Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED review: Perfecting dual display laptops

Asus’ dual screen Zenbook Duo laptops are like pandora’s boxes for content creators, offering a whole new productivity experience for those brave enough to give their unique two-display configurations a try. We’ve seen some good ones since they debuted at CES back in 2019, but none that quite offer the balance of power and ergonomics available in this newly minted 14-inch Zenbook Duo model.

It wins the day because of its powerful new 12th-generation processor, a more visible ScreenPad Plus, and a taller, brighter 120Hz OLED primary display that offers superlative visuals from every angle. To cap it off, a spate of thoughtful software upgrades optimizes the ScreenPad Plus operation, making workflow more seamless than before.

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED specifications:

The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED is available in configurations up to Intel Core i9-12900H and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU. Our review unit has the following specifications:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-12700H
• RAM: 16GB DDR5 / 4800 MHz
• GPU: Intel Iris Xe graphics and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti
• Displays: Primary: 14.5-inch, 2.8K (2880 x 1800) touch-sensitive OLED, 120 Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut; Secondary: 12.7-inch (2880 x 864) touch-sensitive, IPS-level, 120Hz panel, 100% DCI-p3 color gamut
• Storage: 1TB SSD PCIe Gen 4
• Ports: 2 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), USB-A 3.2 Gen2, HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm audio port, microSD Express 7.0 reader
• Networking: Dual-band Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.2
• Dimensions: 12.74 x 8.85 x 0.70 inches
• Weight: 3.86 lbs (1.75kg)
• Color: Tech Black
• Battery capacity: 76Wh
• Price: $2,000

Design and build

The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo, like last year’s 14-inch Zenbook Duo features not one but two displays – a 14.5 primary display and a 12.7-inch secondary (ScreenPad Plus) display that’s planted neatly above the keyboard. Measuring 12.74 x 8.85 x 0.70 inches, its proportions are reasonably compact and thin. That said, its 0.70-inch-thick chassis and 3.86 pound weight doesn’t quite qualify it as an Ultrabook.

There are some year-on-year design upgrades which make the 2022 Zenbook Pro 14 Duo better than its predecessor. The most obvious is that the secondary display now tilts up at 12 degrees from the laptop’s base instead of just 7 degrees before. Ergonomically, that makes it a lot easier to see, as you won’t have to crane your neck in an unnatural way to get work done.

Such a tall tilt is achieved by replacing the 2021 Zenbook Duo’s Ergolift hinges with new AAS Ultra hinge mechanisms – a process that required a rejig of some of the internal components. Going to all that trouble has provided a thermal payoff too. Asus say, the internal hardware gets a 38 percent increased airflow – hence the moniker, AAS, which stands for: Active Aerodynamic System.

Newly placed air vents also work to cool the laptop. Gone are the vents that force hot air upwards onto the primary display. They’re replaced by a neat row that blow hot air out the left-hand side. Asus has camouflaged these to look like USB-A ports, so unless hands are placed in front of them, they will go unnoticed.

There are upgrades to primary display too. It benefits from a larger 92 percent screen-to-body ratio and a taller 16:10 aspect ratio, which replaces the 16:9 aspect ratio we saw last year. It’s also notably brighter and by all accounts looks superb from any angle you view it from.

For the style conscious, this year’s 14-inch Zenbook Duo makes an ideal work accessory. It appears sleek and sophisticated no matter what kind of lighting you’re sitting under, and its Tech Black magnesium-aluminum alloy finish blends it seamlessly into just about any kind of work environment.

Additionally, flipping the lid down reveals a simple but compelling Asus ‘A’ logo that reflects just about every color back at you under bright lights, so expect your Zenbook Duo to get plenty of envious looks in boardroom meetings.

Keyboard and trackpad

Although once again quite slim, the Zenbook Duo’s keyboard feels balanced and comfortable. It does a decent job of making use of all the available space in the chassis. The keys also feel large, and they have a generous 18.5 mm pitch between them.

They have convenient dish-shaped depressions to prevent your fingertips slipping off. The dish-shaped depressions plus the 1.4 mm vertical travel allowed me to achieve a high level of accuracy while writing my reviews.

The standout keys are in the very top row. These include the Fn keys and some extra productivity shortcuts. Useful examples include a key to turn the ScreenPad Plus on and off, one to take instant screenshots and another to switch the webcam on or off.

I found the ErgoSense trackpad wasn’t as user friendly as the keyboard. It felt a little cramped, being just a small rectangle to work on. Its right hand-side positioning also makes it awkward for lefties.

On the other hand, its surface felt comfortable, thanks to a smooth hydrophobic PVD coating. The trackpad also supports multitouch gesturing in Windows, which was useful for accessing my desktop through the piles of windows that I always have open.

Primary display

As well as being taller and brighter (I measured 547-nits brightness by my Lux meter) than before, the primary 14.5-inch OLED HDR touchscreen produces vibrant, richly saturated color images, and deep blacks that seemingly sink into the display. That’s thanks to the panel’s 100 percent DCI-P3 color gamut and VESA DisplayHDR True Black rating that enables a 1 million to 1 contrast ratio.

I was particularly impressed by the color accuracy in photos I clicked on. Incidentally, Asus say the OLED panel is Pantone validated, which is a big win for designers and graphic artists that need that deep level color accuracy.

As a new addition this year, you can also customize the color gamut for different tasks via the Splendid page in the MyASUS software app. The various color modes include, an sRGB mode for creating web content and browsing, a DCI-P3 mode for cinema content and a Display P3 mode for movie grade color. However, switching between them didn’t show up that much difference.

