The ASUS ZenBook Duo laptop has two screens, but is around half the price of the more expensive
Pro Duo version that I’ve previously covered. In this review you’ll find out what features
this cheaper version has to offer and find out if it’s worthwhile.
Starting with the specs I’ve got a 10th gen quad core Intel i5 CPU, Nvidia MX250 graphics,
8gb of memory in dual channel, two screens which we’ll look at in depth soon, and a
512gb M.2 NVMe SSD.
For network connectivity it’s got the latest WiFi 6 and bluetooth 5, no ethernet port though,
so you’ll need to use an adapter if you need it.
It’s available with different specs though, including i7 CPU, up to 16gb memory or 1TB
SSD, you can find examples and up to date pricing linked in the description.
The ZenBook Duo is basically the baby version of the ZenBook Pro Duo that I’ve covered
previously on the channel. The pro model is larger and offers all the bells and whistles,
while the Duo we’re looking at here is meant to be more of a budget friendly option, so
it’s lower specced and not quite as feature rich as a result.
On the spun metal lid we’ve just got the ASUS logo on the celestial blue finish. The
interior is the same colour, and we can see that second screen above the keyboard which
is pushed down to the front as a result with the touchpad on the right. Overall the build
quality was good, the all metal design was solid and there were no sharp corners or edges
anywhere.
ASUS list the weight at 1.5kg or 3.3 pounds, and mine was just a little above this. With
the small 65W power brick and cables for charging the total weight rises to just below 1.9kg,
it’s quite portable.
As a 14” machine the width and depth are noticeably smaller compared to the 15” laptops
I typically deal with, and it’s not too thick either.
The height will change when you open the lid. When you open it up, the bottom of the screen
props up the rear. This has the advantage of improving cooling as more air can get in
underneath. It also improves the viewing angle for the second screen, the keyboard is raised
to be on a better angle for typing, and the speakers aren’t pressed flat against the
desk.
With the basics out of the way, let’s get into the most interesting part of this laptop,
the dual screens. The bottom screen, what they’re calling screenpad plus, is a 12.6”
touchscreen with a 1920 by 515 resolution with a 60Hz refresh rate. It’s got a matte
finish and 178 degree viewing angle. You can use either your finger or pen, however mine
didn’t come with a pen in the box despite there clearly being a spot for it, so I’m
not sure if that’s meant to be included, it’s not listed as included in the box on
the website though.
The primary display is a 14” 1080p 60Hz panel, however there’s no touch screen functionality
here, only on the lower screen. It’s got 8mm screen bezels based on my own measurements,
giving it a 90% screen to body ratio.
I’ve used the Spyder 5 on both screens, for the main 14” panel we’re looking at
95% sRGB, 66% NTSC, and 72% AdobeRGB. The 12.6” screenpad on the other hand wasn’t
quite as good, I measured it with 67% sRGB, 48% NTSC and 50% AdobeRGB. I don’t think
it’s a big deal if it’s not as good, it’s mostly meant to be used for showing extra
things like tools or additional content rather than being the primary display source, so
doesn’t need to be as impressive as the main screen.
The primary panel was also a bit brighter at full brightness, and also had a higher
contrast ratio, overall it did look better to me than the screenpad.
As for backlight bleed, there was a little in the main panel, but I never noticed this
when during normal use. The screenpad was harder to get a photo of, but it also appeared
to have a little bleed, however this will vary between laptops and panels.
That’s a lot of information on the screens, now let’s get into how they actually work.
Basically the screenpad, so the one on the bottom, acts as a second monitor. This means
you can simply drag things between the two screens in Windows, just like with dual monitors
on a desktop PC.
The ZenBook Duo comes with the ScreenXpert software installed, and this helps you manage
the second screen. It’s got some useful features, for example if you start dragging
a window on either screen it offers a shortcut for you to quickly move it to the other screen.
You can also use the ViewMax option on the end to make the window fully take up both
screens, and you can drag an application to the pin icon which adds it to the app launcher.
