Content

1. Contents of delivery
2. TECH SPECS
3. Positioning
4. Appearance, ergonomics
5. Screens, multimedia
6. Keyboard and touchpad
7. Performance, autonomy, cooling
8. Results

Contents of delivery

• A laptop
• 65W USB Type-C Power Supply
• Stand for a laptop
• Stylus
• Soft case
• Documentation

Positioning

ASUS notebooks with two displays have appeared on the pages of MobileReview several times. The form factor was used both in office models and in gaming solutions, and in both cases, the additional display looks like a useful and functional addition to seemingly already established use cases.

As part of the CES held in mid-January, the company presented updated laptops of the premium ZenBook Duo line, two models saw the light – the ZenBook Pro Duo 15 and the ZenBook Duo 14 that came to review. And if the first in the top is equipped with everything you need for work and play, then the test laptop is more focused on working scenarios: there is no discrete graphics, but an 11th generation Intel processor is installed. The specifications table shows the model modifications, the available sample is almost top-end, except for the absence of graphics from NVIDIA.

Appearance, ergonomics

When closed, we see a classic laptop from ASUS: a slender case weighing a little over one and a half kilograms, durable blue metal, a neat, silver-shining logo, from which concentric circles radiate pleasantly in the light. The surface is traditionally easily soiled, prints are erased quickly, especially with the use of special products. Thanks to the certification of the case to the US military standard, the laptop lid is very strong, almost impossible to squeeze from the outside and twist when open. In order to open the lid with one finger, you have to hold the case with the other hand. This is due to the increased rigidity of the hinge hinges, so that when you press the stylus on the screen, it is better fixed in place and does not fold.

When the lid is opened, the additional display rises above the surface of the case along with it. The opening angle of the ScreenPad Plus is 7 degrees, which makes the image on the display more readable. The ErgoLift hinge, which is already familiar from ASUS notebooks, provides additional convenience when entering text, which lifts the keyboard above the table at an angle that is more comfortable for typing. We will return to these two design elements later, but for now we continue to examine the ASUS ZenBook Duo 14.

Under the additional display, there is a keyboard and trackpad with two physical keys that simulate mouse buttons. As usual in models with two displays, the touchpad is located to the right of the keyboard. When working at a table, this does not cause any dissonance and inconvenience, but if you work on a sofa or an armchair, every now and then you want to connect a wireless mouse: working with the touch panel in this mode upsets the balance of the laptop. Of course, you can get used to it, but I would still choose the option with a mouse, for example, the Logitech MX Anywhere 3 works with any surface.

An important aspect that pleased me personally: connectors. Finally, the proprietary power connector disappeared, it was replaced by an additional Type-C port, but not some kind of one, but a full-fledged 4th generation connector with support for Thunderbolt 4. There are two such ports, and each of them supports connecting displays and support for charging over the Power Delivery protocol up to 94 W, and can also transfer information at a speed of up to 40 Gbps. Of course, not every cable now supports such speeds, let alone the peripherals, but this does not mean that the technologies should not be used now, because the specifications of the standard were officially announced back in the summer. Briefly about the rest of the ports: on the left side, next to the mentioned Type-C ports, there is a standard HDMI connector. The remaining ports on the right are USB Type-A, memory card slot and headphone jack.

In terms of dimensions, the laptop is slightly different from its colleagues without an additional display, which, as expected, adds weight to it. However, this does not affect mobility in any way, the laptop is easy to carry, for additional convenience, a comfortable soft case is provided in the package. In a backpack on the back, it is not felt at all.

Screens, multimedia

Not to say that the format of a touch display in a working device is alien to me, but two such screens are new to me at once. Both displays on the ASUS ZenBook Duo 14 feature FHD resolution and support a stylus that was thoughtfully included in the laptop box. The brightness of the main IPS-display is declared at 400 nits, according to impressions, the parameter is even higher, although, of course, I could be wrong. The bezels around it are comparatively thin, about 5 mm on the sides and a little less than a centimeter on top, where the webcam is located. Those interested can use it for Windows Hello biometric authentication, it also works in the infrared range, so it recognizes the owner even in the dark.

The color rendition of the display is verified by Pantone specialists, its coverage is 100% of the sRGB color space. This approach clearly hints that the display was developed with a hint of working with graphics; for this, one or another panel from Adobe Photoshop can be displayed on an additional display.

In general, as I already managed to understand after testing the ROG Zephyrus DUO, the second display qualitatively improves multitasking in almost any scenario. You can display one or another program or browser tab on it, or even two, if scaling allows. In my usual scenarios, this is where Spotify is usually sent or the required browser tab that I check or where the original translated text is located. Of the built-in applications, you can mark handwriting input and a calculator, there is no numeric block in the keyboard.

“Working with the second display is convenient: the cursor instantly moves between the two screens, there are no delays at all. To quickly transfer an application to the auxiliary display, you need to pull its window down. The Screen Xpert window will immediately appear, in which you can select the nature of interaction with ScreenPad Plus: transfer it in a compressed form, to full screen, or pin it to the launcher. In the settings of the additional display, you can set its brightness, change the background, set up energy saving and scaling … “.

ScreenPad Plus, in fact, can serve as a continuation of the main and additional display, everything is limited to use cases. Looking at such a form factor, sometimes it becomes a pity that I do not use specialized software for work; in this context, the ASUS ZenBook Duo 14 with its two touchscreen displays would be very useful.

