Asus ZenBook Duo 14 review
Our Verdict
The Asus ZenBook Duo 14 is a pretty skillful laptop that sacrifices ergonomics for a big second screen.
For
- Useful ScreenPad Plus display
- Snappy overall performance
- Solid battery life
- Accurate chief brandish
Against
- Ergonomically difficult
- Display could be brighter
Tom'southward Guide Verdict
The Asus ZenBook Duo fourteen is a pretty good laptop that sacrifices ergonomics for a large second screen.
Pros
- +
Useful ScreenPad Plus brandish
- +
Snappy overall performance
- +
Solid battery life
- +
Accurate principal brandish
Cons
- -
Ergonomically difficult
- -
Brandish could be brighter
Asus Zenbook Duo fourteen: Specs
Price: $999 (starting), $1,299 (tested)
CPU: 11th Gen Intel Core i5, i7
Display: 13.4‑inch, 1920 ten 1080 pixels
Battery: ten:37 | 14:11 (ScreenPad Plus off)
Memory: 8GB to 32GB
Storage: 512GB to 1TB
Dimensions: 12.8 ten 8.7 x 0.seven inches
Weight: 3.5 pounds
Merely as rumors say Apple tree will kill the Bear upon Bar, the Asus Zenbook Duo 14 (UX482) continues to innovate the 2d-screen feel and bear witness what could have been. Yes, instead of the sliver of an OLED touchscreen that Apple tree provides, Asus' Duo laptops continue to give you a huge slab of a second screen.
And Asus is definitely onto something: its ScreenPad Plus gives you infinite to put the apps yous're non using at the moment (simply want to encounter in a moment's observe). In other words: if yous're short on screen infinite, just don't desire a large secondary monitor, the ScreenPad Plus may be the solution you didn't know you lot needed. And it's the kind of innovation that earns information technology a spot on our best laptops list. In fact, it's so good that it won a recommendation for all-time laptop quantum in our Tom's Guide Awards 2021.
And this year's model has notable improvements. For starters, the ScreenPad raises up to be closer to the main screen, to try and go some continuity. And now it'due south got a Command Centre utility to aid you manage this extra screen, a welcome improver.
Merely while the ScreenPad Plus takes away the wrist-residue space, this is still a mighty fine laptop — indeed, information technology's 1 of the best Windows laptops on the marketplace correct now. Its performance and endurance stands toe to toe with the best PC laptop around, making it 1 of the all-time laptops for applied science students, and while its screen may not be the brightest, it's still a great window to your content. So, for everyone curious about the ScreenPad Plus and how information technology might change their game up, this Asus ZenBook Duo 14 review should answer all of your questions.
Asus ZenBook Duo fourteen review: Cost and availability
We tested the ZenBook Duo fourteen with a Core i7-1165G7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB PCIe SSD. It's available at B&H Photo and Asus.com. The entry-level $999 ZenBook Duo 14 (which Asus says is "coming soon") has a Cadre i5-1135G7 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
The ZenBook Duo 14 (UX482) had a release engagement January 14, 2021.
Asus ZenBook Duo 14 review: Blueprint
On the exterior, the ZenBook Duo xiv looks classy. Asus gave the laptop a Celestial Blue hue, with a concentric circles blueprint etched on top, along with the glossy silver Asus logo.
Open it up, and your brain may interruption in confusion, as happened when I showed information technology to my parents. Its 14-inch 1080p panel has a whole second screen underneath it: which Asus calls the ScreenPad Plus. Information technology's just equally wide as the primary screen, just it'southward measuring 12.half-dozen inches because it'south not every bit alpine.
As you open the ZenBook Duo 14'south chapeau, hinges inside the ScreenPad Plus raise it by 7 degrees. It's a nice touch that allows the height of the smaller screen to get closer to the bottom of the second screen. Those 7 degrees don't make it await like one giant continuous panel, but it's a helpful change to make the ScreenPad Plus easier to see. It also increases heat circulation.