More obvious was how glaringly smooth the 120Hz OLED panel appeared while playing videos. Micro stuttering was absent. Frames were also incredibly sharp when compared to a number of new release gaming laptops in the office. Consequently, if you’re wondering whether this laptop’s primary display is superior to a 165 Hz IPS-level panel with a comparative resolution, the answer is a resounding yes.

Connectivity

The addition of the AAS hinges has allowed the power input, HDMI and MicroSD card reader to be moved to the back side this year – a placement that does require you to uncomfortably lean over the laptop at times. The I/O options are top-notch, however. In addition to the above, you also get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A 3.2 Gen2 port and a 3.5 mm audio port.

Power users that want to speed up productivity will undoubtedly put the Thunderbolt 4 ports to good use. Each port allows you to transfer files at up to 40Gb/s, or to provide output to up to two 4K displays or a single 8K display.

The Zenbook Duo also sports Bluetooth 5.2, and dual band Wi-Fi 6E. The latter is made even better by a few sweetener technologies – Wi-Fi Stabilizer acts to prevent electromagnetic signal interference, while a technology called SmartConnect works to provide the best possible Wi-Fi signal in your environment.

Although difficult to qualitatively measure, just anecdotally my wi-fi signal seemed a little more reliable than my work laptop, so kudos to Asus for adding these extra wi-fi improvements.

Webcam and audio

The Zenbook Duo packs a HD Webcam with Windows Hello compatibility. Testing it out revealed reasonably crisp images, but occasionally the AI did tend to overcook faces, which appeared a little plastic. On the plus side, pictures look exceptionally bright in low light conditions, which saves you the hassle of always having to turn on overhead lights.

The laptop’s dual speakers with Dolby Atmos support do a decent job of keeping the audio sounding clear and crisp and noticeably louder than some laptops of a similar size. I was also impressed by how little distortion they produced at the laptop’s higher volume levels.

Performance

Considering my review unit’s Intel Core-i7-12700H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU configuration, I pulled comparisons from the PCWorld stable of productivity laptops as well our list of gaming rigs. One notebook in particular, the MSI Katana GF76, featured the same GPU/CPU combination as my review unit.

I began by running the PCMark 10 Overall benchmark, which is good indicator of a laptop’s suitability for the modern office environment; as it runs this benchmark simulates a range of tasks like word processing and video chats and then calculates an overall score based on the outcomes. Here, two AMD Ryzen powered productivity laptops had a slight edge on the Zenbook Duo that was otherwise a strong performer in this test.

Next, I examined the competency of the laptop’s CPU with Maxon’s Cinebench R20 Single-Threaded benchmark that targets just a single Core of our laptop’s CPU. In this benchmark the Zenbook Duo excelled, hitting a high score of 692. This proves it has ample power for everyday tasks like running apps and programs.

Still in Maxon’s Cinebench R20 app, I ran the Multi-Threaded benchmark, which flexes all cores of a laptop’s processor. Again, the Zenbook Duo topped our list of comparisons, fielding a score of 5,585. CPU-intensive tasks like video editing and encoding require a laptop to utilize multiple CPU cores, therefore this result shows the Zenbook Duo is well suited to these tasks.

In the free HandBrake utility, I set the Zenbook Duo to encode a 30GB MKV file to MP4 using the Android Tablet preset. This test measured its ability to perform a CPU-intensive task before it became too hot and had to throttle performance. In the results, note how the Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED finishes quicker than the MSI Katana GF76.

What do all these results mean? Looking them over, it’s clear that the Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED provides adequate processing power for content creators working in programs like Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop. Its upper end score in PCMark 10 Overall also means it will be quick and snappy in productivity apps like Microsoft Excel and Word.

The HandBrake result, however, is particularly encouraging. This suggests the Zenbook Duo’s innovate AAS facilitated aerodynamic design could in fact provide thermal advantages over some larger laptops with comparable Intel or Ryzen processors, like the MSI Katana GF76, in CPU-intensive tasks. That makes it a rarity among 14-inch productivity laptops.

3D performance

Since their launch, Asus’s Zenbook Duo laptops have occupied a middle ground for graphics performance, carving out a niche above most productivity laptops, but slightly below high-end gaming laptops. That feels about where the latest model sits too, based on the results of my benchmarking.

Regardless, the results that play out below show that the Zenbook Duo is equipped with enough grunt to perform capably in applications that involve 3D rendering, and although not a gaming laptop, it can even produce decent frame rates in moderately demanding 3D games.

To gauge the general graphics performance of my Zenbook’s RTX 3050 Ti GPU I used the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark. As you can see in the graph below, the Zenbook Duo placed second only to the MSI Katana GF76, outperforming most comparisons, including some with RTX 3050 Ti discrete graphics cards.

For the Rise of the Tomb Raider game benchmark comparison chart, I chose to pit the Zenbook Duo against gaming laptops. It proved only slightly off the pace of that comparison list.

Battery life

While the Zenbook Duo’s hardware and graphics performance more closely resembles a gaming laptop than a productivity laptop, so too does its battery life, which proved to be somewhat lacking.

To test the battery life, I ran the laptop down from 100 percent charge to standby by playing a 4K Hollywood movie on repeat. In this test, I commonly find productivity laptops with 76Wh batteries can last between nine to 13 hours, but the Zenbook Duo only lasted seven hours, which means you can only expect it to last approximately four hours for battery-taxing tasks like 3D rendering or gaming.

Consequently, you’ll want to be around an outlet after your morning coffee break if you want to keep it powered up for a full working day.

Should you buy it?

The Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED is a well-tuned instrument for content creators, excelling at a range of general office tasks as well as tasks that require a little more grunt like encoding and 3D rendering. The big attraction is the laptop’s dual displays. They’re the best ones we’ve used in an Asus Zenbook Duo laptop to date with a spate of year-on-year improvements that make the visuals more striking and the cross-screen integration easier than ever before.