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On the left is screen B, on the right is screen A.
Sharon Harding
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The closed lid of the laptop.
Sharon Harding
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Opening the lid reveals the bottom of Screen B, which is located above Screen A.
Sharon Harding
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Screen B wraps around the computer lid and snaps into place.
Sharon Harding
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A profile view from the left.
Sharon Harding
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A top view of the hinge with the secondary screen wrapped back.
Sharon Harding
As I write this article about the AceMagic X1, two things in particular stand out to me. The first is its ease of use – you can write on one screen and use a second built-in screen to display specs and information about the laptop, as well as a chat window. The second is that this handy second screen wobbles just enough with every aggressive key press to distract me and fray my nerves.
I often use slim, ultra-light laptops with small screens, so I find dual-screen laptops intriguing. The dual-screen laptops I’ve used up until now, however, had one major drawback: no integrated keyboard. That’s what makes AceMagic’s X1 stand out for me. Not only does its second screen swing out of the system horizontally (instead of vertically), but the laptop also manages to fit two 13-inch screens And a conventional keyboard and a touchpad.
But the somewhat precarious way Screen B hangs to the left of Screen A, hovering above my tabletop, proves that even an integrated keyboard can’t fix all the limitations of dual-screen laptop design.
Some background information
| Technical data at a glance: AceMagic X1 (as tested) | |||
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| Screen | 2x 14 inch 1920×1080 IPS | ||
| Operating system | Windows 11 Home | ||
| CPU | Intel Core i7-1255U (13th generation SKU coming soon, AceMagic rep told me) | ||
| R.A.M. | 16GB DDR4-3200 | ||
| storage | 1TB M.2 NVMe 2280 PCIe 3.0 SSD | ||
| network | Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 | ||
| Ports | 2x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x HDMI 2.0 | ||
| Mass | 13.3×8.7×1 inch | ||
| Mass | 13.3×8.7×1 inch | ||
| Weight | 4.27 pounds | ||
| guarantee | 3 years | ||
| Price (RRP) | $900 at the time of writing | ||
For those who don’t know AceMagic, AceMagic is a PC brand owned by Chinese company Shenzhen Shanminheng Technology Co., Ltd. AceMagic sells other laptops besides the X1. But if you know AceMagic, it’s probably because of their mini PCs – or because of the malware that was discovered in some of their mini PCs (AceMagic has responded to this).
Given this recent history, it’s not the specs or benchmark results that make the X1 so interesting, but rather one of the clearest and cleverest approaches to giving laptop users more screen space.
How the screens work
The X1 has two separate 14-inch IPS non-touchscreen displays, each with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. This sets it apart from other dual-screen laptops on the market. For example, Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i has two 13.3-inch OLED touchscreens, each with a resolution of 2880 x 1800 pixels.
Sharon Harding
The Yoga 9i – and virtually every other notebook with dual laptop screens – uses a clamshell laptop form factor, but with the keyboard/touchpad replaced by a screen. They come with detachable Bluetooth keyboards that inevitably have flat keys. But using the X1 feels more like using a regular clamshell notebook, right down to the tactile keyboard. AceMagic (along with Windows 11’s Snap layouts) makes using the dual screens easy, and makes good use of the X1’s deck, with features for controlling which of the two screens is on.
Sharon Harding
To access any display, however, you have to open the lid and then open screen B, which is folded like a book cover over screen A. Once you unfold the second screen to the left, you can use one or both screens, which are separated by a distinctive hinge system.
Sharon Harding
The hinge supports up to 360 degrees of movement, meaning the second screen can be folded all the way back like the cover of a spiral notebook and snapped into place at the back of the lid, allowing someone behind the laptop to view it as well.