The Asus ZenBook Duo 14 continues to redefine what a laptop is and what information technology looks like, for the better.
The ZenBook Duo 14 is a novel and neat pattern that Asus is continuing to improve, but this is one of the least lap-friendly laptops I've e'er used. Past taking abroad the wrist-rest space, which is removed considering of the ScreenPad Plus, your palms fall off the front of the keyboard when it'southward fourth dimension to type.
On a desk, this is less of a problem -- practice you lot have a wrist residue pad effectually? I establish the Logitech MX Keys' residual to be suitable. But when you put the ZenBook Duo 14 in your lap, your forearms have basically little room to move, as they're sitting tight between your tum and the front edge of the ZenBook Duo.
At 0.vii inches thick and 3.5 pounds, the ZenBook Duo 14 is thicker and heavier than the latest Dell XPS thirteen (0.five inches, 2.9 pounds) and Macbook Air with M1 (0.six inches, 2.8 pounds).
Asus ZenBook Duo 14 review: Ports
The ZenBook Duo 14's thickness allows it more ports than many pop laptops. On the left, in addition to the dual ThunderBolt 4 USB-C ports (i of which you'll employ for charging), yous'll find an HDMI out port.
On the right, Asus placed a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD reader, along with a USB-A port. You lot'd need an adapter to get HDMI and USB-A ports on the MacBook Air and Dell XPS 13, and we're tired of conveying effectually adapters.
Asus ZenBook Duo 14 review: Displays
As I watched a WandaVision trailer on the ZenBook Duo 14's 1080p, I noticed the screen's splendid color output while wishing it were brighter. Wanda's hair reproduced in the accurate and vibrant shade orange as she emerged from under a comforter whose threads looked clear and crisp. And while I could tell that I was used to brighter panels, the ZenBook Duo 14's screen withal impresses with its color accurateness (it'south PANTONE certification is a proficient badge of honor).
Equally for the ScreenPad Plus, well, information technology doesn't look as great to my center, but some of my photos wait great on information technology as a secondary screen. The reds and blues in a piece of Bernie Sanders street art popped, while a lot of the rest of the image looked tiresome.
The ScreenPad Plus' 7 degrees of pinnacle are best for those who place their laptop directly on their desk. Unfortunately, those who use a stand up to elevate their laptop screen to an ergonomic-friendly eye-level will discover the ScreenPad Plus slightly harder to see. I found this out at my own desk-bound, when I tried to switch my MacBook Pro out for the ZenBook Duo xiv, and found myself craning my neck to see information technology from the right bending. Asus packs in a small folding stand to make it easier to run across for all use cases, simply that wedge doesn't aid as much as I'd like.
Co-ordinate to our colorimeter, the main brandish emits 114.7% of the sRGB spectrum, a like score to the 114.three% from the MacBook Air with M1 and better than the 97.9% from the XPS 13. The ScreenPad Plus only hits 64.five%.
As my optics could tell, the ZenBook Duo 14 could stand to be brighter, maxing out at 307.4 nits. The MacBook Air (365 nits) and XPS xiii (469 nits) get much brighter, as does 392.iii-nit ScreenPad Plus. Still, the ZenBook Duo's anti-glare coating and overall screen quality helped colors stay strong when viewed at 30 degrees to the left and right, which doesn't always happen on screens with less than 400 nits of effulgence.
The ZenBook Duo 14's touchscreens responded to taps and swipes speedily. Web pages also scrolled smoothly as I navigated Google Docs and longer sites.
Asus ZenBook Duo xiv review: Software
For the about function, the ZenBook Duo 14 is a vanilla-standard version of Windows 10. While we wish it didn't have bloatware like McAfee Antivirus -- which spams you lot with pestering letters to subscribe or risk your security -- that's more of the status quo than annihilation peculiarly surprising. Further, you don't need McAfee: Windows Defender has gotten pretty good over the years.
