The ASUS Zephyrus Duo 15 SE pairs a massive second screen with powerful PC specs

ASUS announced the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE today at CES 2021. The laptop is a special edition of ASUS's unique dual-screen gaming laptop, the Zephyrus Duo 15. The laptop's main display is a 15.6-inch panel, but its biggest draw is its enormous ROG ScreenPad Plus, a 14.1-inch secondary display that sits above the keyboard.

The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE isn't just about its displays, though. Its runs on an AMD Ryzen 9 5900 HX mobile processor and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE is available for preorder today starting at $2,900, though ASUS has not shared an exact release date.

The secondary display of the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE tilts up to be easily accessible. We've seen a display like this before on the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo, but at 14.1 inches, the ScreenPad Plus on the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE is the largest secondary display ever in a production gaming laptop.

The secondary display works with touch as well as the ASUS Pen active stylus. There are two resolution options for the ROG ScreenPad Plus, a 4K (3840 x 1100) option or an FHD (1920 x 1080) option. Both options have a refresh rate of 60 Hz.

Developers can optimize apps to work with the ROG ScreenPad Plus, such as co-op chats for Dying Light 2, XSplit Gamecaster, and ROG's Armoury Crate system.

There are two options for the main display of the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE. If you want a higher resolution, you can get a 4K panel with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. If you prefer a higher refresh rate, there's an option for an FHD panel with a 300 Hz refresh rate and a 3 ms response time. Both display options use Adaptive-Sync to match the refresh rate of the display with the frame rate of the GPU.

The combined processing power of the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE should be able to handle demanding games. The Ryzen 9 5900 HX mobile processor has eight cores and 16 threads. It's built on AMD's 7nm technology. The CPU scales up to 50W of sustained power, and the GPU draws 90Ws on its own. ASUS highlights that this is almost double the wattage of this type of processor.

Since the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE has a combined processing power of up to 165W, cooling is an important feature for the laptop. It has an Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) Plus cooling system with redesigned fans to help keep its temperature under control. The laptop's CPU is also covered with Thermal Grizzly's liquid metal compound, which ASUS states reduces processor temperatures by up to 10°C (50°F).

While the laptop has several features to keep it cool, ASUS also has a way to keep your hands cool while using the device. The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE's keyboard pulls forward, which stops your hands from having to rest on the hottest part of the laptop.