On the bottom screen it’s easy to set two windows side by side with the standard Windows
method of dragging the windows over to the far sides, however the software also lets
you set three side by side. I didn’t find a limit of apps I could have on the bottom
screen, it’s just a second monitor but the software only lets you easily tile 3 side
by side.
On the second screen there’s this faint arrow icon on the left that you can press
to bring up the screenpad options, and this displays the app launcher, allowing you to
quickly open apps you’ve added here, and you can also change the order or remove icons.
This is also where you adjust the brightness of the lower screen, I wasn’t able to change
it through Windows. If you go deeper in to the settings you get more granular brightness
control.
The next option lets you configure up to four task groups. Basically you set up the apps
you like using on the screenpad how you like them, click the capture button and it will
remember them. That way you can easily select the task group and it will automatically open
up the same apps. If you have more than 3 apps when making the task group it will only
show the first three tiled side by side, and you can only have up to four groups.
Below that is a shortcut to quickly swap the windows open on each screen, so the windows
up top move below, and the ones on the bottom screen move up to the top one. There’s also
a dedicated key on the keyboard to do this as well just above the touchpad.
The next option is the app navigator, which just lets you see the open apps on the screenpad
so you can swap between them.
The last icon locks the keyboard, preventing the keys from being used. This could be useful
for drawing on the screenpad without worrying about pressing keys with your hand.
Otherwise there’s also the screenpad settings, which along with what you can see here allows
you to make that hovering arrow icon disappear until you need it and other options.
If you don’t want to use the second screen, you can quickly disable it by pressing the
button next to the power button, this lets you turn it on or off.
I could spend 10 minutes going through possible use cases for the second screen, but instead
I’ll refer you to the review of the pro duo linked in the description, as you can
use it for the same things, which includes streaming, gaming, editing and more. It’s
literally just a second monitor, so you can use your imagination as to how it would benefit
your workflow.
There was only a little screen flex, the metal lid was fairly sturdy. I wasn’t really able
to film it, but the hinges are out towards the far corners which helps with stability.
Despite feeling lightweight I was still able to open it up with one finger, so weight is
distributed fairly. It was a little awkward feeling using it on my lap due to the way
the back raises it up, but it worked well enough.
Although the screen has a thinner bezel, the 720p camera is still located up the top, and
it’s got IR for Windows Hello support.
The camera looks pretty blurry, but the audio sounds pretty good. Although typing on the
keyboard normally is pretty quiet, with the camera on you can hear it quite a lot.
I found the 5.5 degree angled keyboard fine to type with, so long as you’ve got adequate
space on your desk to push it back a bit as it’s right down the front. Unlike the more
expensive Pro version, no wrist rest was included.
The keys have 1.4mm of key travel, and here’s how typing sounds to give you an idea of what
to expect, note how much quieter it is compared to what we heard through the camera.
The keyboard has white backlighting which can be adjusted between three levels or turned
off with the F7 key, and all keys and secondary key functions are illuminated.
Despite being elevated off the desk, there was minimal keyboard flex even when pushing
down hard, the metal chassis was fairly sturdy, and I found the letter keys needed 56g of
force to actuate.
As a result of the keyboard being right down the front, the precision touchpad has been
moved over to the right. It’s smaller and narrow so you’ll probably want to use a
mouse, however after a bit of use I did get used to it. The touchpad itself doesn’t
actually click down, it’s instead got physical left and right click buttons which weren’t
too loud to press. Unlike the pro model, there’s no option of turning this into a numpad.
Fingerprints don’t really show up on the keyboard and touchpad, after a lot of screenpad
use they were a bit more obvious but it was easy to clean. They’re easier to see on
the metal lid, but as it’s a smooth surface they were easy enough to clean. Although it
does slide around a bit like this, when actually open it was a bit more stable due to the rubber
feet on the back which come into contact with the desk when open. There’s nothing on the
front side.
On the left from the back there’s the power input, HDMI output, the version isn’t specified
but I could only run a 4K monitor at 30Hz so it’s not 2.0, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A port,
and USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port, no Thunderbolt though.
On the right from the front there are a couple of status LEDs, a MicroSD card reader, 3.5mm
audio combo jack, and a USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port.