The most important piece of software is the ScreenPad Plus Control Center, which unlocks a lot of functionality for the secondary screen. Its superlative widget is a brightness slider, which you'll likely toy with to optimize battery life. The next few buttons aren't that important, with a utility for moving windows between the screens (which isn't hard), a link to the MyAsus app, a keyboard lock push for when y'all want to disable your keyboard, and a push button to hibernate the apps in the ScreenPad Plus, so you tin can either start over or see your background.
The Control Panel'southward bottom two buttons are its most important. The Launcher (iv dots) icon lets yous quickly summon a number-pad and a set up of keyboard shortcuts to the ScreenPad Plus. Just don't overlook the "NEW +" icons on the bottom of this screen. Here, you can brand chore groups, aka custom arrangements of your most often used applications and browser tabs. I used it to create a "start of day" prepare, with Trello up top, and TweetDeck and Slack below, likewise equally an "after work" set with Discord in the master screen, and Spotify and TweetDeck below.
At that place are even additional ScreenPad Plus modes for creativity apps, such every bit Later Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Lightroom Classic. Users of those apps can get a whole panel of touch-sensitive controls. But fifty-fifty but for my every-twenty-four hour period productivity needs, I institute the ScreenPad Plus valuable in its own right. By contrast, the MacBook Pro's Bear on Bar still feels similar a gimmick in search of a problem to set up, while the ScreenPad Plus is here for those who want more screen space.
Asus ZenBook Duo 14 review: Keyboard, touchpad
Equally unconventional as the ZenBook Duo 14'due south typing feel is, its keys are fantabulous for jamming through line after line of text. On the 10fastfingers typing exam, I click-clacked my fashion to 75 words per minute (non far from my 80 wpm average), with a great 96% accurateness (perchance a bespeak or two off my boilerplate. Simply while I appreciate the fact that the keys are quiet, this machine needs its own wrist remainder. Fortunately, I accept 1 on hand to save myself from a wrist injury from the awkward typing angle -- where your wrists take nothing to sit on.
And so in that location'due south the awkward ii.half-dozen x 2.1-inch touchpad, which sits to the right of the keyboard. Because of its odd and unusual position, I mostly forgot that it existed, opting to tap the screen with my hands when necessary. My only issue with the touchpad came when my pinky finger accidentally jabbed its left-click button when I wanted to click the Right directional central (which is horizontally side by side). The touchpad doesn't have a physical clicking mechanism, and that's something you lot may have to get used to, but it didn't prove problematic for me.
Asus ZenBook Duo 14 review: Audio
The ZenBook Duo 14's Harman/Kardon-branded speakers sound good, provided you don't plow them upwards too high. As I played a choice of my favorite Spotify playlists (the soundtracks to Tony Militarist's Pro Skater and Promising Immature Adult female), I noticed that songs carried a flake of distortion if I raised the volume beyond 75% — and they fill a medium-sized room at that level. So, manage your volume right and yous'll hear the songs you lot love accurately, as I heard Rage Against the Machine'south "Guerilla Radio" hard-hitting drums and insane guitar riffs come out clearly, while the bass of Maya B's "Selenas" rattled appropriately.
And just forget about the DTS Audio Processing utility that's built in. Its default Music setting is its all-time for all kinds of entertainment, and the Movies and Games settings don't ameliorate its sound enough to merit the few taps it takes to open up the app and change them. And if you turn off that utility, you'll learn how much heavy lifting it's doing, as sound quality drops off tremendously..
Asus ZenBook Duo xiv review: Performance
Armed with an Intel Evo 11th Gen Core i7-1165G7 processor and 8GB of RAM, the Asus ZenBook Duo fourteen is pretty speedy. It did not blanche at my standard 12 tabs and a 1080p divide-screen test (which it should have no issue with), all the while Spotify and Discord stayed snappy and responsive on the ScreenPad Plus display.
