Putting more than one screen on a laptop isn’t a particularly original or new idea. We’ve already seen attempts from Razer (Project Valerie), Lenovo (Thinkpad W700ds) and Acer (Iconia 6120) to name a few. However, none of them possessed the subtlety and elegance demanded in an everyday notebook.
The small touch bar above the MacBook Pro might be the most practical second screen on any laptop, and its use cases are limited. However, all that changes with Asus’ latest take on the dual-screen notebook. The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo isn’t like any laptop you’ve ever seen.
Before we dive into the review of this dual-screen monster, let’s take you through the specs of our ZenBook Pro Duo model. We tested the top-of-the-line ZenBook Pro Duo with an eight-core Intel Core i9 processor and an Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics card. The model also arrived with two 4K screens, including an HDR OLED primary display.
Now, whether you’re in the market for a new laptop or not, you should stick around for the full review because the ZenBook Pro Duo is the future!
Design
The ZenBook Pro Duo is not a powerful thin and light laptop. It is relatively heavy, weighing about 2.5 kgs and is 24mm thick but that’s the price you pay for a second screen. Although the brushed aluminium lid does give it a polished look; the visible seams, dark panels and cooling vents, give it a ‘high-performance laptop’ vibe. We didn’t find any problem carrying this laptop in a bag, despite its size and weight.
I/O
The ZenBook Pro Duo gets an HDMI 2.0 port, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port and a power connector on its left side, while a Thunderbolt 3 (Type-C), headphone/mic jack and a second USB 3.1 Gen 2 port sit on the right. Not the best assortment of I/O on a 15-inch laptop. Considering this laptop is targeted towards content creators, there should have been an inclusion of the SD card slot at the very least.
Keyboard & Trackpad
The ZenBook Pro Duo shares the same shifted keyboard design as Asus’ top-end Zephyrus S series. The second screen means the keyboard is moved to the front edge, and the touchpad gets shifted to the right of the laptop.
The keyboard on this laptop is pretty solid. The keys offer a great 1.4mm travel distance, are well spaced out, and the base of it is quite sturdy, ensuring zero flex. However, the position of the keyboard is not the best, and it is challenging to type on anything other than a tabletop. Moreover, prolonged typing on a tabletop can be painful without using the included wrist-rest.
The touchpad is located on the right of the screen is square-shaped and takes the place of the Numpad. Asus has added a secondary calendar function on the touchpad. We found that the trackpad was fine with a smooth and responsive surface. Additionally, the built-in buttons are snappy, and it has full gesture support. This is an excellent trackpad in an inferior position. Its positioning makes it very difficult to use. We almost always reverted to the traditional mouse over this touchpad.
Displays
The two 4K screens are undoubtedly the headline features of this laptop. The first screen on the ZenBook Pro Duo is a 15.6-inch 4K OLED touchscreen with an excellent brightness and contrast levels, while the second screen, ScreenPad Plus, located right under the main display is a 4K IPS touchscreen with a 32:9 aspect ratio. The second screen has a 3,840 x 1,100 resolution and runs the entire length of the laptop.
The 4K OLED screen is Pantone Validated, ensuring you don’t need to tweak any settings before creating. The main 15.6-inch display features ultra-vivid colours and deep blacks (DisplayHDR 500 True Black compliant), with a cinema-grade 100-per cent DCI-P3 colour gamut and 100,000:1 contrast ratio. The brightness level on this screen is nothing short of impressive and colours are accurate enough to handle sensitive work. The display also handles Adobe RGB and sRGB relatively well.
The second 14-inch 4K LCD screen acts as an extension of the primary display and is quite useful in several instances. You can open several apps, five to be precise, between both screens. The bottom panel runs two to three apps side-by-side, while the main screen on the top can run your primary app.
Asus has also incorporated several shortcuts to make the transition of apps between the two screens seamless. The touch interface can be used to drag and drop apps into position or stretch a single app across the full length of both screens. A button on the keyboard allows you to switch the content on both screens in an instant.
Asus also gives users the option to group a set of apps and open them simultaneously with one tap. Every feature on this laptop is dedicated to making the user’s life more productive. In terms of functionality, the possibilities are infinite.
In certain apps, you can literally break the app up to make it easier. In Adobe Premiere, we put the bins down on the second screen, while in Photoshop, we put panels on the second screen rather than minimising them. When it came to typing documents, you could have the information opened one screen and the Word document opened up on another.
There is also a strong case for learning here. The two screens give you the opportunity to open up a tutorial on one screen and execute the task on the other screen simultaneously. Even gamers stand to benefit from the two screens as the second screen can be used to view your stream.
While both touchscreens are pretty impressive, the ScreenPad Plus is quite dim compared to the main display, but that’s primarily down to the panel technology. The matte finish contributes to that dimness but also acts as a protective layer from scratches and fingerprint smudges.
The one big issue we found with the second screen was the lack of elevation made it strenuous on the neck. You’ll always find yourself looking down because of its horizontal design. And, while this does make its use restrictive, it is still beneficial. If you are a content creator who regularly uses two screens, you’ll instantly see the upside of a laptop with two displays. There’s no doubt that productivity does tend to get a bump after using two screens.
“You don’t know until you’ve used it, and once you’ve used it, there’s no going back. Maybe you can go back, but it won’t be the same.”
| Pros | Cons |
| Powerful specs and cooling to match | Chunky and heavy |
| Innovative dual-screen design | Very expensive |
| Colour accurate 4K OLED display | Uncomfortable keyboard and touchpad placement |
| Doubles as a gaming laptop | Underwhelming battery life |
| Great build quality |
Our ZenBook Pro Duo model packed an Intel Core i9-9980HK processor with eight cores and 16 threads. With a base frequency of 2.4GHz and a maximum frequency of 5.0GHz. Add to that, and the ZenBook also offers 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 RAM and a 1TB PCIe SSD for storage. That’s more than enough juice to keep up with professional workloads.
