ACEMAGIC X1 “Intel Core i7-1255U” Laptop Review – World’s First Commercial Dual-Screen Laptop Needs A Bit More Work

ACEMAGIC has made quite the name for itself in just a few short years thanks to the unique designs that it offers in the mini PC segment. Its Mini PCs are based on both Intel and AMD processors but the company also has a few laptop entries that mostly aim at the business & mainstream consumer needs.

At Computex 2024, ACEMAGIC announced a brand new laptop and following its tradition of unique designs, the company implemented the world's first dual-screen design on a laptop. Dual screens on a laptop have been teased by various companies in the past.

Razer announced its project Valerie back in 2017 which is more famously remembered for how the only prototype in the world got stolen during its CES 2017 showcase. Valerie packed three screens & was more of a concept of future designs that never got made by the company. We have seen a range of companies offering portable secondary displays for laptops.

Currently, only ASUS offers a dual-screen design in its Zenbook Duo with two screens packed together in the laptop itself but you have to use a secondary portable keyboard to make use of that design. The screens themselves are packed vertically so it might not be practical for everyone. The GPD Duo Dual-OLED is another one of the upcoming laptops that should offer a similar design but it has a typical keyboard layout and the second screen is equipped with the other one using a hinge mechanism. This laptop will hit the retail shelves later this year. Lenovo also has a dual OLED design coming out soon which was shown at CES.

ACEMAGIC can be seen as the first official dual-screen laptop that doesn't require a portable keyboard that you have to carry around with you. It's a dual-screen laptop and that's that. So let's take a tour of what ACEMAGIC has to offer in its X1 laptop.

In terms of specifications, the ACEMAGIC X1 isn't going with extreme gaming hardware but rather a modest configuration that relies on the 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1255U CPU which is part of the Alder Lake-U family.

The Intel Core i7-1255U features a total of 10 cores which are arranged in 2 P-Cores and 8 E-Cores based on Golden Cove and Gracemont architectures, respectively. The chip has 12 threads, 12 MB of smart cache, and clocks at a base frequency of 3.50 GHz while boosting up to 4.70 GHz. The TDP is configured at 15W by default and can be set down to just 12W. The maximum turbo power is 55 watts.

There's no onboard discrete GPU and instead, the Intel Core i7-1255U's iGPU is used as the primary display driver. The iGPU features the Iris Xe graphics engine with 96 Execution units clocked at 1.25 GHz. This integrated graphics chip supports DX12.1, OpenGL 4.6, and OpenCL 3.0 & can run 4 displays at once with a maximum eDP resolution of 8K @ 60Hz or 4K @ 120Hz. The iGPU is a bit old for today's standards as Intel and AMD offer much faster iGPUs as a part of their latest CPU lineups but it should get the job done for the vast majority of users who won't be gaming on it and just need it for video playback.

Other specs for the ACEMAGIC X1 laptop include 16 GB DDR4-(2 x8 GB Dual-Channel) memory operating at 2666 MT/s. This isn't soldered and instead features a SO-DIMM design so users can completely upgrade it as they wish (supports up to 64 GB). Storage comes in the form of a single M.2 2280 SSD slot running at Gen 3.0 x2 speeds which houses a 1 TB NVMe device.

I/O on the ACEMAGIC X1 laptop includes two USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) ports with one providing display-out functionality, an HDMI 2.0 (4K @ 60Hz) output, and a third USB Type-C port which is used for charging. Wireless functionality includes WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 while the laptop comes loaded with Windows 11 though this is an unlicensed version as we weren't able to activate Windows 11 on our sample.

Acemagic X1 Laptop

Processor

Intel Core i7-1255U 10 cores 12 threads Processor Base Frequency: 3.50 GHz Max Turbo Frequency: 4.70 GHz

Graphics

Intel Iris Xe Graphics

Memory

16GB DDR4 dual-channel memory

Storage

M.2 NVMe 2280 PCle 3.0 x2 (1TB)

Wireless Connectivity

M.2 2230 WiFi 6 Support+BT5.2

Ports & Buttons

USB 3.0 (5Gbps) HDMI 2.0 (4K@60Hz) Type-C (5Gbps & Display Output) Type-C (Charging Only)

System

Windows 11

The ACEMAGIC X1 Laptop came in a very nice package with a black and gold color scheme that looks great. This is the inner package contained within an outer cardboard package that lists the configuration. The "ACEMAGIC" logo can be seen in the center.