On Geekbench 5.3, the ZenBook Duo 14 posted a score of five,330, while the MacBook Air (M1, 16GB of RAM) ran circles around information technology with a score of seven,575. On Geekbench v.0.4 (as we don't have GB 5.iii scores for all laptops), the Zenbook Duo 14 netted a 5,235, non as well far off from the five,254 from the Dell XPS xiii (Cadre i7-1165G7, 16GB of RAM).
The ZenBook Duo 14 fared better than the XPS 13 in other tests, though, such every bit our file transfer examination, which finds the rate at which a laptop clones 25GB of files. While the XPS xiii cloned files at 806MBps, the ZenBook Duo xiv moved files at a prune of 921MBps.
The ZenBook Duo 14 fared similarly in our Handbrake video conversion exam, taking 14 minutes and 55 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. The MacBook Air with M1 finished this exam in nine:xv (on the beta version optimized for Apple tree Silicon), and the XPS 13 took eighteen minutes and 22 seconds.
Asus ZenBook Duo fourteen review: Graphics
The ZenBook Duo 14 too took points from the XPS 13 by running Civ VI at 30 frames per second (at 1080p). That's almost twice every bit fast every bit the 16 fps rate from the XPS thirteen. The MacBook Air ran the game at 36 fps, but that'southward at the lower 1440x900 resolution (the largest supported by the system).
On the 3DMark Fire Strike criterion, the ZenBook Duo 14 won again, with a score of iv,985 that easily beats the three,598 from the XPS xiii.
Asus ZenBook Duo fourteen review: Battery Life
The ZenBook Duo 14 has pretty good bombardment life, which is a chip shocking considering that it has to ability a second screen that's half the size of its main panel. On our laptop battery test (web surfing at 150 nits) the ZenBook Duo 14 lasted x hours and 37 minutes, which isn't too far off the XPS 13 (xi:07). The MacBook Air with M1 (14:41) lasted much longer, a perk of its ARM-based Apple silicon processor.
Y'all could get more battery life out of the ZenBook Duo xiv if you lot plow its ScreenPad Plus off -- as it lasted 14:11 when but the chief panel was turned on. Only I don't imagine anyone making that sacrifice, when the ScreenPad Plus is the whole reason you'd purchase this laptop.
Asus ZenBook Duo xiv review: Webcam
As unique every bit the ZenBook Duo fourteen is, it has the most pedestrian 0.nine-megapixel webcam. Selfies I shot on the laptop lack particular in the way that I look, with stubble looking more smudgy than information technology should. Those struggling to wait clearer should either buy one of the best webcams or find natural calorie-free.
Asus ZenBook Duo fourteen review: Heat
For the well-nigh part, the ZenBook Duo fourteen stays absurd under fire. After streaming 15 minutes of total Hard disk video on the notebook, our oestrus gun captured low readings of eighty degrees Fahrenheit on its touchpad and 81 degrees on its keyboard.
And while its underside mostly stayed at 92 degrees (all the same under our 95 caste comfort threshold), one spot near the middle hitting 97 degrees. The ZenBook Duo fourteen didn't get hot enough in my day-to-day testing for me to notice or exist a problem, though that may be more almost how uncomfortable it is to blazon on in your lap.
Asus ZenBook Duo xiv review: Verdict
The Asus ZenBook Duo 14 continues to redefine what a laptop is and what information technology looks similar, for the better. And we're a bit shocked that the ZenBook Duo is priced at $200 less than a similarly configured XPS xiii ($1,499), which is similar in speed and endurance. If only it had a little more than room for your wrists, and was easier to utilise in your lap.
For longer battery life, and faster operation, you lot should bank check out the MacBook Air M1, which costs $fifty less when similarly spec'd (with the $1,249 configuration). Only for those who want a lot of screen in a single laptop, the Asus ZenBook Duo 14 is definitely worth consideration.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/asus-xenbook-duo-14-ux482
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