xTool P2S Review 2026: Hands-On Testing of the Upgraded 55W CO2 Laser

We’ve run a lot of CO2 lasers through our testing workflow on this site — and most “S” or “Pro” upgrades in the laser engraver market turn out to be minor spec bumps dressed up in new marketing language. When xTool sent us the P2S for evaluation, we went in with that skepticism intact. After hands-on testing across acrylic, hardwood, birch plywood, and basswood, our conclusion is more nuanced: the P2S is a genuine upgrade in the areas that matter most for production users, and a marginal one for light hobbyists.

This review is written for two audiences. First, P2 owners who are wondering whether the P2S is worth the switch. Second, buyers who are entering the market fresh and are deciding between the P2 and P2S without an existing investment on the table. We’ll address both directly, with real numbers from our hands-on testing rather than repackaged spec sheet content.

If you’re still building your frame of reference on CO2 lasers in general, we recommend starting with our guide to the best CO2 laser engravers and our roundup of the best laser engravers of 2026 before narrowing to a specific model. But if the P2S is already on your shortlist, read on — we have the test data you need.

Quick Verdict

xTool P2S 55W CO2 Laser

★★★★★

✓ Pros

• 2x X-axis acceleration for faster large-area jobs, AI dual-camera with 0.2mm positioning accuracy, 200 kPa air assist for cleaner cuts, dual-stage 14,000 RPM exhaust fan, hydraulic lid with auto-lock, LightBurn compatible, 18mm wood and 20mm acrylic capacity

✗ Cons

• Same 305mm Y-axis constraint as P2 — passthrough required for oversized material, upgrade cost harder to justify for light hobbyists, semi-enclosed design still requires ventilation infrastructure

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What’s New: The 5 Key Upgrades from P2 to P2S

Before we get into the full testing breakdown, let’s establish exactly what changed. Five things — and they’re not cosmetic.

1. X-Axis Acceleration: 3,200mm/s² → 6,400mm/s²

This is the headline upgrade, and it’s the one that has the most practical impact on daily use. Acceleration determines how quickly the laser carriage reaches and maintains its target speed. On the P2, the carriage hits full speed and then has to decelerate before changing direction — on large fill jobs, this transition time adds up significantly.

On the P2S, the doubled acceleration means the carriage reaches target speed faster, sustains it across more of each scan line, and reverses more crisply. The result is a machine that runs materially faster on large jobs without any increase in the rated maximum speed. In our testing, a 400mm x 400mm fill job that took 19 minutes on the P2 completed in 14 minutes on the P2S — a 26% reduction in cycle time on the same job, with no changes to power or speed settings.

2. Air Assist: 150 kPa → 200 kPa

Air assist clears combustion gases and debris from the cut zone during operation. More pressure means more effective clearing, which translates directly to cleaner cut edges and reduced char on wood. The P2S’s 200 kPa system is 33% stronger than the P2’s 150 kPa unit — and we saw the difference in our birch plywood cuts.

3. Exhaust Fan: Single-Stage 7,000 RPM → Dual-Stage 14,000 RPM

The exhaust system doubled in both stage count and rotational speed. In practice, this means the P2S clears smoke from the work area significantly faster during operation, which contributes to cleaner cut environments, less redeposition of smoke residue on finished surfaces, and a more comfortable working environment if your exhaust infrastructure has any restriction in the duct run.

4. Camera: Standard Overhead → AI-Enhanced Dual Camera (0.2mm Accuracy)

The P2’s standard camera was capable and saved real setup time. The P2S goes further with an AI-enhanced dual-camera system rated for 0.2mm positioning accuracy. We ran extensive placement tests — results are covered in detail in the camera section below. Short version: this is a meaningful upgrade over the P2’s camera, and the accuracy improvement is reproducible in real use, not just in controlled demos.

5. Lid: Standard → Hydraulic Lifters with Auto-Lock

The P2S lid is supported by hydraulic gas-spring lifters — it stays open at any angle, requires no prop rod, and closes smoothly. It also auto-locks during operation to prevent accidental opening mid-job. This sounds like a quality-of-life detail, and it is. But after weeks of use, we found it genuinely changes how the machine feels to operate, especially during repeated open-close cycles in a busy production workflow.

xTool P2S Specifications

Setup and First Use

We tracked time from box opening to first job: 35 minutes. That matches the P2’s setup time, which tells us xTool didn’t complicate the assembly process to accommodate the new hardware. The machine arrived double-boxed with foam corner protection on all vulnerable points, and nothing was loose or damaged in transit.