An audio system developed in collaboration with Harman / Kardon is responsible for the sound. The built-in speakers are quite vociferous, the sound is voluminous and rich, as far as the format allows. The system of positioning the speaker slots helps to achieve high-quality sound: one on the left and on the right at the rounding of the edge of the case and one at the bottom in the center, on the area adjacent to the table. That is, no matter how the laptop is used, the sound in any case will be loud and clear, in my memory this is one of the best laptops in this parameter. If you wish, you can indulge in voice assistants from Microsoft or Amazon, the microphone system works clearly and does not cause any complaints.

Keyboard and touchpad

ASUS ZenBook 14 Duo uses an island-style keyboard, it is slightly recessed into the case and takes up almost all the free space from the left edge of the laptop to the trackpad. The test was attended by a sample without Russian engraving, in commercial sale, of course, there will be a keyboard with Russian letters. The travel of the switches is just under one and a half millimeters and is very quiet. The digital block is absent in any of its manifestations, physical or digital, so those who like to use commands like “ALT + number” will have to retrain or store the necessary characters nearby for copying and subsequent pasting. The size of the letter key switches is close to full-size models, you can type on the keyboard without any problems, for the sake of variety I wrote this review on it. Sometimes I made a mistake, I pressed delete instead of backspace, but then I got used to it. As for the size of other keys, the arrows and the top row of keys have significantly decreased in size.

The touchpad is small and vertical. The keys in its lower part have a soft deep stroke, with their help it is convenient to drag and drop files and select text. The platform itself has good sensitivity, reads multi-finger gestures quickly.

Performance, autonomy, cooling

Responsible for cooling is the same AAS Plus system with the same liquid metal thermal paste found in the ROG Zephyrus Duo. Cold air is drawn into the chassis through openings on the sides and exits through the ventilation elements on the chassis below the display. The ventilation system includes, oddly enough, both screens, or rather, their functional features.

The main display is raised above the table using the already mentioned hinge, which, in addition to ease of entry, contributes to more efficient cooling of the lower part of the laptop, as a rule, it is this part that tends to heat up under load. As for the secondary display, there is an additional ventilation hole underneath that opens when the ScreenPad Plus is raised. During the tests in 3DMark, the laptop was on its knees, and the heat was felt precisely on the bottom panel of the case; there were no critical indicators. When using the stand, cooling will only benefit, as will the ergonomics of use. The stand is glued to the bottom of the device.

ASUS ZenBook Duo is powered by the latest 11th Gen Intel processor and Intel Xe graphics. Unfortunately, the test sample lacked a discrete video card, so I wanted to try the new processor in games. Apparently, everything has its time, so far it has turned out to evaluate new items exclusively in work and test applications. The results in the latter are quite encouraging, on the other hand, with such a volume of RAM, there is nothing strange in them.

Benchmarks:

• Geekbench 5: single-core 1532 / multi-core 5546
• Cinebench R20: CPU – 1977, single-core mode – 541 cb
• PСMark 5008 (general 10137, productivity 6980, digital content creation 4819)
• 3DMark:
  • Wild Life: 13
  • Fire Strike 5283 (graphics 5806, physics 13710, combined test 2035)
  • Time Spy 1824 (Graphics 1652, CPU 4486)
  • Night Raid 17 642 (graphics 22 543, processor 7905)
• CrystalDIsk Mark: 3528 MB / s Read / 2944 MB / s Write

As befits a laptop certified by Intel Evo, the hero of the review effortlessly copes with all tasks, perhaps, except for running games, which is expected. Starting from the off state takes less than 5 seconds, the applications are confidently kept in memory. You can read more about the second generation of Intel Athena in the editorial material.

The autonomy of the ASUS ZenBook Duo 14 was very pleasing, I was unable to completely discharge the laptop in a seven-hour working day. Of course, in addition to the standard brightness settings and activated power saving modes, the indicators will depend on whether the second screen is working. According to the manufacturer, the model is capable of working from one charge up to 17 hours. In general, looking at the 58% remaining after work at almost full brightness, this figure can be trusted. In general, with the transition to Type-C, you can forget that the laptop is discharged, because the lightweight and mobile complete power supply unit allows you to charge the laptop from 0 to 60% in 49 minutes. Traditionally, they did not forget about preserving the battery resource, the settings for limiting the charge level are still in the MyAsus utility. There you can also update software components and link your smartphone with a laptop into one working system.

Results

It is difficult to find competitors for such a model. Yes, there are already a number of models on the market with the same processor from Acer, MSI, HP and the same ASUS, in a budget of up to 150 rubles you can even find gaming solutions, but all comparisons, including the cost, usually end on a form factor that no one dares to repeat so far, so you can only roughly compare in terms of characteristics. In my opinion, this does not mean that the laptop format is unsuccessful, just so far the manufacturers do not dare to make such experiments, while ASUS is already successfully demonstrating such a variant in the 000-inch diagonal.

The impressions from the two screens are still the same: the initial wow effect turns into an increase in work efficiency and its multitasking, there would be a desire to experiment and adjust working scenarios to a still new concept. Many applications are already adjusted for ScreenPad Plus, the corresponding software works flawlessly. Add to this the tightened hardware and a protected case, as well as modern fast connectors, and you get a good picture, although not everyone will find advantages for themselves in such a concept. From the point of view of the filling, there are no questions, there are a couple of subjective points regarding ergonomics, such as working on the knees and the limited angle of inclination of the display (there is no option with a 180-degree folding).

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