Michael Crider
Dual-screen laptop designs have never entered the mainstream, despite the fan site I set up for the ThinkPad W700DS in freshman year. But thanks to a boost in power from the latest Intel and NVIDIA chips, ASUS is ready to give it another go. The 15-inch ROG Zephyrus Duo fits a second, skinny 14-inch screen above the keyboard deck.
It’s an interesting move. And I mean that literally: unlike some other integrated secondary screens, like ASUS’ own ZenBook Pro 15 with a screen built into the touchpad, this one tilts up by 13 degrees to make it easier to view while using the primary screen. The bottom one is a little slice of 4K, with 3840×1100 pixels on its 60Hz panel. Beneath it you get the usual RGB gaming keyboard and a versatile side-mounted touchpad, though this design does necessitate removing the wrist rest entirely.
The bombastic form factor fits into a chassis just .82 inches thick. Impressive, considering it’s also packing a 10th-gen Intel processor (up to Core i9-10980HK) and RTX 2080 Super discrete graphics card. Maximum specs from the factory include 2TB of storage, 32GB of RAM, and Wi-Fi 6. Despite all of those inclusions, the battery is a beefy 90 watt-hours with Type-C charging (minimum 65w input), and the M.2 SSD and RAM DIMM slots are user-accessible. All that tech does make the design rather heavy at 5.3 pounds.
But what about that big screen up top? It comes in two flavors: a 4K panel with 100% Adobe RGB coverage for “creators,” and a 1080p panel with the fastest-available 300Hz refresh rate and a quick 3ms response time. I can see both creators and gamers taking advantage of the unique two-screen design, the former for research and design tools, the latter for streaming systems or chat clients.
If you’re hoping to get the ROG Zephyrus Pro 15 into your gaming setup, start saving your pennies and/or mortgaging your property now. It arrives in June, with a base model price of $3000 for the Core i7/16GB RAM version.
Source: ASUS