The back of the package doesn't feature much so let's get into the box.

Within the box, you are first greeted with a large X1 logo and a quote "Your Work Partner" on the top case. There are two accessories within the package which include an X1 product instruction manual and an adapter.

The adapter is a standard affair rated at 65W (3.25A) and uses a USB Type-C interface to connect to the laptop.

Out of the package, we are met with a nice matte black color scheme on the X1 laptop that features a reflective "ACEMAGIC" logo. Despite packing two screens, the laptop doesn't weigh a lot & is less than 2kgs (4.27lbs). This is about as much as most standard 14" laptops weigh these days.

One thing that we want to point out is that the ACEMAGIC X1 is a 14" laptop design. It's designed to be a compact dual-screen design and it ticks all the boxes of a very portable design. Upon lifting the primary screen, you will see a fiber cloth on the keyboard while the screen is missing. That's due to the dual-screen design which shifts horizontally. Lifting the primary screen (or screens) was a bit of work since there's no lift bar implemented and you have to force it up by etching your fingers in the small opening between the lower body and the upper body of the laptop.

The ACEMAGIC X1 features two 14-inch IPS screens which feature a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a maximum refresh rate of 60Hz.

The two screens are locked together using a magnetic cover that resides on the right side of the panel and there's a very convenient side lift that lets you open up the second screen. A plastic resides in between the two screens which gives you an idea of how to open up the laptop and its dual-screen while ensuring you that the second screen can be folded 360 degrees to the back. Some users may be extra careful in the start like I was, worrying that I would end up breaking the second screen if I rotated it back but it's a very easy and sturdy design (for now).

Upon opening the secondary screen for the first time, you're left in awe. Seeing this design coming out of concept in an actual product is a major leap for laptops.

The keyboard and touchpad are fairly standard with all the gesture controls that you would expect, supported within Windows 11. There's an "Intel Core" badge on the bottom right corner. The main keyboard features a 50% design which excludes the numeric keypad but that's to be expected of a 14" laptop. The functional keys have multi-purpose designs which can be triggered by holding the "FN" key and pressing the desired function such as volume, mute, display on/off, brightness, etc.

There's a very out-of-place quote etched in gold plating between the main hinge and the keyboard that says "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish".

On the top right corner, above the keyboard, you are met with five additional keys. These are modes for the display with "A" powering up the primary screen, and "B" powering up the secondary screen, the third option is used for multi-screen mode within two individual windows while the last option is used for multi-window mode. There's also the power button which includes a built-in fingerprint sensor. It was snappy though registering the fingerprints was a little bit hectic due to the small placement of the sensor underneath.

The left side of the laptop has two USB ports. One is a USB 3 port rated at 5 Gbps and can be used as a DisplayPort (ALT) while the second port is only used for charging and has a small LED indicator to let you know if the device is being charged.

The other side also comes with two ports, one is a standard HDMI 2.0 connector while the second port is a USB 3 design with a maximum transfer bandwidth of 5 Gbps.

The keyboard has a chiclet design and using them was a breeze. Unfortunately, the keyboard doesn't feature a backlit design. The trackpad is big and wide which makes using it easy & while it doesn't feature any additional features, I think it does its job well which is to be a trackpad & less of a flashy or gimmicky design.

The laptop becomes an oversized tablet once the second screen is rotated to the back. It does offer a unique look.

Internals of the chassis include two blower fans with large vents at the bottom and the back to blow hot air out. The laptop didn't get too hot due to its lowly hardware but it's still to see a decent cooling solution on the device.

Talking about the chassis itself, the matte black exterior and the overall feel of the laptop is great. The all-black design makes it look very premium.

