this video is sponsored by surf shark
when apple announced its new macbooks
this week i watched that announcement on
a computer that does things
no macbook can
yup it's the newest zenbook pro duo from
asus and it let me follow along with
apple's announcement while tweeting and
taking notes
on two separate screens that live inside
the same petite portfolio
i don't say that to score easy points
with windows fans in fact if anything
this new zen book amplifies the
similarities between asus and apple each
manufacturer is refining what worked on
its last generation of laptops sanding
over the rough edges to drop something
fresh for 2022 and the result in this
case is a familiar zenbook that still
manages to take dual displays to a new
level
you've just got to be cool with the
compromises
[Music]
for some reason i was more acutely aware
of those compromises when reviewing this
year's zenbook pro duo so let's start
with those
as with all these asus made room for the
12.7 inch second screen by bumping the
keyboard right down to the edge of the
chassis and that means if you're typing
on a tabletop you need to push the
machine further away to make it feel
natural now that's not a problem even on
a compact cafe table but find yourself
in a situation where you need to use
this laptop on your
you know lap and you'll end up doing
what monica chin calls typing like a
t-rex in her review for the verge
same goes for airplane tray tables if
you don't have enough room to push back
this is not a fun machine to type on
that's compounded by the offset trackpad
as always which is still narrow enough
to feel quite confining and it doesn't
have the useful hidden numpad that other
asus machines enjoy
yes you can still use the screen pad as
a stand-in trackpad but that's about as
awkward as it looks
the mouse buttons feel like they use the
same switches as the main keys which to
me means they're not clicky enough to be
mouse buttons and the arrow keys
alongside them are still too tiny for my
taste
for video calls there are truly useful
features brought over from prior asus
models like the ai noise cancellation
i'm using to try to tamp down the echo
in this room
but it's mighty tough to appreciate
those when they're paired with this
truly mediocre 720p webcam
and while it's nice to have a dedicated
key to turn that camera off you don't
get the reassurance of a physical cover
to go with it as you do on the space
edition zen book i reviewed a few weeks
back
while i wish asus had spent the last
year fixing some of those minor issues
they are just that
minor
instead the company put its focus on
making the best feature of the zenbook
duo even better
to do that it continues the trend of
making that second screen more visible
we went from no lift back in 2019 to 9.5
degrees last year
to 12 degrees for this model
if you do want even more tilt asus
includes something that reminds me of
the novel folding charger box it shipped
with the space edition a pair of
stick-on folding feet that prop the
whole machine up for you
i love little bonuses like this the
company recognizes the ergonomic
sacrifice it's asking users to make and
it does what it can to mitigate them i
dig that
almost as much as i dig the new
fingerprint resistant finish that
corrects an earlier complaint of mine
and asus revised starfleet ready logo
now this is easy to miss if you just
focus on the screens so come down here
to desktop level and you'll see just how
significant this hinge redesign is
see the main display a bright and
beautiful oled this time around is
actually hanging from this drop hinge
off the screen pad both displays
essentially floating on these stilts
according to asus that provides almost
40 percent more airflow to the
redesigned cooling system underneath
which lets you push the system to a
combined 85 watts of thermal design
power across the cpu and gpu
respectively a 12th generation intel
core i9 and an rtx 3050 ti laptop
in performance mode those fans
definitely aren't quiet but it's worth
it
still riding the high of top gun
maverick i plugged in my hotas and
treated myself to a few sessions of star
wars squadrons and microsoft flight
simulator the squadrons played like a
dream even at ultra settings and while i
had to settle for medium on microsoft
flight simulator it was still
gorgeous and it ran very smoothly
and here the screen pad came in useful
in a way that will be familiar if you've
seen my earlier reviews of dual screen
laptops i used it once again as a cheat
sheet to remember what those 50 plus
buttons and switches on my joystick and
throttle do
speaking of buttons the microphone mute
came in handy when i found myself in a
game chat session without remembering
how to turn it off
pretty much my only complaint was having
to break out a dongle for my flight
controls since the machine was light one
usb-a port but hey it still provides one
more than a lot of laptops do these days
oh and for once i didn't need to use
headphones to enjoy the sounds from the
