ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 review: When two screens are better than one

At any time when I am away from my desk and twin displays, it looks like an out-of-body expertise. I’m continually craving for just a bit extra display area. However once you’re touring, what are you alleged to do? Positive, you will get a transportable monitor, however that is sort of cumbersome and largely redundant once you’re at house. As a substitute, contemplate the ROG Zephyrous Duo 16, as a result of after a pair generations of refinement, it looks like ASUS is beginning to hit its stride with its funky dual-screened clamshells.

You get a giant 16-inch primary show with excessive refresh charges, top-notch gaming elements and a 14-inch secondary display for all of your multitasking wants. And whereas I actually would not name it petite, the Zephyrus Duo 16 is not that a lot larger than a conventional 16-inch skinny and light-weight, regardless of packing desktop-level efficiency. Actually, the principle issue stopping it from being a terrific cell gaming battle station is its worth. That’s As a result of With a beginning worth of $2,500 (or nearer to $4,000 for our loaded overview unit), the Duo 16 undoubtedly ain’t low-cost. 

Design

As a part of ASUS’ ROG household of gaming notebooks, the Duo 16 has aggressive styling, although many of the fireworks are solely seen when you open the lid. ASUS’ dual-panel setup is a daring transfer at decreasing anxiousness attributable to restricted display actual property. Nevertheless, it does include some drawbacks. As a result of the ScreenPad Plus dominates the higher half of the laptop computer’s deck, ASUS needed to shove the touchpad within the backside proper nook. And measuring barely greater than two inches huge, issues can undoubtedly really feel cramped. You then consider half-sized arrow keys, shortcuts and media controls, and there is a lot moving into not numerous area.

That mentioned, ASUS does its greatest to benefit from these areas, with the touchpad pulling double responsibility as a quantity pad. All it’s a must to do is faucet the shadowy icon within the high left for a second, and voila. 

Nonetheless, there isn’t any hiding the Duo 16’s considerably cumbersome chassis, which weighs over 5.5 kilos and measures 0.8-inches thick. These dimensions are proper on the sting of with the ability to match right into a typical laptop computer sleeve, so anybody planning on shopping for a Duo 16 will need to ensure their bag of selection has loads of room. 

On the brilliant aspect, ASUS has loads of room for a wholesome quantity of ports, together with two USB-A, two USB-C, HDMI 2.1, a microSD card reader and even a full-size Ethernet jack. My solely criticism is that due to the ScreenPad’s sophisticated hinge, the situation of the proprietary energy plug on its left aspect is usually a bit awkward. I actually want that they had discovered room for that someplace round again.

Show(s)

OK, let’s transfer on to the Duo 16’s shows, which offer a extremely compelling one-two punch. The primary 16-inch show encompasses a speedy three-millisecond response time. On higher-end fashions like our $4,000 overview unit, you even get a mini LED panel that places out a formidable 700 nits of brightness. And that is coming from a display with a matte end, which usually lowers mild output a contact. In the meantime, due to a shade gamut that ASUS claims covers 100% of the DCI-P3 spectrum, the Duo 16’s major show is simply pretty much as good at pumping out vivid colours in video games as it’s replicating correct ones in Photoshop. 

Nevertheless, the laptop computer’s actual get together trick is its 14-inch ScreenPad Plus, which helps contact and affords a 1950 x 550 decision on the bottom mannequin, or 3840 x 1100 pixels on upgraded configs. Our overview unit’s ScreenPad registered 300 nits on our lightmeter, which is not practically as vibrant as the principle display, but it surely’s adequate. 

To get essentially the most use out of its secondary show, ASUS packed the ScreenPad Plus with a ton of nifty options together with shortcuts to efficiency and lighting settings, customizable window layouts, and the power to reflect your cellphone’s display, although that final one is usually a little janky. Heck, there’s even a secondary numpad device, in case the one constructed into the touchpad is not sufficient. And on the Duo 16, ASUS upgraded the ScreenPad’s hinge in order that it rests at a steeper angle when open, which improves each ergonomics and cooling. 

