The twin-screen Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 is the rare laptop that does something completely new, and executes it well. It’s priced out of reach for the average user, but we applaud this peek into a possible future for gaming notebooks.
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Hi, I’m Matthew Buzzi here with a laptop That’s probably not like anything You’ve ever seen before. This is the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15. A gaming laptop that
shares something in common With ASUS’s own ZenBook line, But has its own twist on it. Now it might not surprise you That this is a more premium laptop. It has a $3,000 starting price, And our test unit is a
$3,700 configuration. For that much, you get
a Core i9 processor, 32 gigabytes of RAM, And NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super Max-Q GPU, And two terabytes of storage, As well as a 4K display. Rest assured those parts do deliver High-end gaming experience Of blistering fast speed And high frame rates in games As well as good performance
across the board. The star of the show is
the secondary screen. And that’s what kinda
sets this laptop apart. The ZenBook Pro Duo Series from ASUS Has a similar type of display. It’s full width across the body here, But it doesn’t tilt up and angle at you, Which is really the unique feature, Which also allows for additional cooling. Since this is a gaming laptop, It gets very hot while you’re gaming. That’s one of the main challenges Of creating a thin gaming laptop, But the extra room here allows
The top vents to take in cool air Underneath this display, And then exhaust it out
the back on the sides. So, it kinda turns the tilted display, Which makes it easier to see Into an additional
advantage with the cooling. Now, the burning question is What is the screen used for? And is it worthwhile? I don’t think anyone needs this display. I do think it’s very impressive And it’s a really cool
feat of engineering, Especially on a laptop That’s this thin and light. It’s 5.3 pounds And you can see how thin it is. So I admire that about the design. But the screen itself is more Of a bonus of a luxury, If you can afford a laptop, This expensive already. You can use this built-in display Like you would any secondary monitor. You can drag and drop windows onto it. You can put apps there That sit there persistently While you’re gaming on the main screen. That’s sort of a real use case Since this is a gaming monitor. If you wanted to have
Discord up on the bottom, So you could see your friends chat, Or Spotify to control your music, Or really any other chat service Or reference for whatever
game you’re playing
That you wanna have up
on the second screen, Without minimizing, You can put that on the bottom screen. You can drag and drop straight to it, There’s also a quick tool bar That lets you select a button And pops it down onto the screen for you, So you don’t have to drag it every time. And since it’s a touch screen, They include this cool launcher For your apps and settings. So the functionality here
is really only limited By your use cases. I mean, these are all luxuries. It’s a really expensive gaming laptop That no one needs. But they’re really cool luxuries. They’re really cool bonuses. I think this is a difficult
concept to pull off. It’s a smart concept, But it’s hard to execute well. I could’ve seen this going badly, But it’s really streamlined, it’s simple, The laptop itself is nicely built, And I, kinda find myself liking it a lot. This is the like kinda laptop you’d see In a Sci-Fi movie or TV show. And I think having it come to life, Albeit at at a high price
is really impressive. So to sacrifice for the
location of the screen And the cooling, The keyboard is pushed down further Than you’re used to seeing on a laptop. And the touch pad is relegated
To the bottom right corner. We’ve seen this on other
ASUS Zephyrus laptops, But it takes a little getting used to, I kept finding myself
reaching for the middle, Remembering it’s not there. It’s a little skinny, but it works. And you’re probably gonna be using A mouse most of the time
with a laptop like this. You have a pretty full compliment Of ports on this laptop. Again, despite the relatively thin size. One side just has the audio jacks And the power connector Another has two USB ports, And a USB-C port. And the back end has ethernet jack, An HDMI connection, And another USB port. As for the battery life, I didn’t really expect it to be that great Because it has really powerful components At a 4K display. But it actually ran for a little Over six hours on our rundown test. That’s not bad. That was with the second
screen turned off, Which you can do with a
button above the touch pad. I feel like if you’re in a scenario Where you’re trying to conserve battery, You might not need the second screen on It’s kind of a waste. I did turn it off on a second run, And it caught about an hour
and a half off of the time. So, one thing to note here
Is there’s no webcam, Not really sure Why ASUS decided not to include one. Not the first time you’ve
seen them do that recently, But, there are no webcam in the system. And a time where everyone’s
working from home, Maybe not the best exclusion, But I don’t make the rules. Finally, just to hop back To the particulars of
our review configuration. The Core i9 CPU is blistering
fast across the board. The 4K display is not the one I would choose for this laptop, Even the RTX 2080 Super Has trouble running games At 60 frames at 4k. You can always dial it down To 1080p resolution, But then you still are stuck at 60 Hertz. So you might as well go with one Of the high refresh screen options Since that’s what you’re probably Gonna play games on. And the power of your GPU Is kinda being wasted at 60 Hertz. So there’s a lot to
consider with this laptop. And you can read many more details And more of my thoughts
about the execution And how it works in my review. But the long story short is I do like it. And I think it’s cool, I think it’s impressive, I don’t think most shoppers Are going to buy this.
I don’t think ASUS expects Most shoppers to buy this. This is kind of a halo product, A showcase of what they can do. I think you might seem
this design filtered down Into some less expensive laptops. It’s not the first one to do this Between ASUS’s own laptops And the HP Omen X 2S, Which has a small square
screen in the middle. But I think it does it the best. And I kinda want to applaud it’s ingenuity And it’s innovation. And for that, we give it a high score. Check out the full review And more of our coverage on PCMag.com.