Underneath there’s just some small air vents in the center, we’ll check out thermals
soon.
The two speakers are found towards the front left and right corners, they sounded above
average with a little bass, and perhaps better due to the extra space between them and the
desk which is caused by the back being raised up. They seemed fairly loud when playing music
at maximum volume, and the latencymon results looked good.
The bottom panel was easy to remove after taking out 10 TR5 screws. Inside we’ve got
the battery down the front and single M.2 drive, that’s pretty much it, the memory
is soldered to the motherboard and can’t be upgraded, so you have to buy it with what
you need from the start.
The ZenBook Duo is powered by a 4 cell 70wh battery. I’ve tested it both with the two
screens on, and also with just the main screen on and second screen underneath off. Both
screens were at 50% brightness for this test and keyboard lighting was disabled. As expected,
with both screens on the battery drains faster, however even with it on the results are still
well above most other laptops.
Although the game test ran the longest, it’s important to note it only ran at 21 FPS rather
than the usual 30 FPS from the Nvidia battery boost cap, as the battery didn’t seem to
be able to provide enough power to run it higher. It was still usable, until there was
5% left where it dipped to 5 FPS, where it lasted for a further 9 minutes than what I’ve
shown on the graph.
The small 65 watt power brick seemed to be adequate for these specs, I didn’t have
any battery drain during any of my testing. You can use the MyASUS software to change
the charge level limit though, I left mine set to 100%.
Let’s move onto the thermal testing. The cooling solution is just a couple of fans
in the middle with three total heatpipes. Air is pulled in from underneath and then
exhausted out below the screen.
The MyASUS software allows us to pick between the default auto mode for best performance,
or silent mode which runs quieter with slower fan speed.
Thermal testing was completed with an ambient room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius. At
idle the temperatures were quite cool. The rest of the results are from combined CPU
and GPU stress tests and are meant to represent a worst case where both are being loaded up.
I’ve used Aida64 with the stress CPU only option checked and the Heaven GPU benchmark
at the same time to fully load the system. Even worst case in silent mode the CPU is
reaching 75 degrees Celsius, there was no thermal throttling under sustained heavy load.
These are the clock speeds for the same tests just shown. The GPU speed basically doubles
by enabling auto mode, and we also see a boost to the CPU clock speed as the CPU TDP limit
increases to 15 watts, which is the default of the i5-10210U CPU. Undervolting then helped
improve things just a little more, the main limitation here was that 15 watt power limit.
Here’s how CPU only performance looks in Cinebench. Auto mode improved performance
a little as the CPU power limit on average rose from 11 to 15 watts, however we could
get a fair boost to multicore performance with the small undervolt, granted this seemed
to negatively affect the single core result.
As for the areas where you actually touch, at idle the keyboard area was quite cool.
The screenpad looks warmer comparatively, but most laptops at idle are around the same
30 degrees Celsius, so not really an issue. With the stress tests running the keyboard
is a little warmer, but still on the cooler side. The screenpad was now warm, up to 40
degrees, this is expected given the heat generating components are directly underneath, and right
up the back is in the mid 50s as air gets exhausted just below the screen.
Here’s what the fan noise sounded like while running these tests.
At idle it was completely silent. WIth the stress tests running in silent mode the fan
was extremely quiet, I could only just hear it by putting my ear right next to it, then
in auto mode it’s still realistically fairly quiet compared to most other laptops I’ve
tested.
All things considered, there were no issues with the thermal performance at all, it ran
on the cooler side due to the lower specs with low power limits. The fan noise is on
the quieter side, even under worst case load, but I’m not sure how the screenpad will
go long term with the hot CPU and GPU below, I presume ASUS have considered this though
and put something between them to protect it.
Next let’s take a look at gaming. Although the ZenBook Duo only has Nvidia MX250 graphics,
it should still be capable of playing some lightweight titles, so let’s see what it
can do.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and it was only really running well with the
low setting preset, at any other setting level the frame rate seemed to drop quite substantially.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane, and at maximum settings it was still playing
ok with above 60 FPS averages, however medium and below was much better, where even the
1% low was higher than this.