The graphics card used is a full-fat mobile Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU with 6GB DDR6 VRAM. While the RTX 2060 is definitely not going to be on par with a high-end Quadro RTX card in specific professional applications, its still a pretty good card. The RTX 2060 is equipped with Nvidia’s Studio Drivers and is capable of enabling real-time video effects. It can also accelerate ray-traced scene creation and can encode high-quality video in real-time. You can also game on this card.
But it isn’t just the power; Asus has gone the extra mile to ensure that the powerful components inside the ZenBook Pro Duo can deliver without throttling. This two-screen laptop uses the ErgoLift design, we saw on the Zephyrus S series, to improve airflow by keeping it flowing smoothly from under the chassis. The new cooling system with a newly designed fan and five heat pipes help keep the ZenBook Pro Duo cool under pressure.
Here’s how the ZenBook Pro Duo fared in our tests –
In the Cinebench R15 CPU tests, the ZenBook Pro Duo earned a multicore score of 1,497 points. Our GeekBench 4 tests yielded a single-core score of 5,295 points and a multi-core score of 28,211 points. On the GPU side, the 3D Mark Port Royal test yielded a score of 2,891 points, while the GPU scored 13,643 points in the Fire Strike benchmark.
Now, we’d recommend scaling the resolution down while gaming as the RTX 2060 is more of a 1080p card. However, with E-sports titles you can game in 4K. You aren’t going to have any problem running any game on 1080p with the settings cranked up to high. Shadow of the Tomb Raider gave us an average of 65 fps on high settings. Games like Battlefield V and Apex Legends did push out frame rates well-above the 60-fps mark. However, since the screen refresh rate is limited to 60Hz, we’d recommend taking advantage of the 4K screen and swapping the higher frames for a higher resolution.
Battery
The ZenBook Pro Duo gets a pretty big 71Wh 8-cell Rechargeable Li-Polymer battery pack. In terms of battery life, the ZenBook is going to get you a maximum of two hours of normal use with both screens turned on. You can prolong battery life by switching the second screen off, dropping the resolution of the main screen to 1080p and reducing brightness to 50 percent but even that number isn’t going to be any good.
The ZenBook Pro Duo is an absolute battery hog. Just consider the power required to run a 4K OLED screen, a second 4K LCD panel, an 8-core CPU and a dedicated raytracing enabled GPU. That is what the 71Wh battery has to cope with. So, getting any battery life out of this machine would be a win-win. The battery life on the ZenBook Pro Duo isn’t surprising but it is still a little disappointing.
Audio, Cam and Pen
The ZenBook Pro Duo has an IR Windows Hello camera, which works in the dark and is excellent for video conferencing. Moreover, Asus also includes a Stylus that works on both the main and secondary display. The Stylus is excellent for sketching and taking notes, but you can even use it to launch apps. The Asus Pen turns the Screenpad Plus into a drawing tablet.
The ZenBook Pro Duo utilises two bottom-firing speakers that are certified by Harman Kardon for pumping out sound. The sound quality on the speakers is pretty decent, audio is crisp and loud. Even in turbo mode, the fans fail to overpower the speaker volume.
Now we all know the woes of Cortana, which is why Asus has integrated Alexa support on the ZenBook Pro Duo. While Alexa support is not available on PC in India yet, when the feature does arrive, ZenBook Pro Duo users will be able to access it.
Price
The ZenBook Pro Duo (UX581) starts from Rs 2,09,990, which is a pretty steep price to pay. But when you look at the laptops this machine is going to be competing with – particularly the higher-end MacBook Pro, which is priced at Rs 2,27,000 – the ZenBook Pro Duo seems like quite a compelling option. You’ll definitely find the productivity pay off worth it.
The ZenBook Pro Duo may not have the style and portability of a MacBook Pro but it much more functional. The productivity possibilities on the second screen are far greater than that of the MacBook’s Touchbar. Moreover, Asus will also deliver on the ‘display’ and ‘throttling’ fronts. At Rs 2,09,990, this is not a bad package, especially if you’re someone who deals with creative workloads.
Verdict
The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo is arguably one of the most innovative laptops on the planet. When it comes to dual-screen laptops, the Pro Duo comes as close to perfect as possible. Moreover, the number of scenarios you’d be able to use the two screens in is simply astonishing. We’d have to give it a straight 10/10 for functionality and productivity.
In terms of performance, the hardware inside is pretty powerful, while the cooling system is quite effective in helping users make optimal use of that hardware without throttling. If you are a creator by day, gamer by night, you’ll really appreciate the RTX 2060 card. However, the mainstream consumer GPU means that the machine will fall short in some professional workloads as compared to other laptops with Radeon Pro or Nvidia Quadro graphics.
The main 15.6-inch OLED display on this machine is one of the best in its class, making it particularly useful in photo and video editing scenarios.
The biggest downfall of the ZenBook Pro Duo is that it is a laptop and as a laptop, it doesn’t really work well. The limited battery life means it is not fit for use on-the-go. Additionally, the keyboard positioning makes using the notebook on the lap quite difficult.
The ZenBook Pro Duo (UX581) certainly isn’t for everyone. But for creative professionals who cannot get a rig because they are always on the move, the ZenBook Pro Duo represents a very viable alternative.
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