Review: Asus Zenbook Duo (2024)

The dual-screen laptop concept has been done well, and it’s been done poorly, but one way or another it keeps getting done, as hardware manufacturers continue to lean into the idea that if one display is good, then two must be even better. And maybe it is.

To the untrained eye, the latest version of the Asus Zenbook Duo (model UX8406MA-PS99T) looks like a standard 14-inch laptop—complete with Asus’ somewhat goofy line art on the lid (the same design aesthetic you'll see on its phones such as the Zenfone 11 Ultra). It may look a bit thick, but pop the lid open and you'll find a traditional keyboard and trackpad, topped by a touchscreen. The key travel on the keyboard is a bit light, but it features backlighting, suggesting nothing out of the ordinary.

In a moment though, the secret is revealed: That keyboard is attached to the chassis magnetically. Just lift it from an edge and it snaps free, revealing a second 14-inch touchscreen display hidden underneath. And then the fun begins.

The Zenbook Duo lays claim to being the first dual-screen laptop with two 14-inch displays; most prior versions have offered screens of around 13 inches, give or take. These are both plenty bright and, at 2,880 X 1,800 pixels of resolution each, provide ample clarity and detail. Unlike on Asus’ last dual-screen laptop, the two screens here are completely separate, each with its own bezel. The Zenbook 17 Fold had a single, folding display that certainly provided a cleaner and more futuristic look, but it had more than a few quirks and a sky-high price.

While the Fold was “not for everyone,” Asus has taken great pains to ensure that the Zenbook Duo is. Like other dual-screen laptops, it can be used in myriad modes—and they all work well. It can be laid flat on a table to present to someone sitting across from you. It can be turned on its side to give you two portrait-oriented screens next to each other. Or it can be propped up on its kickstand with the two screens on top of each other and the detached keyboard sitting in front—arguably the most intuitive and usable setup on offer. And when mobility is an issue, you can use the computer as a plain old boring laptop with just the single display—with or without the physical keyboard attached.

Conceptually, it’s very close to what Lenovo did last year with the Yoga Book 9i, complete with shorthand gestures that help you pull up a virtual keyboard or touchpad, expand the screen to fill both displays or “flick” content from one screen to the other. This is all fairly easy to get the hang of. For the most part, working with the Zenbook Duo is no different than working with two monitors on a standard PC.

Many prior dual-screen laptops suffered on the performance front, and while the Duo didn’t set any records, it’s perfectly capable across a wide spectrum of benchmarks. Business apps load and run quickly, and graphical capabilities are acceptable despite the lack of a discrete graphics processor. Even AI-oriented performance was reasonably good (again, considering there’s no GPU to boost it). If there’s a downside, it’s battery life. I got just 6 hours and 48 minutes of YouTube run time with one screen active, and that fell to 5 hours and 13 minutes with both live. Neither score is all that great.

The muscle behind this is an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU with 32 GB of RAM and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive. The port selection is fine, if a bit limited, featuring two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB-A port, and a full-size HDMI output jack.

The Zenbook Duo is fairly compact given its design, at 25 mm thick with or without the keyboard sandwiched in the middle. The complete package weighs 3.5 pounds, or 2.8 pounds without the keyboard. That’s a bit on the heavy side, which is to be expected, but less than some traditional 14-inch laptops I’ve tested in the past couple of years.

While the dual-screen concept continues to improve, it’s not without some lingering growing pains. I encountered occasional hiccups where the screens didn’t reorient from portrait to landscape automatically. And the unit had the same problem with third-party chargers that I encountered with Asus’ Zenbook 14 OLED, dropping out of plugged-in mode and switching to battery power and back, almost randomly.

My biggest complaint however is design-related. Unlike the Yoga Book 9i, the Duo’s screens aren’t flush with each other when the screen is opened flat. Instead, one sits more than a centimeter behind the other, creating a staggered, stairstep effect. This displeases the OCD side of my brain, which insists that side-by-side screens be aligned on the same plane.

That said, having two screens does change the game when it comes to mobile productivity, even if they are a little cattywampus. I’m used to working on dual screens in my daily life when I’m desk-bound, but when I’m on the road and have to shift to working directly off a single laptop display, my productivity vanishes.

The Duo has a price tag of $1,700—and that’s for the fully loaded configuration. That’s not exactly cheap, but it’s far less expensive than most other dual-screen laptops and even competitive with many that have a single display. Ultimately, I’m hard-pressed to find a reason not to recommend this device if you’re at all like me, finding that a single, small screen fences you in and slows you down.