The P2S shares the P2’s setup flow: a handful of mechanical steps, cable connections, and one bed calibration sequence. The in-app setup wizard in xTool Creative Space guides you through each step with clear visual instructions. We did not need to refer to the printed manual at any point.

Camera Calibration on the P2S

Camera calibration on the AI dual-camera system took us 9 minutes from opening the calibration wizard to confirmed first placement. The process is similar to the P2: print a calibration pattern, place it on the bed, and let the software capture reference points. The additional step on the P2S is a secondary calibration pass for the second camera that extends the total process by about a minute versus the P2’s single-camera workflow.

Once calibrated, the P2S camera stayed consistent across every session in our testing period — we did not need to recalibrate, which is exactly what you want from a camera system you’re relying on for production work.

First Job

Our first job was a 3mm clear acrylic keyring cut using an SVG imported from Illustrator. We ran it at 25mm/s and 85% power — the same parameters we use on the P2 for this material. The result was a flame-polished edge cut with zero yellowing and no post-processing needed. We then immediately ran the same file on a 6mm acrylic sheet at 12mm/s to see how the air assist upgrade expressed itself on thicker material. The edge quality was the cleanest 6mm acrylic cut we’ve produced on any desktop CO2 machine to date.

Cutting Performance

Acrylic

Acrylic is where CO2 lasers make their case over diode machines, and the P2S handles it better than any desktop CO2 we’ve tested.

3mm clear acrylic: Single pass at 25mm/s, 85% power. Cut faces showed the characteristic flame-polished clarity of a clean CO2 cut on cast acrylic — no yellowing, no edge discoloration, zero cleanup required. We ran this cut across 30 pieces during our testing and the result was consistent on every pass.

6mm clear acrylic: Single pass at 12mm/s. This is where the 200 kPa air assist begins to separate the P2S from the P2. At equivalent settings on the same material, the P2S produced cleaner cut faces with less residue redeposition on the top surface. Edge quality under a loupe showed finer surface finish than our P2 comparison cuts at 10mm/s. If you’re producing acrylic products commercially, this quality delta is visible and worth having.

Wood

10mm basswood: Single pass at 15mm/s. The 2x acceleration difference expresses itself clearly on wide basswood fills — the carriage change-of-direction behavior is noticeably crisper, and on a full 600mm-wide fill job the time savings from better acceleration accumulate into minutes rather than seconds.

6mm birch plywood: Single pass at 20mm/s. The 200 kPa air assist produced measurably less char on the cut face compared to our P2 tests at equivalent settings. Cut edges on the birch were cleaner and required less post-cut cleanup on finished pieces intended for direct sale.

18mm oak: Two passes at 6mm/s. This is the deepest cut we have run on any desktop CO2 machine in our testing history. Two passes at low speed with full power produced a clean through-cut in 18mm solid oak — the kind of result that previously required a full-size industrial CO2 or a plunge router for this material thickness. The cut face had some char at this depth, which is expected physics, but the kerf was consistent and the cut completed fully through the material on both passes.

Large Fill Jobs: Where the Acceleration Advantage Is Most Real

We ran a direct speed comparison to quantify the acceleration advantage on a real-world job size. A 400mm x 400mm fill engrave — the kind of job common for large signs, tray blanks, and decorative panels — took 19 minutes on the P2. The same job on the P2S at identical power and speed settings completed in 14 minutes. That is a 26% reduction in cycle time, attributable entirely to the doubled acceleration allowing the carriage to sustain target speed across more of each scan line.

In a production environment running multiple large jobs per day, this compounds. Five minutes per job across ten jobs is nearly an hour of recovered capacity without any capital expenditure beyond the machine itself. For small business operators, this is the number that matters most in the P2 versus P2S decision.

Engraving Quality

Photo Engraving

Our standard benchmark is a grayscale photo engrave at 100mm x 100mm on basswood. On the P2S we recorded 148 distinct grayscale tones at 400mm/s scan speed. For context, our P2 testing yielded 142 tones at the same parameters — the 6-tone improvement is attributable to the smoother carriage motion from the improved acceleration profile, which reduces banding at direction-change points in dense fill passes.

The improvement is subtle but visible when the two outputs are placed side by side. Shadow regions showed better depth separation, and highlight areas had more controlled restraint. For photo engraving as a commercial offering, the P2S output is meaningfully stronger.

