Double the productivity?

Representation pic

ASUS had launched the first Zenbook Pro Duo back in 2019; it was a two-screen laptop with a whole lot of designer-oriented specifications. The 2021 refresh looks a lot like the old one, but there are some significant changes, including better and lighter hardware.

When you take the laptop out of the box you will notice the outer shell has a typical Asus logo with the brushed metal look; it does feel a little thicker and heavier than a regular laptop, but it does well to hide what's on the inside. Once open you will see two screens, both are 4K OLEDs and touch sensitive just like the previous model. Being OLED they are fairly bright and the images and colours are crisp, it has an insane contrast ratio of 10,00,000:1. The display has a cinema-grade 100 per cent DCI-P3 colour gamut and is also Pantone validated for colour accuracy, making it ideal for designers and video editors. The bottom screen still has that nice matt finish that prevents it from reflecting light. It also now tilts upwards when the notebook is opened. The upward tilt makes this screen a lot easier to view and use, especially with the included digital pen.

The keyboard is smaller than a regular laptop and the touchpad is on the right rather than the centre. The touchpad also lights up to become the Numpad. Despite the size, the keyboard is usable, even for someone with fairly large hands like me.

The screen tilt has another advantage, where it allows for more cooling vents to keep the Nvidia RTX 3070 8GB graphic card and a 10th Generation Intel i9 CPU relatively cool even through intense operations. The computer does heat up with intense use, but not to an uncomfortable level.

In the box, the Zenbook comes with a power brick, a palm rest, a pressure-sensitive stylus, a laptop sleeve and a stickable folding stand that can angle the computer upwards for more comfortable use.

On the inside, the Zenbook Pro Duo 15 OLED is equipped with a 1TB performance SSD, 32GB DDR4 RAM, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth5. It has a nice assortment of ports, including an audio port, 1 USB 3.2 A port, 2 USB C ports, a webcam and a full-sized HDMI port. While it does have a significant number of ports, there is only one USB A-type port and no card reader. Considering this is a creator's notebook I would expect a card reader to be standard. The Asus comes with a 92WHr battery, but at full performance the battery lasts for a very short while. However, if you aren't doing any performance-heavy work you can easily get a four to six hours out of a single charge.

I was impressed with the performance of this machine. The computer flawlessly handled any sort of creative work I threw at it everything from rendering to video editing it did without an issue. The screen was lovely to work with. I also tried gaming and it handled itself well and was capable of rendering modern games like Doom Eternal at playable frame rates.

The speaker system in the laptop is loud and should serve you well for general usage like gaming, watching movies and conference calls. I wouldn't count on it for audio production.

The second screen improved productivity in both music and video production, by allowing all the control settings to be loaded on the second screen for easy access. I also found it easy to use the laptop for writing work by using the main screen as a browser and the bottom screen for my word processor.

The 2021 Pro Duo comes with a Windows 10, Office 2019 and McAfee antivirus. The computer has a built-in TPM 2.0 module, which is needed for the Windows 11 upgrade, this means as soon as the latest OS is available you should be able to upgrade it. The software running the second screen has also improved a lot over the first version, allowing the user to tweak its capabilities and extract the most function out of it.

Who says money can't buy you joy; the new Zenbook Pro Duo is proof that true bliss can very well be bought for an eyewatering price tag. If you are a creator and if you can afford the Rs 2,39,990 price, this machine has everything you would need and more. For any other user, including gamers, I would recommend looking at something that is more geared towards gaming rather than creating. The hyper-focus on the creating aspect has meant that some more expensive choices like a Pantone calibrated screen, OLED panel, digital pen and the second screen have pushed the price beyond the realm of a casual purchase. While expensive the dual screens have also proven themselves to be great for productivity, ASUS should consider making a cheaper version of this for people who don't need hardcore performance from their computers.

Pros
>> Dual screens are useful for work
>> Solid build quality
>> Tiny keyboard functions well

Cons
>> Very Expensive
>> No card reader
>> Needs more USB type A ports

Zenbook Pro Duo 15 OLED
Price: Rs 2,39,990