Now coming to the secondary screen. We mentioned the tablet mode above but the laptop doesn't work that way. The screen turns off as soon as the primary screen is closed and the only way you can use the secondary screen when it's rotated to the back is by having the screen tilted like a regular laptop. This way, you can present a document, video, or file to another user sitting in front of you or use the standard dual-screen mode and have two screens at your disposal for your work requirements.

The two screens can be used as one big horizontal display that has one instance of Windows running or in dual-window mode with the secondary screen displaying its instances on Windows.

The way this design was made possible is by using a hinge mechanism. We have seen a lot of smartphones and tablets using hinges to lock in foldable or two screens together. The same principle is used here though there are some issues with this particular implementation. It looks like the weight of the second screen is a bit too much as the second screen is hard to set in place. Even a tiny breeze on a flat surface like a table will make the screen start swaying here and there. There were only a few times when the second screen didn't move.

The magnetic cover on the primary screen also has an infrared sensor and an FHD webcam. There's no option to disable the camera but you can always use a piece of paper and tape it over if you're concerned about privacy. The whole plastic cover also acts as added protection so that when you close the second screen, it doesn't cause any scratches or damage to either display. This is a good preventive measure by ACEMAGIC.

One massively missed opportunity by ACEMAGIC is the use of the touchscreen. This laptop and its dual-screen design warrant a touchscreen more than any other product out there but it looks like we will have to wait for a new version or revision that supports this feature.

For performance testing, we used the standard 25W power profile for the Intel Core i7-1255U CPU featured on the ACEMAGIC X1.

For gaming, we tested a couple of the latest and most played esports titles along with a mix of AAA titles at 1080p resolution. The performance was measured between the AMD Radeon 780, Radeon 680M, AMD Vega 8, Vega 7, Vega 6, Intel UHD, and Intel Iris Xe-LP integrated graphics.

Following are the power and thermal numbers of the ACEMAGIC X1 using its 25W power profile.

The laptop peaked at around 71C during benchmarking with synthetic apps but generally, it averaged around 55C which are really good numbers.

ACEMAGIC's expertise lies in the mini PC segment but their first dual-screen design, the X1, shows that the company is willing to put some effort into making laptops. Realizing and launching the first dual-screen laptop design.

In terms of performance, the X1 is a standard 12th Gen design which doesn't wow anyone but the implementation does lead to larger battery times which in our case ended around 6-8 hours of web browsing and standard application use. Lightweight gaming on this device is possible though you'd have to set everything down to low setting and use 720p instead of 1080p even in older titles. Once again, hardware is not the strongest suit of this laptop. The 1 TB of memory & 16 GB memory will be enough for most office and business use cases and the laptop runs cool which is a plus.

When it comes to the dual-screen design, we can see where ACEMAGIC is going with this approach. When the two screens lay in front of you, they look phenomenal and can change you and your workplace. However, the X1's second screen isn't that sturdy. It shakes a lot and that ends up making for a very unusable user experience. You have to find the right angle and right place to set this thing up. When moved to the back, the screen provides a very unique experience where the second user can see or even use the secondary screen in the dual-windowed mode.

However, we noticed another issue with using the laptop normally. Even when you have to use the front (primary) screen, the second screen needs to be rotated to the back which means that it is prone to damage. Plus, what's lacking about the laptop is the exclusion of touchscreen. That would have made the experience far better in this 2-way mode but then again, you need some sort of protection for the second screen which will always remain open when regularly running the laptop.

Despite that, the advantage of having two screens like the one in ACEMAGIC's X1 and also having the ability to move your whole workplace from one place to another is super convenient. You can work on one screen, and watch something on the other, the possibilities are endless compared to having a single screen.

In terms of pricing, the ACEMAGIC X1 retails at $899 US which is a decent price for the hardware on offer. It's not the best value but provided that you are getting two screens, it makes sense but the rest of the experiences aren't very great.

If ACEMAGIC can address the shaky nature of the hinge mechanism and implement a touch screen while providing some sort of protection for the second screen, that would end up being a much better product. So as for a first-generation dual-screen design, the X1 gives us a taste of what to expect from future laptops but it looks like the journey to the perfect dual-screen laptop will be an ongoing one just like the first generation of foldable smartphones.

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