The new Asus ZenBook Pro Duo is designed specifically for business users.

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo is very powerful and useful for designers. It comes with some useful technical features and engineering design not found on every laptop. Apart from the second screen another highly spoken addition of this laptop is OLED display panel.

ASUS shows that with the ZenBook Pro Duo, dual-screen laptops are no longer experimental and will continue. This screen goes beyond being just an ornament, providing practical benefit to the users.

In the review of the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 model, we will discuss its pros and cons.

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 Intel Core i7

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 Intel Core i9

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 Review

This important but limited innovation was followed by a bigger and much more useful screen called ScreenPad + this time. ScreenPad + is the second screen on the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo.

Pros:

  • High system performance
  • Dual-screen design for ease of use
  • Main display with the OLED panel
  • High colour accuracy and resolution
  • Material quality
  • Design details
  • ASUS Pen support
  • Ergonomic wrist support
  • Current USB and Thunderbolt 3 connections
  • WiFi 6 AX support
  • Satisfying user experience

Cons:

  • Keeps a lot of space in the bag with additional accessories
  • weight of 2.5 kilograms
  • Front-mounted keyboard and narrow Touchpad are not for everyone
  • Number of USB ports less
  • No Ethernet port

Second Screen Assessment with ScreenPad +

ScreenPad + is located at the bottom of the main screen, at the top of the keyboard. With the controls on the left, it can quickly move applications between screens. Next to the 4K main screen, this second 4K screen is also supported by Windows 10. ScreenPad + works like an additional monitor, developed with new shortcuts and additional applications.

There are a few important things that make this screen useful. Firstly the size is quite spacious. Also like the main screen, this screen is touch-sensitive. It is possible to draw with the stylus that comes with the ZenBook Pro Duo. The other thing is that the position of the screen is in a natural position for the user under the screen and is easy to see.

To illustrate some possible usage scenarios of this second screen; for example, while translating on the main screen, it is possible to check the text or dictionary on the second screen. Another example is to monitor resource usage in Windows Task Manager while applications are running full screen. It is also possible to do additional work on the second screen while waiting for a process to complete on the main screen.

The important benefit was the possibility to move additional windows and controls of applications here. When working with applications such as Adobe Photoshop, you move the timeline here and have more space on the home screen. In this way, the image processing area is expanded.

So how does this display perform in business and productivity applications? 

Let’s continue with technical specifications and tests.

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 Intel Core i7

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 Intel Core i9

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo Specifications

The Pro Duo has a very stylish display with a slim bezel. The 15.6-inch screen is remarkable with the OLED panel and provides a resolution of 3840 × 2160. The 5 mm bezel provides 89 percent screen/frame ratio. A complete designer display with a 178-degree viewing angle and 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut. The OLED display is both advantageous in terms of energy consumption and offers a wide dynamic range between very low brightness or high brightness. A powerful panel of HDR capabilities.

Just above the display frame, there is a Windows Hello supported face-recognition webcam.

The ScreenPad + has an IPS panel of 14 inches and a resolution of 3840 × 1100. This screen is darker than the main screen to save energy. With a cut to size, the resolution ratio is kept healthy. The two screens have a total area of ​​3840 × 3270 pixels.

With Intel WiFi 6, 802.11 AXX support, it has powerful and up-to-date performance in wireless connectivity. Bluetooth 5.0 support is also available, which is useful for connecting wireless headphones and other peripherals. This connection is supported by Intel’s AX200 chip.

ASUS introduces the Core i9 and Core i7 processor. The code for the model sold in our country comes with the ASUS UX581GV CORE I7 9750H 2.6GHZ-16GB-512GB SSD-15.6 RT -RTX2060 6GB-W10 and Intel Core i7 9750H processor. This is a 12 core processor with 6 cores and HT support.

The 16 GB DDR4 has 2667 MHz RAM. Intel’s integrated HD Graphics 630 chip is also available. The main video card is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060.

Also, it comes with a single SSD for data storage. The HFM512GDJTNG-8310A model with a gross capacity of 480 GB is an SSD from SK Hynix.

This computer is powered by a 71 Wh 8-cell battery. Of course, there is also a 230W power adapter. The 19.5 Volt and 11.8 Amps power adapter is normal for a laptop of this power.

General Design Features

The design of the ZenBook series is the case for the computer case. It is one of the most stylish computers of ASUS. It is 2.4 cm thick and 35.9 cm x 24.6 cm. However, its design makes the contours much thinner and more elegant.

Thanks to the detachable wrist support that comes out of the box, the ergonomic weakness due to the keyboard positioning in front of the case is avoided. This is very useful for those who put the laptop forward at the table. On the small table, the keyboard is not essential for those who work close to it. ASUS has delivered a beautiful design detail by transferring the front lighting of the case to the front through the transparent window on the wrist support.

As for the ports, there are Thunderbolt 3 connections besides the USB ports. This is an important port for connecting external M.2 SSDs, such as the X5, as well as using external GPU boxes, such as ASUS XG Station Pro. The computer has an HDMI output for presentations.

On the left side of the case, there is a power input, HDMI, USB 3.1 Gen2 (also known as USB 3.2 Gen 2), ie a 10 Gbps port. This is in the form of a Type-A, the classic USB port. To the right of the case is the USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, 3.5 mm combi headphone/microphone jack and Thunderbolt 3 ports.

If the device had more USB ports, it would have been much better for ease of use. We also felt the lack of a card reader.

As for the keyboard and the touchpad, the Zephyrus features a front-mounted keypad that can be appreciated to a certain extent, depending on user preferences. Personally, the keyboard is right for me, but the touchpad on the right is pretty narrow, no matter how stylish it is. The numeric keypad can also be used as a touchscreen. While this is a nice space-winning solution, it can’t replace the physical numeric keypad.

I found the keyboard extremely handy, except that the Enter key is narrow. As a user who doesn’t like the MacBook Pro’s butterfly keys, I find these classic soft keys much more comfortable. The non-coloured backlighting is very serious, aesthetically beautiful and befits a business computer.

Business Performance

With the RTX 2060 graphics card on this computer, you can play games and work comfortably. In the Adobe Premiere Export test, I ran the 4K video download to 1080p test with 3 different drivers. The slowest test I’ve done with the drivers that came with the flat, Windows and GeForce Experience installed was the flat drive. The current game driver is medium speed and the business driver is the fastest. If you are interested in processing video, this system as a processor and video card will satisfy you.

The driver you want to use should be Studio Driver. Nvidia Studio drivers are more stable, especially when it comes to business. When testing with a flat drive, I received a single blue screen while printing a battery-powered output. However, I had no problems with the current driver. So if you keep your drivers up to date, it won’t compromise its reliability as a stable business system.

Conclusion

The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo is not a cheap computer. But a laptop that deserves the Editor’s Choice award on a high-end business PC for its power, design, capabilities and overall user experience.

  • Design 80% 80%
  • Screen 95% 95%
  • Performance 85% 85%
  • Screenpad 95% 95%
  • Battery 80% 80%

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 Intel Core i7

ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 Intel Core i9