the asus duo 14 laptop has two screens
yeah whatever i hear you say they did
that last year well the new 11th gen
model has some nice improvements that
are worth discussing i've got the model
with the intel xe graphics but you can
also get the duo 14 with nvidia mx450
graphics if you need a bit more gpu
horsepower plus there's a larger 15-inch
model with higher specs too it's got a
magnesium alloy blue colored finish and
i thought the build quality felt good
considering the thinner size and moving
parts mine weighed around 1.6 kilos or
3.5 pounds then a bit more with the
small 65 watt type c charger included as
a small 14-inch machine it's on the
smaller side and around 1.7 centimeters
thick so fairly portable let's start out
with the dual screens as this is the
most unique feature of the duo 14. we've
got the main screen like normal plus one
down the bottom above the keyboard which
they refer to as the screen pad now asus
have done dual screen laptops in the
past however the new 2021 models are the
first time they've made the secondary
screen rise up when you open the lid
they did do this last year with the
zephyrus 2015 gaming laptop so it's cool
to see the idea move over to the zenbook
lineup too opening the lid raises the
back of the machine up giving the
keyboard a slight incline for typing and
this also means the speakers aren't
pressed directly against the table i
found it fine to use but the back foot
feels a bit different on my leg if i
want to use it on my lap there's more of
a pressure point at the back rather than
the usual flat surface the main screen
is a 14 inch 1080p panel while the
secondary screen is a 12.65 inch
1920x515 pixel screen so slightly under
half 1080p resolution vertically both
are 60hz touchscreens with a matte
finish so you can use either for drawing
with the included stylus speaking of
included it also came with this case and
a foldable stand in case you wanted even
more elevation the main screen offered
much better color gamut than the
secondary screen so sticking to the main
screen for content creation and using
the secondary screen to display extra
content seems to be the way to go both
screens were able to surpass 300 nits
however i found the screen pad was able
to get brighter at maximum brightness
there were some bleed patches towards
the upper corners with both screens but
it wasn't enough to notice during
regular use outside of this worst case
example basically windows just sees this
as two separate monitors so you can drag
windows over between the screens and set
up whatever you like on the second
screen whether that be something like
discord chat or controls for an
application there are some good examples
on the asus product page for the laptop
that explain all of the functionality
basically we've got a bunch of shortcuts
to quickly manage the secondary screen
we can adjust brightness lock the
keyboard so that it doesn't interfere
with drawing set shortcut apps to easily
open and more the software also makes it
easy to move windows between different
screens or set a window to take up both
screens there's also a dedicated button
above the touchpad for swapping apps
between screens as well as a button that
lets you turn the screen pad on or off
there are also some nice improvements
for creative apps like adobe photoshop
and premiere there's now more
integration with these apps open we can
use the provided control panel to create
shortcuts on the touchscreen to speed up
the workflow a huge improvement the 720p
camera is above the display in the
center and it's got ir for windows hello
support this is what the camera and
microphone look and sound like and this
is what it sounds like to type on the
keyboard
the keyboard and touchpad definitely
takes some getting used to typing with
the chiclet keyboard isn't too bad as
long as you've got enough space to push
the laptop back far enough so that your
hands sit in the right spot as the front
location of the keyboard means that it
sits closer to you it's got white
backlighting with three levels of key
brightness which lights up all keys and
secondary functions i thought typing
felt fine there's 1.4 millimeters of key
travel here's how typing sounds to give
you an idea of what to expect
personally i always found the precision
touchpad awkward and small it's just an
unfortunate compromise to fit two
screens in i'd always prefer using a
mouse whenever possible there's not much
area for fingerprints to show up on the
interior and you can only really see
them on the touchscreens when it's off
as it's not a glossy finish otherwise
they appear easily on the lid and are a
little challenging to clean with a
microfiber cloth on the left there's a
hdmi 1.4 output two usb type-c
thunderbolt 4 ports both of these can be
used to charge the laptop and both offer
displayport outputs the right has a
micro sd card slot 3.5 millimeter audio
combo jack and a usb 3.2 gen1 type a
port the back just has some small rubber
feet which come into contact with the
desk when you open the lid there's
nothing over on the front no groove for
getting your finger in but i didn't find
it too hard to open opening it with one
finger isn't possible due to the smaller
size and lower weight lid flex is on the
lower side due to the metal exterior and
the interior didn't have too much flex
either considering the laptop is on the
thinner side and that it's raised up off
the desk the screen pad just has hinges
behind the corners holding it up but
even pushing harder than i ever normally
would in the middle felt fairly sturdy
so nice build quality overall there are
no holes for air intake underneath as
air instead comes in below the screen
pad getting inside requires taking out
nine tr5 screws and the four down the
front are shorter than the rest the
bottom panel was easy to pry off links
to the tools i use can be found in the
description once inside we've got the
battery down the front and single m.2
storage slot above towards the right
memory is soldered to the motherboard
which is pretty typical for laptops at
this size but you can get it with up to
32 gig so you'll have to buy with what
