asus zenbook pro duo 15 review

Asus Zenbook Pro Duo 15: The Biggest, Most Powerful Laptop Ever

The Asus Zenbook Pro Duo 15 OLED UX582 has two touchscreens. One of them is a 4K OLED display and another is an oblong-shaped squatter OLED screen just above the keyboard. It also has powerful features like an Intel Core i9-10980HK CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, and 32GB of RAM.

The Asus Zenbook Pro Duo may seem like a gimmick, but it is not. It has been this way since 2019. The UX582 has improved both the design and the software for its second screen. It seems like Asus wants to do this so they will keep doing it. This laptop is only for people who have a lot of money ($2000). But if you buy one, you will enjoy it because you can do more things on the computer with two screens than just one.”

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo 15 OLED UX582 Laptop, 15.6” OLED 4K UHD Touch Display, Intel Core i7-10870H, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, GeForce RTX 3070, ScreenPad Plus, Windows 10 Pro, Celestial Blue, UX582LR-XS74T

The Asus Zenbook Pro Duo Tech specs

  • 15.6-inch 3840×2160 OLED display
  • Secondary 14-inch 3840×1100 OLED matte display
  • Intel Core i9-10980HK CPU
  • Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (laptop)
  • 32GB DDR4 RAM
  • 1 TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD
  • 720p webcam
  • Asus pen with 4,096 pressure levels
  • Ergonomic stand
  • Backpack
  • Left side: HDMI 2.1, headphone jack
  • Right side: USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 2x USB-C Thunderbolt 3
  • Weight: 5.16 pounds (1.52-pound power brick)
  • Dimensions: 14.17 x 9.81 x 0.96 inches

PROS

  • Unique ScreenPad Plus second display simplifies workflows.
  • The main display is an OLED panel.
  • Excellent design and build quality.
  • Intel Core i9 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 offer computing muscle.
  • Included stylus and wrist rest.

CONS

  • Cramped keyboard and touchpad.
  • No SD card reader.
  • Heavy.
  • Short battery life.

This laptop does not have many options for you to change it. The only option is the processor, but there is a version that costs $2,700 and has an Intel Core i7-10870H processor with 16GB of RAM.

The UX581 with a 9th-generation Core-i9 CPU and RTX 2060 GPU is still available, but the new design is better. In this new design, the second screen rises at an angle instead of staying flat.

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Price and availability

The Asus ZenBook is the company’s most powerful laptop with a dual-screen. It has been very expensive because it has strong parts and two screens.

The price for a model with a 6-core Intel Core i7-9750H CPU is $2,699.

Meanwhile, there is a computer with an Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU. It is $3,299 in US dollars. We will ask Asus if they have any other information about it.

Both versions of the laptop have an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU, a 15.6-inch OLED touchscreen, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB of RAM (you choose how much you want), and up to 1TB of storage.

If you buy one of these computers, you will get the 14-inch 4K ScreenPad Plus.

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo has very good specs. It is made for people who want to play games. The price is comparable to the 15-inch MacBook Pro ($2,399/£2,399/AU$3,499) and Razer Blade Pro 17 ($2.499.99/£2,399.99/AU$4,299).

The Asus Zenbook Pro Duo and the HP Spectre Pro are similar. They are both good. The only difference is that the Asus has a 2nd 4K display, but it is not as good as the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar.

Dual-screen design

The Zenbook Pro Duo is not too heavy and it has a light frame. The laptop is also available in a greenish-blue color with an aluminum lid. When you open the laptop, two hinges raise the back of the second screen to make viewing and interacting easier.

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The Asus laptop package is made of cardboard. When you open the package, it opens like a clamshell and brings the laptop out of the box. The power brick for this laptop is very nice because it comes in a special package.

The Pro Duo comes with a bunch of extras, including a palm rest that goes all the way to the bottom of the laptop. It also has an ergonomic stand that you can attach to the back of it and a slim bag.

You can fit everything in it, including your external mouse and your keyboard for games.

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The laptop has a very bright screen. It’s great for people with photophobia. The screen can be used close to strong light without being too bright.

The secondary LCD screen has a matte finish so it won’t reflect overhead lights into your eyes.

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Putting the screens to use

The Asus Pro Duo has a smaller screen, but it is just like another monitor. You can add a taskbar to it and change the size of the screen. Then you can move windows over to the smaller screen.

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The Pro Duo has a touchscreen. That makes it more like a tablet than an average laptop. It also has the ASUS ScreenPad Plus software, which can be used for new things that would not be possible with just another monitor. Some examples are:

  • In Adobe programs, such as Photoshop, create a touch panel.
  • Presets allow you to arrange applications in a tiled layout across both screens.
  • Use the second screen as a huge trackpad.
  • Open the number pad on the lower screen’s right side.
  • Switch screens quickly and easily.