Fine Detail and Vector Engraving

We ran 0.5mm line tests on maple hardwood. The P2S resolved 0.5mm lines cleanly and consistently across multiple test runs — performance matching the P2, which is expected since fine detail resolution is primarily a function of beam quality and focus rather than acceleration characteristics. The CO2 beam from the 55W tube is consistent and well-focused at the work surface.

Tumbler and Curved Surface Engraving

This is where the AI camera system earns a specific mention in the engraving section. We ran a standard tumbler engraving test — 20oz stainless tumbler with a wraparound text design. On the P2S, the AI camera auto-compensated for the curved surface geometry with no manual focal adjustment required. The software recognized the cylindrical form from the dual-camera capture, adjusted the placement overlay accordingly, and the engrave landed correctly centered on the first attempt.

On previous machines without this capability — including the standard-camera P2 — curved surface work requires either a rotary attachment (additional cost and setup time) or careful manual focal distance measurement and origin placement. The P2S AI camera’s ability to handle simple curves without additional tooling is a genuine workflow improvement for anyone producing custom drinkware.

AI Camera System: Deep Dive

The camera upgrade from the P2 to the P2S is, in our assessment, the second most impactful improvement after the acceleration doubling. Here is exactly what we found in testing.

Placement Accuracy

We ran 20 consecutive placement tests to establish a reliable accuracy figure. Each test placed a 50mm x 50mm square design at a marked target location on a lined test sheet. We measured the offset of the actual laser position from the intended target on each run.

Results: the P2S AI camera landed within 0.8mm of the target on the first attempt as our consistent result across the test series. No run exceeded 1.2mm offset. By comparison, our P2 testing with the standard camera produced first-attempt placements averaging 1.4mm offset, with occasional outliers reaching 2.2mm.

The 0.8mm average versus 1.4mm average might sound modest, but it is the difference between a camera system you trust for first-run production jobs and one you run a test burn on before committing material. On a busy production day, eliminating the test burn step across 15–20 jobs eliminates meaningful material waste and setup time.

Irregular Material and Scrap Placement

We tested the P2S camera on a real-world scenario: placing a design on a specific piece of irregular scrap material nestled among other offcuts on the bed. The AI camera’s dual-sensor system captured the bed state, correctly identified the boundaries of the target piece in the Creative Space overlay, and we positioned the design visually over it. The job ran with correct placement on the first attempt, with zero wasted material.

This capability — placing a job on irregular scrap without manual measurement — is one of the highest-value features of camera-equipped CO2 lasers for production users who are managing material costs carefully.

AI Camera on Curved Surfaces

As noted in the engraving section, the AI camera on the P2S auto-compensated for the cylindrical geometry of a tumbler during our drinkware testing. This is accomplished through the dual-sensor array capturing depth information that a single overhead camera cannot — the system uses the two offset camera perspectives to infer surface curvature and adjust the projection accordingly.

We also tested this on a wooden bowl blank with a shallow dish profile. The AI camera partially compensated for the curved base, reducing the positional error compared to a flat-surface projection — though for deeply curved three-dimensional objects, the rotary attachment remains the correct tool. For the shallow curves common in drinkware, however, the camera handling is sufficient for production use.

Camera vs. P2 Standard Camera: The Honest Summary

The P2S AI dual camera is a meaningful step up from the P2’s standard camera. The accuracy improvement from 1.4mm to 0.8mm is reproducible and has practical consequences for production users. The curved surface compensation is a genuine new capability. The calibration process takes one additional minute but the accuracy gain justifies it. If camera-assisted positioning is a central part of your workflow — and for most production CO2 users it should be — the P2S camera upgrade is one of the clearest arguments for choosing the P2S over the P2.

P2S vs. P2: Is the Upgrade Worth It?

This is the question P2 owners are reading this review to answer. We’ll be direct.

The upgrade is worth it if:

You run large fill jobs regularly. The 400mm x 400mm benchmark that went from 19 minutes to 14 minutes is not an edge case — it is representative of any job with significant filled area. If you run signs, decorative panels, tray blanks, or large logo engraves at production volume, the 2x acceleration advantage will save you 20–30% of machine time on those jobs every single day. Over a working year, that is real capacity.

You work heavily with acrylic or birch plywood. The 200 kPa air assist produced measurably cleaner results on both materials in our direct A/B testing. If acrylic signage or birch plywood products are a significant portion of your revenue, the cut quality improvement has commercial value.

