So every few years we get one product that changes everything! We saw it back in 2007 when the first iPhone launched, we saw it back when Ultrabooks started becoming a mainstream and we’ve also seen it when 2-in-1 laptops that were both a tablet and a laptop started appearing and now it’s that time again!
So, I’m very excited to show you what ASUS believes is the future of laptops, and I actually think they’re right. I think that this is indeed where laptops are heading towards, because you see this is a brand new generation of laptops!
Let me introduce to you the ASUS ZenBook Duo! This laptop not only has Intel’s latest 10th generation processors but it also comes with two displays, Pen support, dedicated Nvidia graphics,an insane twenty two hour battery life and so much more!
Also, the ZenBook Duo is actually a brand-new product that just came out, so it’s not to be confused with the ZenBook Pro Duo, which is its larger brother. The ZenBook Duo is smaller, more portable but it still comes with two displays making this the best laptop for productivity that you can easily take with you on the go, so huge thanks to ASUS for not only sending over the ASUS ZenBook Duo but also sponsoring this project!
So now, let’s take a look at what makes this laptop so special!
DUAL DISPLAYS
This is by far the main feature of this laptop, I mean it is literally in the name.
But you see, what’s really unique about ASUS’s implementation of this secondary display is that instead of this display being sort of like a control panel for your laptop, like some other manufacturers have tried and failed, it literally is a secondary display. What I mean by this is that Windows itself sees this as a secondary monitor which means that you can do all sorts of things with it. You can drag and drop windows from the main display onto the secondary, in fact ASUS even added a dedicated button on the keyboard, so that you can easily snap an app directly on the secondary display and full-screen it at the same time. But you can also use this in extended or mirror mode.
The second screen can be used as a place to put your colour grading tools when editing
And there’s so many use cases for this display! You can use it when you’re video editing, and have your colour grading tools right there, if you’re a gamer you can have your chat boxes and discord on the secondary display, while having the game on the main screen. But probably my favourite part is that you can even merge the displays and have one massive continuous display with you anywhere you go! That’s amazing!
But wait, there’s more! The secondary display is also a touchscreen, meaning that you can now comfortably navigate your browser tabs with just a swipe of a finger! The main display is not a touchscreen panel, but for me at least, I’m perfectly fine with that. I always find it very uncomfortable holding my arm up and using a touchscreen laptop. However, if that display is sitting flat, like the secondary display sits, it’s much more comfortable to use, as I’m not straining my arm.
Furthermore the ASUS ZenBook Duo also supports Pen input on the secondary display, meaning that if you’re a graphic designer or someone that uses Photoshop a lot for their work, the ZenBook Duo will make your life so much easier.
There’s really not a single laptop on the market that can do this, have two displays in such as small and portable form factor.
The dual display makes for a truly unique laptop
The main display is also very good for photo and video work. It’s got 100% sRGB coverage, 1080p resolution, and you’ll see why this matters once we get to the battery life section of this video. However, my favourite part about this display is just how thin the bezels are. We have a 90% screen-to-body ratio so add this to the dual display and this looks like a laptop that truly came from the future!
We also get FaceUnlock thanks to the built-in Windows Hello support which is made possible by the Infrared Cameras that ASUS mange to include into this very slim bezel.
PERFORMANCE
The second feature that makes this laptop so unique, is the performance.
So, the ZenBook Pro Duo (the larger sibling of the ZenBook Duo) is pretty much a beast! That one comes with the Intel i9 9980HK, which has a 45W 8-core processor, 32GB of 2666MHz RAM, the RTX 2060, up to 1TB of PCIe flash storage and a 15.6” 4K OLED panel. But whilst it is a monster of a machine, it’s also bigger, heavier and thicker. The ASUS ZenBook Duo is not as powerful as the ZenBook Pro Duo, but it is much more portable, thinner and lighter.
However, what surprises me is that we still get very good specs on this! You get the Intel 10th generation i7 10510U processor, which is a 15W Quad-Core CPU that can turbo up to 4.9GHz. We get 16GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM, up to 1TB of PCIe flash storage and the Nvidia MX250 graphics card. So while this isn’t as powerful as it’s bigger brother, for a 14” laptop that you can very easily take anywhere with you, having Intel’s latest U-series i7 chip, and a dedicated GPU, and two displays is just something unheard of before!
