Asus ZenBook Duo review: two screens, too many compromises.

Asus ZenBook Duo review: two screens, too many compromises.

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There is one—and only one—reason to buy the Asus ZenBook Duo. If you’ve seen a picture, you know what that reason is: there are two screens.

Specifically, there’s the primary display, a 14-inch 1080p matte screen. There’s also another display, a 12.6-inch IPS panel called the ScreenPad 2.0, built into the top half of the lower deck. Both are touch-enabled, and both support Asus’ active stylus. It’s sort of https://jiji.co.ke/cars/toyota-fielder hard to explain what this looks like; you’ll get it once you see it.

Our review of Asus ZenBook Duo.

good stuff.

Useful extra screen 10-hour battery life Stylus support.

bad stuff.

Sharp fold-under hinge Clunky touchpad No Thunderbolt 3 Weak GPU isn’t worth it.

The $1,499 ZenBook Duo isn’t quite the only laptop like this — last year’s ZenBook Pro Duo (of which this is a pared-down, portable version) offers the two-screen setup in a $2,500 workstation form, and some similar concepts, such as Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold, are slated for release later this year. For the moment, though, the ZenBook Duo is the best laptop for most users who want more than one display.

Just be sure you really want the extra screen because the trade-offs you have to make are significant.

Unlike the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, or previous ZenBooks like the Pro 15 that have experimented with touchscreen trackpads, the ScreenPad has a number of obvious use cases, and they work as well as they should.