Overwatch was tested in the practice range with a 100% render scale, medium settings
was needed to average above 60 FPS and it was playable, but higher settings weren’t
running too well.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical FPS benchmark tool, and medium settings was able to score
above 100 FPS in this test, however the 1% lows were quite weak.
You can still play esports titles pretty well even at 1080p, however lower settings are
needed as we just saw. For more demanding games you’ll either want lower resolutions
or ideally a laptop with more powerful graphics if gaming is a priority.
I’ve used Crystal Disk Mark to test the 512gb NVMe SSD, and it’s performing ok,
but according to the ASUS spec sheet it only uses 2 PCIe lanes, the 1TB option is apparently
4 lane though. Unfortunately I can’t test the Micro SD card slot as I don’t have any
cards that size.
For updated pricing check the links in the description, as prices will change over time.
At the time of recording however, I can’t really see it for sale in the US so it may
not be available quite yet. Here in Australia with the specs I’ve got, it’s available
for $1700 AUD, which with taxes removed and converted is about $1030 USD. Alternatively
we can get double the memory, double the storage space, and i7 CPU for $600 AUD more, or about
$365 USD extra.
For comparison, The ZenBook Pro Duo is substantially more expensive, however it does have more
powerful specs, OLED screen and option of upgrading further to the i9 version. It’s
just a way more premium option, you can check my review linked in the description for more
information on that one.
With all of that in mind let’s conclude by going through the good and bad aspects
of the ASUS ZenBook Duo laptop.
Basically it’s a cheaper alternative to the more expensive and feature rich ZenBook
Pro Duo. It still offers the key feature of the Duo series, being the two screens, however
the non pro version we’re covering here has fewer features and weaker specs which
is why it’s cheaper.
With that in mind though, it’s still one of the few laptops available with a somewhat
large secondary screen built in, so if that’s going to be useful to you and you aren’t
made of money then it’s definitely worth considering.
Overall I found the second screen beneficial, and the screenxpert software helped in managing
it. It will depend on how you plan on using the screen, for instance getting games to
make use of it will vary wildly based on the specific game, but for simply being able to
watch a video or have a browser window in view that you couldn’t before it’s a nice
addition.
The content creator side of it was also interesting, but again it will depend on the application.
When it comes down to it, it’s just a physically separate screen below the main one, so you
can use your imagination as to how that might benefit your individual workflow.
An external screen may be more beneficial as it can be larger, but that’s an extra
piece of hardware to carry around with you. Despite the secondary screen, we’ve still
got a fairly small and lightweight 14” laptop here. The main tradeoff with the unique design
is forward placement of the keyboard and requirement for an off to the side narrow touchpad, however
if you have desk space to push the machine back typing was still fine, and you can always
use a mouse. The additional screen does affect battery life, but you’ve got the option
of disabling it if not in use, but either way the battery life was quite good.
As the specs are on the lower side, thermals weren’t an issue, it ran quiet even under
heavy load and didn’t feel too warm to the touch in the areas where you’ll actually
be placing your hands. The MX250 graphics is a nice step up over Intel integrated graphics,
however in terms of gaming it’s still only able to handle lightweight esports titles
at lower settings at 1080p. It’s not really a gaming laptop, but light gaming was possible,
and the graphics would be beneficial for GPU acceleration in some content creation workloads
like video editing.
There’s not much room in the way of upgradeability, all you could do is swap out the M.2 drive,
but that would require either cloning the drive or installing Windows fresh as there’s
only room for one slot. The memory, CPU and GPU can’t be upgraded, so you’ll have
to try and buy with the future in mind. I thought there was a fair selection of I/O,
but I think Thunderbolt on a machine like this would have been great to see.
For the price I think the ZenBook Duo is an interesting laptop, it’s offering a second
screen at a cheaper price point compared to the Pro Duo model while still maintaining
a good build quality, and there’s just not much else to compare it to at the moment,
it’s quite unique. If you think you may benefit from more screen real estate and don’t
want to pay more for the higher specced Pro model then it’s definitely worth considering.
Let me know what you thought about the ASUS ZenBook Duo laptop down in the comments, and
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