Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo review

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo

The dual-screen laptop in the market

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo: In the last few years, laptops have witnessed a remarkable evolution. They no longer look and feel, or offer similar experiences, and brands are striving to offer the most distinct features to entice consumers. With the advent of cutting-edge technology and the ever-expanding range of applications, laptop brands have embarked on a quest to design purpose-built devices. The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo is a device that seems to be an outcome of this quest.

True to its name, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo is a dual-screen notebook. Priced at Rs 2,29,990, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo (UX8402VU) is powered by the Intel Core i9-13900H processor with RTX 4050 graphics card with 32 GB RAM and 1TB of internal storage, making it one of the most capable dual-screen laptops in the market.

Asus has been perfecting this form factor for a while, and with the latest entrant, the company has made several tweaks to make it even more practical. In this comprehensive review, I will share my experience of using the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo as my primary computing device for over two weeks.

Designed to be productive

The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo is a productivity-first laptop, and here is why. For one, the ports are located on all three sides with an HDMI port and the power adapter located on the back, which makes it easy to access and one can connect an external display and forget about it. Similarly, despite being a dual-screen laptop, it doesn’t feel heavy or bulky. In fact, when closed, it just looks like a slightly bulkier 14-inch laptop.

However, I do have one concern when it comes to ports: Considering the company is marketing it as a creator’s machine, it should have come with a full-sized SD card slot, instead, it offers a microSD card slot.

Zenbook Pro 14, Unlike a conventional laptop, the keyboard and trackpad are at the bottom part with no palm rest whatsoever. This means it takes time to get used to this layout. However, once familiar, it works just like any laptop, and within a week, I was able to completely adapt to this layout.

Colour-accurate display

The laptop comes with a 14.5-inch touch-enabled Pantone colour-validated 2.8K resolution OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. It’s bright, colour-accurate, and gets the job done for both content creators and consumers. Similarly, there is a secondary ScreenPad Plus display with the same 2.8K resolution and 120Hz refresh rate that has been optimised for apps from the Adobe suite and other select services that photo and video editors might use.

Again, due to the aspect ratio, the secondary display might not be as practical as a dedicated external display. With this machine, it is part of the package, and it definitely comes in handy for those who prefer to have a secondary display at all times. With touch input, the ScreenPad Plus can be used for tasks like scrubbing through the video timeline on software like Adobe Premier, or you can just use it to watch videos on YouTube.

Adequately powerful for any tasks

The laptop is powered by the Core i9-13900H, a gaming-class CPU, and is paired with an RTX 4050 GPU with 6 GB video memory from Nvidia, making it a highly capable machine. The laptop also offers a whopping 32 GB of DDR5 memory along with 1TB of fast PCIe Gen4-based SSD.

Not just that, the GPU ships with a studio-ready driver, unlike most laptops, which come with game-ready drivers, again highlighting its creator-first DNA. This helps the GPU to deliver its best performance on tasks like video rendering, graphic designing, and other related tasks. Here are the CrossMark benchmark results of the Zenbook Duo 14 Pro in high-performance mode.

Battery life

The battery life on this device entirely depends on its usage. If you continue to use it for heavy tasks such as video rendering and 3D modeling the laptop lasts for two to three hours. Similarly, for simple tasks like web browsing, it can easily deliver over six hours of battery life. The device supports fast charging and the adapter is included in the box. The laptop can also be charged using any USB PD charger, albeit, at a slower rate.

Verdict: A safe bet for content creators

If you are a content creator who’s always on the go and needs a laptop that has performance and a bit more, the Asus Zenbook 14 Pro Duo is an excellent choice. Remember, this laptop gives you a secondary display when needed, and the primary display is colour-graded by Pantone, making it a great machine for all sorts of professional content creators who are always on the move.