Now all that’s good, however for me, the perfect use of the ScreenPad Plus is solely offering further room for social media, streaming video companies, or anything you need to maintain in sight, whereas maintaining my most necessary apps up high. Once I’m gaming, the principle display is the place the motion is at, whereas having Discord and YouTube open down under are nice for chatting with mates and staying entertained throughout loading screens. And if I am working, the ScreenPad is ideal for stuff like Slack that doesn’t require fixed consideration.

Additionally, as a result of the ScreenPad Plus is configured in Home windows as a generic show, which means you need to use keyboard shortcuts to shortly transfer apps out of your primary show to the secondary display or snap them to the aspect as wanted. Is it pretty much as good as having a full second monitor? No, but it surely’s sufficient to make issues much more comfy. 

Webcam and sound

The Duo 16 makes it simple to log in utilizing facial recognition with its 720 webcam and Home windows Good day assist. Sadly, picture high quality is mediocre at greatest, and as I’ve mentioned earlier than, 1080p needs to be the baseline for all trendy laptops — particularly one this costly. 

Fortunately, the Duo 16 boasts a robust six-speaker setup with assist for Dolby Atmos, so that you get a efficiency mode in video games that focuses on delivering correct directional sound, together with a bunch of clever and preset EQs for motion pictures and music. You even have the power to create customized audio profiles, although, I want the Duo 16 provided only a bit extra low-end thump. 

Efficiency

Whereas a base Duo 16 solely comes with an NVIDIA RTX 3060 GPU, our fully-loaded overview unit options an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX chip and an RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, to not point out 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. So it most likely will not be a shock after I let you know this factor is principally the quickest laptop computer we have examined this yr. It notched high scores in Geekbench 5’s compute check, 3DMark’s TimeSpy Excessive and extra. 

Naturally, the Duo 16’s gaming efficiency can also be moderately sturdy, hitting 145 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider on highest settings and 85 fps in Metro Exodus on excessive. And that was with each video games operating at 2560 x 1600. So actually, the one limiting issue relating to efficiency is how a lot you are keen to shell out for high-end elements. 

I additionally need to point out that whereas the Duo 16 usually retains its thermals and fan noise in examine, underneath full load, issues can get a bit raucous. At full blast, you would possibly hear a high-pitched whine coming from the vents that may get slightly annoying. However you may at all times regulate that by going into ASUS’ Armoury Crate app. There’s even a customized fan curve setting if you wish to dial issues in manually. Alternatively, you can simply placed on some headphones and make the fan noise another person’s downside, not that I’ve ever executed that. 

Battery Life

The apparent draw back to having a laptop computer this massive and highly effective is weak battery life. With each the principle show and the ScreenPad enabled, the Duo 16 lasted simply three hours and 45 minutes on our native video rundown check. That is an hour and a half lower than the Acer Predator Triton 500 SE and the Razer Blade 15, which themselves aren’t precisely shining examples of longevity. So that you higher be sure to save room for the Duo 16’s two-pound energy brick in your bag too.

Wrap up

Look, with a base worth of $2,500 that shortly climbs above $3K when nicely geared up, it will be robust to suit the ROG Duo 16 in most individuals’s funds. On high of that, it is massive, heavy and brief on battery life. However for the type of people that continually discover themselves searching for extra display area — particularly when out and about — ASUS’ modern setup offers you extra usable show space in much less area than virtually another laptop computer maker. And whereas its keyboard and touchpad are cramped, combining massive efficiency with a really distinctive design looks like we’re seeing an evolution of the desktop alternative pocket book occur in entrance of our eyes. Meaning this factor will probably be a moderately area of interest system, however in case you’re on the lookout for one thing to remedy your dual-screen FOMO, ASUS’s ROG Duo 16 does it higher than anything available on the market.