ASUS made its next wave of dual-screen laptops more practical

Rounding out the package are pair of Thunderbolt 3-compatible USB-C ports, a full-size USB 3.1 port, HDMI-out, WiFi 6, a 90Wh battery, and, of course, that second screen. This time, ASUS went with a larger 14-inch 4K panel to serve as the ScreenPad — more on that in a bit. Of course, the sheer amount of stuff ASUS squeezed into this thing means it might be best suited to sitting in one place — it weighs just a hair under 5.3 pounds.

For those looking for something a bit more portable, there’s the ZenBook Duo 14 and its 14-inch, 1080p touchscreen. It isn’t nearly as powerful as its bigger sibling, though you can configure it pretty nicely all the same — it ships with Intel’s Xe integrated graphics but you can opt for an NVIDIA GeForce MX450, and you get your choice of a Core i5-1135G7 or one of Intel’s 11th-gen 17-1165G7 processors. The Duo 14 also comes with up to 32GB of LPDDR4x RAM, up to 1GB of storage, two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, one full-size USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, HDMI-out, and a microSD card slot.

ASUS packed all that plus a 70Wh battery into a body that weighs in at just over 3.5 pounds. That just might be worth it if you’re a fan of the 12.6-inch ScreenPad Plus display sitting just above the keyboard.

Now, about those second screens. One of the big knocks against the original ZenBook Duo and Pro Duo’s secondary screens were the way they were oriented — they sat flush with the rest of the laptop’s bodies, and even though the bottom of halves of those machines were angled upward slightly, it could still tough to see the ScreenPad Plus at a glance. Not so this time. In both new ZenBook Duo models, the ScreenPad itself swivels upward to sit a little more cleanly in your eye line — think a 9.5-degree angle for the Pro Duo and a 7-degree angle for the smaller Duo.