cockpit this year's speakers are much
louder and fuller
of course for real gaming you want to
look to this pc's bigger brother the rog
zephyrus pro duo 16 which i'm still in
the process of reviewing
the zenbook's power is better used for
creative professional work and asus was
thinking of those folks when it bundled
something else in the box as well a
specialized active stylus
now i've had a strangely high number of
documents to sign over the past few
weeks ago i actually could have made use
of this but because there's no garage on
the laptop to house the stylus i ended
up forgetting it at home more often than
not like i always say a stylus is only
as good as its silo
still to come my biggest complaint and
my final thoughts which i'll get to
right after this
you know my favorite sponsors are
companies whose products i would use
even if they weren't sponsors and i've
been using surf shark for
nearly as long as mr mobile has existed
surf shark is an award-winning vpn that
i used to use to protect my privacy on
open wi-fi networks in hotels or coffee
shops and i still do that
but more and more i find myself using it
to just make the internet better
those pop-ups you get on every website
these days well surf shark blocks them
your favorite shows are only streaming
in a specific region
surf shark unblocks those
and while i don't keep its ad blocker
turned on because after all i rely on
ads like this one to survive
well some websites just take it way too
far with ads that are actually malware
or fishing schemes in disguise
surf shark drops the block hammer on
those too
so make your internet better get
surfshark at the link in the description
and use code mr mobile for 83 off and
three extra months free thanks to
surfshark for sponsoring this video
i said at the top that you've got to be
ready for compromise when it comes to a
machine like this and here's a few more
windows 11 is quite slow to wake from
sleep on this machine and it's even
slower than windows 10 was at catching
its breath after you add or subtract a
screen
what that means is that swapping
desktops between the top and bottom
display or giving the screen pad a break
entirely almost always carries with it a
delay that can stretch up to 10 seconds
now why would you ever want to turn off
the halo feature of this one-of-a-kind
machine well
that's my biggest complaint those
brighter ips and oled touch screens the
12th generation intel silicon and that
discrete graphics card they all suck a
lot of power
and the result is that this isn't a five
and a half hour machine like last year's
model
it's more like a three and a half hour
one
yeah even with a unremarkably light
office workload even with the
performance mode set to prioritize
endurance and even on a day where i
spent the first hour of that run time
with the screen pad totally turned off
when you have to turn off your
computer's biggest differentiator in
order to make it through half a workday
well the only bigger bummer than that is
asus continuing to sanction this
particular buffoonery from a little
company called mcafee whose pre-loaded
fear-mongering suite spams you every day
sometimes multiple times a day until you
give them money or just uninstall the
damn thing
and yet
as i close the lid on this machine i
can't help seeing the parallels to
another couple devices
that also don't last as long as they
should
last summer's galaxy flip 3 from samsung
and motorola's older razer 5g pack
plenty of compromises versus their
conventional contemporaries battery life
chief among them
yet i forgive them indeed i love them
enough to use them nearly every day
because they provide a user experience
and a degree of fun that no other phone
can
well that too is the case with this
particular zenbook pro duo
while it may not pass the one-handed
opening test it does pass the brent
haven collins test which is to say it's
petite enough to fit in my favorite
single laptop messenger bag
that's a really small bag
and the fact that it can do that while
still providing a useful and refined
implementation of dual displays on a
laptop
it's impressive
if you're the kind of mobile multitasker
who needs added acreage on the go
well the only better options i can think
of also come from asus and they're also
called zenbook produce
just be sure you also remember to pack
your charger or that you add a usbc
battery pack to the 1999 price tag
this video was produced following three
weeks with the zenbook pro 14 duo oled
model ux 8402 ze review sample provided
by asus as always the manufacturer was
given no early preview copy approval
rights or editorial input of any kind
if you want to see a different product
from the same company and present it in
a decidedly different kind of review
check out my rocket launch review of the
space edition zenbook from last month
please subscribe to the mr mobile on
youtube if you'd like to see more videos
like this
until next time from michael fisher
thanks for watching
and stay mobile my friends
[Music]
you