you need from the start as you can't
upgrade we can also see where the mx450
gpu would be found if we had that though
i'm not sure if it would still be a
single heat pipe the speakers are
towards the front on the left and right
sides i thought they sounded pretty good
for a laptop of this size definitely
above average with some bass and loud
enough at maximum volume the latency mod
results weren't too bad either the duo
14 is powered by a four cell 70 watt
hour battery i've run my usual youtube
playback test with keyboard lighting off
and with both screens at 50 brightness i
also tested with the screen pad turned
off to save battery which gave it an
extra 3 hours of runtime for over 10
hours in total for the purposes of
comparing with others though i've chosen
to use the runtime with both screens on
as that's likely how most people would
use it i figure if you're buying a dual
screen laptop you want to use two
screens the asus software also lets you
select between different battery modes
which will keep the battery at different
charge levels to prolong the lifespan of
the battery let's check out thermals
next air is pulled in behind the screen
pad and then exhausted out towards the
main panel on the right the myasu
software lets you pick between three
different performance modes which from
lowest to highest a whisper balanced and
performance which as soos say can
sustain the full 28 watt tdp of the
intel i7 1165 g7 processor you can swap
through software or with the function
plus f shortcut combo anytime the
processor was cool at idle and then with
the ada64 cpu stress test running it
wasn't getting too hot just a little
over 70 degrees celsius worst case in
the highest performance mode though i
would expect warmer if you have the
nvidia mx450 graphics option and use
that at the same time these are the
clock speeds from the same tasks so
whisper mode is a fair bit slower which
is why it was also running cooler it's
always a trade-off between performance
and heat these are the power levels that
were being reached so asus claim of 28
watts in performance mode is indeed
possible which is good to see here's how
cpu only performance looks in cinebench
r20 single core performance isn't much
different between balanced and
performance but the higher 28 watt power
limit of performance mode allows for a
25 percent higher multi-core score
here's how the best performance mode
result compares against other laptops so
the single core score is near those
other 11th gen laptops that i've tested
and although this is a quad core
processor it's still offering one of the
better multi-core scores for four cores
at idle the keyboard was quite cool the
screen was a little warmer but still
cooler than most other laptops that i
test which are generally around the low
30 degree celsius point it was just a
bit warmer with the stress tests going
in whisper mode mostly near the bottom
of the lower screen balanced mode isn't
too different but the fans are louder
now to compensate for the higher
performance performance mode is again
similar and we can see the air
exhausting onto the main screen on the
right hand side let's have a listen to
the fair noise
it sounded completely silent to me at
idle in whisper mode even with the cpu
stress test going it was still extremely
quiet the fan is more audible in
balanced mode but still on the quieter
side compared to most laptops i've
tested then performance mode was a bit
louder though this is more of a worst
case you've got the option of running
quieter if you're just browsing the
internet for example granted a workload
like that is nowhere near as hardcore as
the stress test i'm testing with
although not a gaming laptop by any
means the intel xe graphics are
definitely capable of running games
aaa titles at 720p is possible as long
as you're not going to max settings
while esports titles are fine even at
1080p i've also tested some content
creator workloads adobe premiere video
exporting doesn't do as well when
compared to other laptops that have
discrete amd or nvidia graphics though
when we look at the puget system's
premiere test where higher scores are
better now it's a little more ahead as
this tests for more things than just raw
export times such as live playback but
still similar to other tiger lake
systems with intel xe graphics adobe
photoshop is heavily dependent on
processor performance and as we've seen
before the i7 1165 g7 has excellent
single core performances and a bunch but
i was still surprised to see such a high
score here davinci resolve on the other
hand is heavily dependent on the gpu and
the intel xc graphics just can't keep up
compared to laptops with discrete gpus
i've used crystal diskmark to test the
storage and the one terabyte nvme m.2
ssd was doing very well both for reads
and writes the microsd card slot on the
other hand was on the lower side even
with a fast v90 card the card clicks in
and sits most of the way into the laptop
for updated pricing check the links in
the description as prices will change
over time at the time of recording the
i5 configuration seems to start at a
thousand us dollars while the
configuration i'm looking at is thirteen
hundred dollars and i'd expect the mx
450 model to be higher overall i think
the idea of two screens and a laptop is
definitely interesting especially for
content creator style workloads where
you can actually benefit from more
screen space personally i think i would
be more interested in the larger 15-inch
model as it has higher tier specs but
for maximum portability the smaller duo
14 should have you covered the improved
software integration with adobe
applications was also great to see it's
always good to see unique designs like
this that no one else is doing and if
you can live with the compromises
something like this entails mainly the
keyboard down the front and that smaller
touchpad well i can't see too much else
to complain about it's also hard to
compare against other laptops out there
again due to this unique design how
would you use a dual screen laptop like
this let me know down in the comments
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