By design the ASUS ZenBook Duo lifts its keyboard up to not only allow for better cooling but also ergonomics
Something that I really like about the design of the ZenBook Duo is how it also helps cool down the entire unit. So when you open up the lid the hinge actual raises the laptop close to 2cm from your desk, meaning that airflow would be just perfect on this, when you’re doing anything intensive such as gaming or rendering a video. Not only that but this hinge also puts the keyboard at an angle and the typing experience on this is actually very good. The keys have enough travel to make them easy to see even when you’re in the dark. They’re actually back-lit too by the way, and I personally like the track-pad on the right.It makes much more sense to have it there, since that’s how you use a mouse, so overall the performance, the ergonomics, and the usability of this laptop have impressed me more than any other laptop has yet.
Now, while the ZenBook Duo is not made with high end gaming in mind, you can actually play most games at 1080p on Medium settings and get 30-60fps, or even higher in some cases. So if you’re into more casual gaming the ZenBook Duo can easily handle that.
And performance in Adobe Premiere or Photoshop is great on this laptop. It can handle 4K footage in Premiere quite easily, and Photoshop on this, like I said before with the Pencil especially, is a experience you cannot really have on any other laptop, unless you have the ZenBook Pro Duo of course.
BATTERY LIFE
Now, all that performance and all those features would mean nothing on the go, if the battery life isn’t great. Now, I’m not sure how ASUS did it but it’s actually very good!
ASUS claims up to twenty two hours of battery life on this or two full days of work, but that’s only if you keep the secondary display off and keep the display brightness to just 150 nits. In a more realistic scenario you should expect around eight-ten hours of battery life at least!
In my case, the first day I got it I fully charged it and then started installing apps on it, windows updates, games etc, and those apps were literally installing over night and the next evening, the battery was at 42% and the ZenBook Duo still had about 6 hours left.
So that’s very impressive! Of course overnight the displays were both off and the ZenBook was installing everything in the background, but still, I’m very impressed with the battery life. Even when I was using it with both displays on, the battery was still barely even dropping, whereas something like my MacBook Pro would’ve long been dead. What really helps here is that 1080p display. If we were to have a 4K panel on this, then the battery life would've been severely impacted.
CONNECTIVITY
Now when it comes to connectivity, we not only do we get the latest Bluetooth 5.0 on this, but we also get WiFI 6, or 802.11ax, which is the next generation of WiFi, with speeds up to 9.6Gb/s. However, whats more important about this is that if you have a WiFi 6 router, and more WiFi 6 devices on your network, they will manage themselves much better than they could on WiFi 5. This means that if you have a fast connection, you will experience 0 slow-downs or traffic congestion on any of your devices.
The selection of ports available on the ASUS ZenBook Duo
We also get a great selection of ports on this as well. We have the power input, a HDMI port, a USB type A which is actually USB 3.1 gen 2, and then a USB type C port which is also USB 3.1 gen 2 in terms of its speed. We then have another USB A port on the right, this one is 3.1 Gen 1, we then have the 3.5mm headphone jack, and we also get a microSD card slot, which I’m quite surprised to see as you don’t normally get this in laptops.
But since you can now easily find even 1TB microSD cards for quiet cheap, you can upgrade the storage very easily in this, or you can just use a microSD to SD Card adapter and use that card in your DSLR camera, meaning you could easily transfer your footage directly to your laptop.
I just wish that ASUS included a thunderbolt 3 port on this. It would’ve been the perfect laptop for me in that case, since I do need thunderbolt for work and thunderbolt also lets you connect an eGPU. However, if you really want this specific laptop design with a thunderbolt 3 port, then the ASUS ZenBook PRO Duo does actually have one.
PORTABILITY
The last thing that makes this laptop so unique is just how portable it really is! At 1.5kg, this is very similar to the weight of other 13” Laptops out there.
But you see, I use two monitors at work, and whenever I’m travelling I find myself yearning for a second monitor, just because I find it much more productive to have two, and I’m very used to having two displays. Yes, you can connect a tablet to a laptop and have two displays that way, but you have to carry the tablet with you and it will also cost you a ton buying both a laptop and a tablet.
So, to me at least, it seems like ASUS has found a solution to all those issues, and that solution is the ZenBook Duo a truly one of a kind laptop.