Asus has announced the second generation of its dual screen laptops and is aimed at creative professionals thanks to improvements in software and hardware. The original dual screen design felt more like a novelty, but this follow-up feels much more practical.
The company has announced two different versions of the dual-screen laptops, the ZenBook Pro Duo 15 OLED (model number UX582) and the ZenBook Duo 14 (model number UX482). Both models add a feature that is ready to make the design of the dual screen very useful: it tilts. Called Asus ScreenPad Plus, it is a full-width secondary touch screen with a new tilt mechanism that, according to the company, improves readability, has 36% better airflow for cooling purposes, and allows it to work more seamlessly for multitasking and creative applications.
The second screen tilts about 9.5 degrees on the Pro Duo and 7 degrees on the Duo 14, which according to the company reduces glare and reflections, making it much easier to read.
When the laptops are placed on the included Duo Stand, the tilt screen sits in a style-friendly corner, and both screens support the latest 4096 touch-level devices, including the ASUS Pen.
The ScreenPad Plus is powered by an upgraded version of the ScreenXpert 2 software that includes a collection of new and upgraded applications designed to increase productivity.
The new Window Flick feature that allows users to rotate only windows between screens. The popular Task Group app has an updated design so that users can see their taskgroups at a glance and instantly lock into work modes by launching multiple applications with one tap.
Asus has also announced that the ScreenXpert 2 software has a new feature called Control Panel, which is a fully customizable app that currently works with Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, Premiere and After Effects. The control panel is very clearly focused on advertising and allows you to gain precise control over Adobe applications, such as adjusting the brush size, saturation, layer transparency, and others through a dial, button,, shift or shift control. Asus says that each works in a different way to give precise and smooth control over a set of parameters.
ZenBook Pro Duo 15 OLED
The Zenbook Pro Duo 15 OLED is the dual-screen flagship model and features a high-performance Intel Core i9 processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 laptop GPU, up to 32 GB RAM and up to 1 TB PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD. The 14-inch 4K UHD ScreenPad Plus has an improved brightness of 400 nets and sits below the main 15.6-inch screen.
Asus says the Pro Duo is one of the first NVIDIA Studio laptops with an RTX 30-series GPU that he says provides GPU acceleration for beam tracking, artificial intelligence and fast video encoding.
The Pro Duo features two Thunderbolt 3 ports that support an additional 8K external screen or two 4K UHD screens. The laptop is also equipped with WiFi 6 (802.11ax) which is up to three times faster wireless connections than Wi-Fi 5.
The OLED screen is a 4K NDR NanoEdge touchscreen with a frameless, square, slender edge with a 93% screen-to-body ratio that, according to Asus, maximizes the screen space for the size of the laptop. The OLED screen also offers incredible contrast, something that OLEDs are always praised for achieving. Asus says that it also has excellent color accuracy and achieves 100% of the DCI-P3 range and has a PANTONE-validated certification (Adobe RGB specifications were not provided, however).
The ZenBook Pro Duo 15 OLED is expected to be released in April with prices to be announced later.
ZenBook Duo 14
The Zenbook Duo 14 has many of the same features as the Pro Duo, but is cheaper. It is powered by up to an 11th generation Intel Core i7 with Intel Iris Xe graphics and a choice of NVIDIA GeForce MX450 graphics, up to 32 GB RAM and up to 1 TB PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD. It has a 12.6-inch secondary ScreenPad Plus and the main screen of the 14-inch Full HD touch screen.
The Duo 14 has a pair of Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports that support power delivery and offer the ability to connect an external 8K screen or two 4K UHD screens. It is also equipped with WiFi 6.
Asus uses the term “random creators” to describe those who will be attracted to the Duo 14 and clearly draw a line between the and the much more powerful Pro Duo.
The Duo 14 will be available much sooner than the Pro Duo, with pre-orders starting January 14 in North America for as low as $ 999.