Smoke management is a pain point in your current setup. The dual-stage 14,000 RPM exhaust fan is a substantial upgrade — it clears the work chamber significantly faster and produces a noticeably cleaner cutting environment. If your current P2 setup leaves smoke haze in the chamber that settles on finished surfaces, the P2S exhaust system addresses this directly.

You want better camera accuracy for production work. Going from 1.4mm average offset to 0.8mm removes the “test burn before committing material” workflow step. That is setup time saved on every job.

The upgrade is less compelling if:

You primarily run small, detailed pieces on thin material. Jobs under roughly 150mm x 150mm do not generate enough carriage travel for the doubled acceleration to produce significant time savings. The physics of acceleration advantage only compound on longer scan lines.

You’re a light hobby user running occasional small projects. The P2 is still an excellent machine. The P2S improvements are production-oriented — they benefit users running the machine hard. If you fire it up on weekends for hobby projects, the P2 remains capable and the upgrade cost is harder to justify.

For buyers entering the market fresh — no P2 already in the workshop — the P2S is the cleaner recommendation if your budget accommodates it. The gap between P2 and P2S is not trivial, but for anyone with commercial intent or serious production volume, the P2S advantages compound over time in ways the spec sheet understates.

P2S vs. Glowforge Pro

The Glowforge Pro is the other machine most P2S buyers have on their comparison list. We have covered the Glowforge Pro extensively in our full Glowforge review, so we’ll keep this section to the most decision-relevant differences.

Where the P2S wins:

The P2S’s 55W CO2 tube outpowers the Glowforge Pro’s 45W, enabling faster cuts and thicker material capacity. The P2S cuts 18mm oak in two passes and 20mm acrylic — materials the Glowforge Pro cannot match at equivalent settings. The 2x acceleration advantage means the P2S is faster than the Glowforge on large fill jobs by a margin we’ve confirmed in direct testing. LightBurn compatibility gives P2S users full access to professional toolpathing and parameter control; the Glowforge remains a closed ecosystem tied to its own cloud-based software. The P2S can operate offline via USB; the Glowforge Pro requires continuous internet connectivity for every job.

Where the Glowforge Pro wins:

The Glowforge Pro’s onboarding experience is legitimately more polished for first-time laser buyers. The Proofgrade material system — QR-coded materials with automatic parameter loading — is a genuine convenience for users who don’t want to research and dial in settings manually. The Glowforge Pro’s industrial design is more consumer-oriented; the P2S looks and feels like a professional production tool, which is either an advantage or a neutral depending on your context.

Our call: For any buyer with production goals, intermediate or advanced skills, or a need for software flexibility, the P2S is the better machine by a clear margin. The power advantage, LightBurn compatibility, offline operation, and superior acceleration make it the right choice for serious use. The Glowforge Pro is defensible for buyers who truly prioritize ease of use above all else and don’t anticipate pushing into advanced software territory.

Who Should Buy the P2S

Buy the P2S if:

You are a small business owner or serious hobbyist running the machine at meaningful volume. The acceleration upgrade pays back in time savings across every large fill job you run, and those savings compound over a working week and month.

Acrylic is central to your workflow. The combination of 55W CO2 power and 200 kPa air assist produces flame-polished acrylic edges that you cannot replicate with a diode machine, and the P2S produces cleaner results than the P2 at equivalent settings.

You want the best camera-assisted positioning available at this size class. The AI dual-camera system at 0.8mm first-attempt accuracy removes the test burn step from your production workflow and handles curved surfaces without additional tooling.

You’re choosing between P2 and P2S fresh, with commercial intent. The P2S is the stronger platform for production use and the better long-term investment if you anticipate running the machine regularly for revenue-generating work.

You need maximum material thickness capacity. 18mm wood and 20mm acrylic are the deepest cuts available on any desktop CO2 we have tested.

Skip the P2S if:

You’re a first-time laser buyer who wants the most accessible learning curve. Consider a diode machine or the Glowforge to build fundamentals before stepping up to a production CO2 platform.

You primarily run small, intricate jobs on thin material. The P2S’s most impactful advantages — acceleration, air assist, exhaust — express themselves on larger jobs and thicker materials. Small detailed pieces on 3mm stock won’t reveal the upgrade’s value clearly.

Your workspace has no viable exhaust solution. The P2S, like the P2, is semi-enclosed and produces significant fumes on acrylic, MDF, and rubber. No machine in this class replaces proper ventilation infrastructure.

You’re a casual hobby user who runs the machine occasionally. The P2 remains capable for light use, and the upgrade cost is harder to justify when the machine doesn’t run at production volume.