Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo review – multitasker’s delight

• The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo is the company’s latest dual screen laptop to land in India.
• Priced starting at ₹1,44,990, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo promises to deliver the perfect blend of form and function with high-end hardware and a rich experience.
• If you are in the market for a high-end laptop with powerful hardware and a secondary display for improving your multitasking experience, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo could be right up your alley.

Asus has been on a roll with a wide range of laptops across segments, catering to different use cases and price points. The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo is the latest in line, promising to offer a rich experience that combines form and function – and of course, at a premium.

The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo sits at almost the top of the Taiwanese company’s wide portfolio of laptops. Asus has gone all-out to cater to the needs of multitaskers, right from powerful hardware to the innovative secondary display, which can help you perform tasks quicker than a conventional laptop.

I used the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo for a few weeks, and here’s my full review of Asus’ latest laptop.

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo price and availability

The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo price in India starts at ₹1,44,990, powered by Intel’s 12th gen processors and Intel or NVIDIA graphics. The price goes up to ₹2,24,990 for the top model with Intel Core i9-12900H processor, NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti graphics and 1TB SSD.

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo design

Unlike some Asus ultrabooks, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo makes no qualms about its heft and thickness – this is a 1.75KG laptop, and it’s primarily due to the dual display setup and the dedicated graphics card. However, despite this, the laptop measures 1.8mm at its thinnest.


The Zenbook Pro 14 Duo also comes with a more modern looking Asus logo that we have seen in recent Asus laptops like the Zenbook S 13 OLED.


The Zenbook Pro 14 Duo has one USB Gen 3.2 Type-A port, two USB Type-C ports, one HDMI port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a microSD card reader.


To keep things cool, Asus has designed the hinge from ground up, calling it AAS Ultra. This new mechanism raises the display at an angle to ensure air can be let out easily. Even over extended gaming sessions, I noticed the Zenbook remained cool for the most part, with the keyboard feeling a little warm sometimes. On the whole, though, the cooling mechanism worked very well.

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo display

The displays are the highlights of the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo – the laptop features two displays, offering touch and stylus support.


Coming to the primary display, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo sports a 14.5-inch 2.8K resolution (2880 x 1800 pixels) OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, which is a visual delight no matter what you are doing. I tried everything from games to movies to document editing and more, and I was impressed in all cases.

Although I’m not a creator, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo comes with a Pantone-validated display, so colour accuracy is another standout feature. It also supports HDR and Dolby Vision, and is bright enough both indoors and outdoors at 550 nits.


The secondary display, which Asus likes to call ScreenPad Plus, is a 12.7-inch IPS LCD panel with touch and stylus support. While the ScreenPad can double up as another source for things like monitoring usage, a second window to read a document or place additional windows and keeping the main display tidy, Asus also lets you use it as a number pad, trackpad and more. There are plenty of options to choose from here.

For instance, I used the secondary display to note down pointers while watching a video stream – this can be plenty useful and allows you not to lose sight of the event. No more constant switching between windows.

The twin Harmon Kardon speakers are adequately loud, too, so you don’t need a pair of external speakers to enjoy shows and movies.


However, one undesirable effect of the ScreenPad is that the keyboard is pushed to the edges, so there’s no place to rest your palm. This can be slightly discomforting when you try to use the laptop on your lap.

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo performance

The Zenbook Pro 14 Duo is powered by Intel’s 12th generation processors – it comes with Intel Core i5-12500H, Core i7-12700H, and Core i9-12900H variants. I received the Core i9 variant with NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti graphics and Windows 11 installed out of the box.

I threw almost everything at the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo – this includes basic things like having documents open in Office and Chrome, with half a dozen other tabs in the background, to streaming movies and games like GTA V, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds at ‘high’ setting.

Asus’ cooling system worked very well for the most part, despite extended gaming sessions eking out all the possible performance from the laptop. As I mentioned above, the keyboard got a little warm sometimes, but that is fine.

Overall, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo’s performance was top-notch in all regards. It is expected for a laptop that costs as much as this one, but it’s good to know nonetheless.

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo keyboard and trackpad

The Zenbook Pro 14 Duo comes with a backlit keyboard and a small trackpad on the right. The keys have great travel and the edge-to-edge design is utilized very well, for the most part. It misses out on the fingerprint sensor, though.


The presence of ScreenPad has pushed the keyboard and the trackpad to a slightly inconvenient position. It took me a while to get used to the keyboard’s placement, while the trackpad worked fine from the get go.

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo benchmarks

The Zenbook Pro 14 Duo fares decently in benchmarks. While benchmarks don’t tell you the whole story, they are useful enough to give you a decent idea of what to expect.


In the PCMark 10 test, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo scored 10,880 in Essentials, 9,140 in Productivity and 9,031 in Digital Content Creation aspects.

In the Geekbench 5 test, the laptop registered a 1,527 single-core score and 11,715 multi-core score.

Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo battery life

The Zenbook Pro 14 Duo is powered by a 76 WHr battery. Even if you run out of juice, the fast charger can quickly give you a boost.

In my usage, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo lasted 5-6 hours on average, with document editing in Word and Google Docs throughout the day. I also played some music in between and over the weekends, played a few games. While I was usually plugged in while gaming, I did play once on battery, and the laptop was down to 40% after gaming for a little less than 2 hours.

Verdict

The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo is tailor-made for creators and multitaskers who need multiple monitors and an expansive canvas in a portable form factor. The ScreenPad, if used right, can prove to be a boon and eliminate the need for a dedicated external display.

The stunning 14.5-inch OLED display also makes this ultrabook a great consumption device. Thanks to the dedicated graphics card, you can also relax after an intense day of work with games.

Asus has come a long way from its first dual-screen laptop three years ago, and the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo gets almost everything right in 2022.

SEE ALSO:

Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review – a sleek all-purpose ultrabook at a premium

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED review – sleek design, sharp display and powerful performance at a premium

Asus Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition review – a combination of interesting design and solid performance