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Asus is causing quite the stir this year at CES with the unveiling of its ZenBook Duo, a laptop that’s everything but ordinary. Instead of a traditional keyboard and trackpad on the base, it has a second screen for maximizing the amount of room you have to work. It’s reminiscent of Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i, which we enjoyed last year.
This take on a dual-screen laptop is a bit different compared to previous ZenBook Duos. Asus used to stick a big screen between the main display and the top of the keyboard, but only a few people could appreciate its quirkiness. This time around, the company has gone big, making the new ZenBook Duo the world’s first dual 14-inch OLED laptop.
We got a chance to go hands-on with it ahead of CES, and we were left thinking the same thing you probably are: This is one weird machine.
Pricing and availability
Asus hasn’t shared exact pricing for the ZenBook Duo just yet, but we expect it to happen soon. Its expected ship date is sometime before the end of the first quarter, so we’ll update this article when we know more.
An alternate take on a dual-screen design
At first glance, it’s easy to draw comparisons between the ZenBook Duo and Yoga Book 9i since they both offer two OLED screens, but Asus’ design language is a bit different compared to Lenovo’s. The ZenBook feels a lot more industrial, with squared-off edges and a gray color, while the Yoga Book is softer, with round edges and a teal color. Asus also integrates a kickstand on the back of the device, whereas Lenovo includes a separate kickstand in the box.
The biggest design difference between the two is the keyboard situation. If you want to carry the Yoga Book 9i anywhere, you have to carry around the Yoga Book itself, a kickstand and a keyboard all stacked on top of one another. But with the ZenbBook Duo, the included keyboard can fit between the two screens, thanks to a wider hinge, which means everything gets wrapped up into one convenient package.
When you’re ready to get to work, you can set the ZenBook Duo up in four different ways: the screens stacked on top of each other, the screens standing sideways, in tent mode for dual viewing or a traditional style with the keyboard on top of the bottom display. You can even lay both screens flat on a table if you want, although they don’t fold 360 degrees for tablet mode.
The keyboard attaches to the laptop through magnetic pogo pins, both to keep it charged and for a direct connection with the laptop. When it’s undocked, it connects over Bluetooth so you can set it up however you want. The keyboard itself is razor thin and features keys with a good amount of travel, along with a trackpad that felt nice and smooth in my limited use.
The ZenBook Duo itself meets US MIL-STD-810H standards, so it should be safe if you accidentally bash it around. You also get a bunch of ports around the sides, including two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB 3.2 Type-A port, a full-size HDMI 2.1 port and a headphone jack.
That’s all in a package that weighs about 3 pounds without the keyboard and 3.68 pounds with the keyboard. It’s also 14.6mm thin without the keyboard and 19.9mm with it, so you shouldn’t notice it all that much in your bag.
Software tricks help you take advantage of all the space
With two 14-inch displays to work with, you’ve got plenty of room to spread out your apps and see more stuff at once. Asus makes it easy to manage it all with a bunch of neat software tricks built into Windows 11 through its ScreenXpert app, which includes shortcuts for docking windows wherever you want, moving content from one screen to another and even switching which built-in microphone you want to use.
There are also a bunch of gestures that come in handy. Swipe down with six fingers on the lower display for quick controls, a touchscreen keyboard and more. Tap with three fingers and you’ll get a floating touchpad for controlling the mouse. You can even swipe up with five fingers on an app to maximize it and fill your display with its content.
You also get task groups for bunching apps together and returning to them later, a custom app switcher, a floating control panel, a touch numpad and stylus input. This thing is packed to the gills with features to help you take advantage of both displays, and in my early testing, it seemed pretty intuitive.
Surprisingly beefy specs
The Yoga Book 9i played things pretty safe when it came to specs since it’s so thin and unusual, but Asus went much bigger with the ZenBook Duo.
It’s equipped with Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 185-H and Core Ultra 7 155-H processors, which are some of the company’s speediest chips to date (they even rival Apple’s M3 processors, at least according to Intel). They’re paired with up to 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage and Intel Arc graphics, which should give you a bigger boost than integrated graphics when it comes to heavier tasks. Oh, and there’s a Dual Neural Compute Engine and a dedicated low-power AI engine for, y’know, all that machine learning and AI stuff.
The displays are 14-inch 2880 x 1800 Asus Lumina OLED panels with 120Hz refresh rates and up to 500 nits of brightness. There’s a Full HD webcam at the top of the laptop with a privacy shutter that works with Windows Hello.
Asus says the ZenBook Duo should last up to 10 hours on a charge, thanks to the 75-watt-hour (Wh) battery inside. When it’s time to recharge, the 65W charger in the box will juice you up from zero to 50% in 30 minutes.
Finally, the speakers are Harman Kardon and Dolby Atmos certified, and you get the latest Wi-Fi 6E speeds.
The takeaway
Asus makes a compelling case to transition your workflow to a more unconventional form factor. The ZenBook Duo will have the same challenge of appealing to enough folks who need a second screen on the go as the Yoga Book 9i, and it’ll be interesting to see how many folks latch on to the concept.
We’ll have a review of the ZenBook Duo in the coming months, so be sure to stay tuned. In the meantime, check out more of our CES 2024 coverage.