are a hardcore gamer we would recommend getting the 144Hz Full HD display option, as the 4K panel works at only 60Hz.

This is not to say that the 4K option is not appetizing. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you are more into web design, architecture and other kinds of creativity, this will be a very good laptop for your needs. Its display covers 96% of sRGB and thanks to the Gaming and Web design profile, the color accuracy falls below a dE 2.0, which is basically the standard for web design.

Additionally, there is the secondary display, that will inevitably help you with the multitasking. Despite the fact it is still early on drivers and we had one or two mishaps with it, we are certain that when it hits the market every issue is going to be resolved. At least the keyboard is relatively comfortable both for gaming and for typing and has a per-key RGB backlight.

Another possible issue we found is that it is extremely difficult to remove the bottom plate. You need the help of a suction cup and a very strong plastic tool in order to dig inside and start prying it up – nothing we’ve seen so far on a laptop. Otherwise, there are the two M.2 PCIe slots, that support RAID 0 and Optane H10. Additionally, this laptop can be configured with up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory that is overclockable up to 3200MHz.

If we have to put this laptop side by side a different device, we would probably do it against the MSI GS65 Stealth or probably the Acer Predator Triton 500 – both very good thin and light gaming laptops. However, they are flawed by a common mishap – loudness and heat. Obviously, the Omen X 2S 15 is a bit more expensive, but you have to decide for yourself if you need the second screen at all, or not.

Pros

  • Excellent build quality
  • Magnificent 4K display option with 96% sRGB coverage, decent brightness and accurate colors (AUO30EB)
  • Doesn’t use harmful PWM (AUO30EB)
  • Very bright (and useful) second display
  • Supports RAID 0 and Optane H10
  • Liquid metal thermal compound
  • Up to 3200 MHz, DDR4 RAM overclock


Cons

  • Not yet finalized software that has some issues
  • Hard to pry the bottom plate

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-omen-x-2s/

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R7ex Ed
R7ex Ed
4 Jahre vor

Should follow Asus’s Pro Duo’s fully-stretched-out secondary display. Otherwise, it’s just wasted space.

Dan
Dan
4 Jahre vor

Hello, I’m strongly considering getting this thing. However, on HP’s site, it says RAM is upgradable to 32gb. This would be a dealbreaker for me if I couldn’t upgrade to 64gb, as you mention I can.

Are you sure about that upgrade??

pls respond 😛

Source for the 32gb claim: hp(dot)com/us/en/gaming/laptops/omen-x-2s.html

josser987
josser987
3 Jahre vor
Antwort an  Dan

Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | hp – compaq | hp omen x | HP OMEN X 2S 15-dg0005nq | Crucial.com
I have searched for this information myself and have found that the specs are mentioned as having dual 32 GB DDR4 capable RAM, which i believe means a total of 64GB as sold on the link above. Please correct me if i’m wrong.