What you need to know
- ASUS announced the ZenBook Duo at CES 2020.
- The laptop features a secondary display above the keyboard.
- The laptop should launch in the first quarter of 2020.
ASUS announced the ZenBook Duo at CES 2020 via Engadget. The laptop features a secondary display just above the keyboard deck, much like the larger ZenBook Pro Duo. The ZenBook Duo Pro doesn't have price details yet but is set to launch in the first quarter of 2020.
The main draw of the ZenBook Duo is its secondary display. Unlike a MacBook Pro's Touch Bar which is the height of a row of function keys, the ZenBook Duo has an entire second display on the laptop. You can extend programs from the top display down onto the second display or run several apps side-by-side. This is the latest ZenBook Duo device to feature a secondary display.
The ZenBook Duo is much smaller than its pro sibling. It comes in at 12.6-inches and weighs just 3.3lbs. That's over two pounds lighter than the ZenBook Pro Duo's 5.5lb weight. The positive side of the smaller form factor is that the ZenBook Duo is a much more convenient device to carry around in a bag. At 13 inches, it lines up well in terms of size with other ultraportable laptops like the HP Spectre 13 and Dell XPS 13.
The negative cost of the smaller form factor is lower internal specs. The ZenBook Duo has an NVIDIA GeForce MX250 inside. Though it's not an extremely powerful card, it's enough of a GPU to handle just about any daily task and some gaming and editing tasks. When paired with a 10th Gen Intel processor and 16GB of RAM, the ZenBook Duo should be a great machine for getting work done.
ASUS now has two unique laptops that can compete in several categories. The ZenBook Pro Duo can battle against the powerful behemoths of the 15-inch laptop space while the new ZenBook Duo can go toe-to-toe with the Dell XPS 13, Huawei Matebook X Pro, and other ultraportable laptops.