There is a learning curve to the Asus laptop. The icons and menus are not always easy to understand, so I had to use Google to find out how to load the Asus Adobe-optimized control panels.

I also found it hard to see the second screen without increasing the level of display scaling.

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I found that the keyboard shortcuts for moving windows around were easy to learn. I was able to figure out how to use Asus’ drag-and-drop shortcuts in a few days.

My favorite example is when my browser is on the main screen and in the bottom two-thirds, I have Typora and Plexamp.

I was disappointed that Asus didn’t allow for the second screen to be used as a drawing surface.

If you use the stylus on one screen and then touch it with your finger on the other, it isn’t good for drawing because of the angles. If they had made it so that you could duplicate what you did on one screen and then make it appear on the other, ASUS Pro Duo would be good for artists.

Keyboard and Trackpad

I was worried about the ZenBook Pro Duo 15’s small keyboard and its inconvenient placement. I have big hands that are bigger than a car from the 1970s.

I was worried it would not fit my hands well, but it works okay.

I took a test on 10FastFingers.com with 92 mistakes. I got 84 words per minute to score with 91% accuracy. The computer had a strange keyboard, but it did not affect my typing speed.

Adjusting to the keyboard took about half a day and retaking the test made me improve to 88 words per minute with 91% accuracy.

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The touchpad on the ZenBook is not very big. It’s to the right of the keyboard. The touchpad responds well to Windows 10 gestures, including two-finger scrolling and pinch-to-zoom.

When you are punching in numbers on the ZenBook, it can also be a number pad.

Audio

The ZenBook Pro Duo 15 is a computer with good speakers. The Harman Kardon-certified speakers play audio in partnership with Asus SonicMaster technology.

However, I switched to Spotify. I played the song “Blame It” by Jamie Fox. The foundation hit softly as I listened to Jamie Fox singing about blaming it on the goose. That made me feel loose.

The popping dance and hip-hop beat had me bopping my head and chair dancing, while ZenBook created a nice Then I turned on the song Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin.

It sounded really good when it was playing. The bass was good and sounded like Thor, the god of thunder. Then I listened to all of the music on my laptop without being too loud or too quiet.

Webcam

The ZenBook Pro Duo 15’s camera is not one of the best or worst webcams. My shirt looked like a pink polo and my skin was tan with rich colors. In low light, the camera does not work as well as it does in brighter light. This happens with most cameras too though.

Ports

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo 15 has only three USB inputs, which is rather light.

You’ll find a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a microphone input on the left, as well as an HDMI port and a DC power connection.

On the right are two USB-C (not to be confused with the newer Thunderbolt 4 variant) ports, as well as a USB Type-A port.

Graphics

The ZenBook Pro Duo 15 is a good gaming laptop. You can play games like Borderlands 2 on it. But some other, less expensive laptops may be better for playing games.

Check our list of the best cheap gaming laptops if you want to buy one of those instead.

We tested the GPU of the laptop with a game. In 1080p, it got 67 frames per second.

In 4K, it got 28 frames per second. The average for laptops is 54 fps and 24 fps, but our laptop did better than them both. It has an Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card and it got 57 frames per second in 1080p.

The ZenBook Pro Duo recorded 57 frames per second in 1080p. This is more than the average of 50 frames per second.

It is followed by ConceptD and Blade 15 Advanced, which both recorded 52 frames per second in 1080p.

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Performance

The Zenbook Pro Duo has a desktop-inspired design. It is a good idea because, when it is opened up, it can be used as an actual computer. The only problem with the design is that it does not work as well as other high-end gaming PCs do because of its unusual two-screen design.

The ZenBook Pro Duo encoded our test video file in 24 minutes and 53 seconds. It was just a little bit faster than the Core i7-10870H in Gigabyte’s Aorus 17G, but it was slower than Asus’ ROG Zephyrus Duo, which is also made with an Intel Core i9-10980HK.

All of these laptops encode video files well, but the Pro Duo performs a little less effectively.

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In Cinebench R15, which is a short-term test of performance instead of long-term tests like HandBrake, the Pro Duo does not do as well as it has the same CPU.

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The gaming experience is mixed. The Nvidia RTX 3070 and RTX 2080 are comparable on paper, but we saw laptops with the latter outperform the former in the ZenBook Pro Duo.

For example, in Rising of the Tomb Raider’s benchmark tool, where the ROG Zephyrus Duo again took the lead.

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The Zenbook Pro Duo outperforms low-cost gaming laptops in Rising of the Tomb Raider, but not by much.

Benchmarks from 3DMark revealed similar outcomes. But the RTX 3070 had an advantage over the RTX 1650, which is still available in many lower-cost workhorse laptops today.

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However, Fire Strike does provide a bit more of a gap between GTX 1650 chips.

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme is a more strenuous test than regular 3DMark. It uses a higher resolution and it makes the GPU work more. The ZenBook Pro Duo was able to outperform the ROG Zephyrus Duo’s RTX 2080 GPU in this test.

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In most cases, gamers should stick with 1080p. If you want to see your graphics in 4K, the only way is if it does not affect the frame rate (30 frames per second). Some games can be played at this resolution and still have a good frame rate. Games like Death Stranding and No Man’s Sky can do this.

The Pro Duo’s battery life is another pleasant surprise, given everything it has to offer. OLED displays are notorious for consuming a lot of power. This laptop has two of them, but their technical specifications don’t suggest they’ll last long.

Nonetheless, the Pro Duo held its own against other workhorse laptops in our looping video rundown test, lasting 6 hours and 25 minutes on our test settings with the second screen kept at 50 percent brightness.

For this test, we turned the second screen off at its default 50-percent brightness but played video only on the main screen at our customary test intensity of 250-260 nits.

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Heat

The ZenBook Pro Dup 15 is a good computer for video and picture editing. It needs to stay cool or it will meltdown. It did not meltdown even though it has two 4K displays on the screen.

During our heat test, which was watching a video for 15 minutes, the bottom of the laptop got to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. It is not too hot, but it is still warm. The keyboard was at 86 degrees and the touchpad was at 82 degrees.

We need to make sure that the keys and touchpad stay cooler than 95 degrees Fahrenheit or they will not be comfortable to use.

Battery life

We’ve seen laptops with two 4K displays before, but this was the first one to pack twin quad-core CPU cores. Despite having two 4K screens and powerful components, the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo had an underwhelming battery life in our testing.

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo’s battery lasted five hours and 11 minutes in our battery life test. This is when we played a 1080p video at 50% brightness.

The battery on the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo stayed powered for two hours and 36 minutes in the PC Mark 8 benchmark which seeks to replicate typical PC usages such as word processing and video chatting.

This laptop is meant to be used as a replacement for a desktop computer. So you should plan to have it plugged in.

You can change how you use your phone to get longer battery life. You can turn off the secondary screen and lower the brightness and resolution of the primary display. This might not be something that people want to do, but it is possible.

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo’s limited battery life, however, isn’t a surprise.

Software and warranty

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo 15 has features like Asus. It connects your phone with the laptop and lets you share files with it. You can change things, too, like mic noise cancellation or display colors.

There is some junkware on this computer, and people might not like it. The McAfee program comes with this one and sometimes asks for money. You can buy Oreos at 4 a.m. if you need them from Amazon Alexa.

A one-year limited warranty is included with the ZenBook Pro Duo 15.

Duo or desktop?

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo is hard to compare with other computers. Its closest competitors are multi-monitor desktops or laptops with attached screens. But the Pro Duo is more portable and adjustable than either of those, especially because of the programs from Asus.

To some artists, media creators, and gamers, it might be something good that happens to them. But it won’t happen for the rest of us.

Conclusion

The ZenBook Pro Duo is not perfect, but it is new. Give Asus credit for trying something new.

The main thing you should know about this laptop is that it has a screen pad. It’s worth the money, but it might be too heavy for some people.

There are some good things about the second 4K screen. You might be able to use it in a way that will help you with your work. For example, if you have an app open on the bottom screen then it is easy to do things with the app on the top screen.

Is it worth getting? Maybe not. After all, the short battery life of the ZenBook Pro Duo would force you to connect and sit at a desk for most of the time anyway. So why not just connect an external monitor and get the same experience?

For far less than the ZenBook Pro Duo costs, you could buy a laptop. It is much smaller and more portable. Most people would prefer this to the Touchpad Plus. But not everyone agrees with that choice.

However, we know that the Screenpad Plus will not be the last one. Laptops in the future may have a second screen and they will maintain their size and weight. Apple has continued to use its Touch Bar, even though it had a lukewarm reception at first. That is why Asus should do the same with their Screenpad Plus.

There will be a new kind of laptop that will be different than what we have now. It might even be able to fold in half. For now, though, the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo is more unusual than it is a breakthrough. It’s not for everyone yet, but there are some people who like it.

Asus Zenbook Pro Duo 15
Asus Zenbook Pro Duo 15 | Asus Zenbook Pro Duo 15: The Biggest, Most Powerful Laptop Ever

You can Select from "NanoEdge Touch Display, Intel Evo Platform, Core i7-1165G7, 8GB RAM, 512GB PCIe SSD, Innovative ScreenPad Plus, Windows 10 Home, Celestial Blue, UX482EA-DS71T" to "15.6” OLED 4K UHD Touch Display, Intel Core i9-10980HK, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, GeForce RTX 3070, ScreenPad Plus, Windows 10 Pro, Celestial Blue, UX582LR-XS94T" depend on your budget.Price Range: $1,249.49 - $4,399.00

Product Brand: Asus

Product Currency: USD

Product Price: $1,249.49

Product In-Stock: InStock

Editor's Rating:
4.4

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