Product test
Expensive eye-catcher with super features: Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 tested
by Martin Jud
Attention creatives and gamers: Asus ZenBook Pro Duo review
15.1.2020
Translation: machine translated
Finally a notebook with a 4K OLED display that is also suitable for creative professionals thanks to its good colour gamut coverage. It can also be used for gaming thanks to its powerful graphics card. On top of that, the second screen is a useful eye-catcher that could still be improved.
The technical data:
Design and connections
The chassis is made of dark, brushed aluminium with a slight blue tint and feels good to the touch. The colour scheme is called "Celestial Blue" by Asus
Since Asus has installed a dedicated graphics card, it is no lightweight at 2.5 kilograms - but it offers enough power for graphic employees, video editing and gaming. It is 35.9 cm wide, 24.6 cm deep and 2.4 cm high. When it lies on the table in front of you, it appears slightly thinner than it actually is thanks to the angled sides.
When you open the notebook, the rear part of the base lifts up to form a ramp. This is practical, as the angled keyboard ensures an ergonomic typing position. Incidentally, the ZenBook also comes with a palm rest, which can provide even more ergonomics. I find this particularly important, as the keyboard on this device is right at the bottom edge due to the secondary display.
An LED strip is installed in the centre of the front of the chassis, which lights up against the table as soon as the notebook draws power. It accompanies the charging process in colour. When the battery is full, the bar lights up green. If you slide the palm rest in front of it, the LED light is redirected to it.
As far as the connections are concerned, you get USB 3.1 Type-A, an HDMI and the power connection on the left-hand side. On the right are Thunderbolt 3, 3.5 mm jack and a second USB 3.1 Type-A port.
Colourful UHD OLED display, second screen and pen input
The ZenBook Pro Duo has a multitouch-capable UHD OLED display that looks fantastic and also offers HDR. The colours look crisp and the viewing angle is stable. I also like the secondary display, although I'm annoyed that it obviously uses a different technology to the main screen.
The "ScreenPad Plus" is a matt IPS panel with a resolution of 3840 x 1100 pixels, which clearly has less luminosity than the main panel. It is also not viewing angle stable. If I put my head directly over the screen, the colours look almost as good as on the OLED display. But even in a normal sitting position, this is no longer the case. The image appears slightly washed out and somewhat darker.
Luminosity, uniformity and colour space coverage
I want to know exactly where I stand and measure the two panels with the x-rite i1Display Pro:
What is impressive is the colour space coverage of the OLED display. I measured a coverage of 100% for sRGB, 95.7% for Adobe RGB and 100% for DCI P3. These values show that the notebook can also be used for professional use in the graphics sector.
In contrast, the IPS display offers less good colour space coverage: 92.3% sRGB, 64.5% Adobe RGB, 66.4% DCI P3. If I measure the black and white value of the second display, I calculate a static contrast of 825:1. The dynamic contrast is 3702:1.
Operation of the second screen
The ScreenPad Plus employees seamlessly with the main screen. If required, it can be deactivated at the touch of a button. You can do the following with it:
Also useful: When you grab a window with the mouse, a small button with three functions appears right next to the mouse pointer. If you drag the window to the corresponding position, you can either extend it to both screens, have it switch screens or add it to the launcher of the second screen.
Drawing and writing with the included pen is very precise. However, before this review, I was used to the pen input of Microsoft's current Surface products and therefore had to get used to it a little. In comparison, the pen input on the Asus feels a little more slippery. You can deactivate the keyboard at any time so that you don't accidentally trigger other keys when using the pen.
In general, I find the ScreenPad Plus to be a practical addition. If I'm writing an article on it, I can do research on the internet on the second screen at the same time. And if I ever feel like playing the piano while I'm writing, I simply install the corresponding app.
Keyboard and touchpad
Typing on the keyboard didn't really feel good at first, but this wasn't due to the feel, but rather the layout. As Asus had to make room for the second screen, the keyboard is located directly on the front edge of the base
The layout is somewhat compressed, similar to a living room keyboard, which is not a bad thing. However, this results in a slightly different key assignment, which meant that I was constantly pressing the right arrow instead of the Ctrl key at first. The shortened Enter key is no less annoying - my little finger has already inserted umpteen dollar signs instead of a line break. After a few days with the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo, however, I got used to the mapping.
The three-level illuminated keyboard is very quiet and has a key travel of 1.5 mm. I find the feel very pleasant, which is also due to the fact that a clear pressure point can be felt. I always use the palm rest so that I can type comfortably. Without it, you're two centimetres away from the desk, which I find difficult to cope with.
The touchpad is a little small and therefore takes some time to get used to. However, it is very precise and has a little surprise - an illuminated number pad that is activated by pressing the top right-hand corner of the pad. Very ingenious if you want to rage around in Excel or type in invoices in e-banking. However, the notebook would be even better if Asus were to give it haptic feedback in the future.
Speakers
Battery performance
The ZenBook's lithium-ion battery comes with 71 Wh. Let's see what that means in practice - I'll run a test with YouTube on a continuous loop, do a stress test and measure how long the battery lasts while I'm working in the office.
Battery life with continuous YouTube streaming
When streaming YouTube continuously, I set the brightness of the display to 150 cd/m² and stream music videos until the device can take no more. The automatic shutdown comes after 4 hours and 43 minutes. This is a mediocre result for a notebook with a dedicated graphics card.
Battery life under maximum performance and fan volume
A word on noise emissions: The notebook is not audible during normal work. Under full load, I measured 54 decibels from a sitting position - an arm's length away from the display. This corresponds to the volume of a rather quiet office, which is why I never notice the notebook in our editorial team even when playing games. Directly next to the notebook's fan, it is 73 decibels. I measured this with a Sony smartphone.
Battery life for office work
When I use the notebook as a mobile office and don't use background music from YouTube, the battery runs out after five to six hours. But the device is not designed for this purpose anyway, considering its weight.
Processor
The Intel Core i7-9750H is a high-performance mobile 64-bit hexa-core high-end processor. It is the successor to the Intel Core i7-8750H and was launched on the market as a refresh in 2019. Based on the Coffee Lake microarchitecture, Intel manufactures it with the improved third-generation "14 nm++" process.
When using up to two cores, the processor clocks at 2.6 to 4.5 GHz. If all six cores are used, the clock rate is 2.6 to 4 GHz. The power consumption is 45 watts TDP. The chip is also equipped with Intel's UHD Graphics 630 GPU.
Graphics card in the lower high-end range
Performance
To test the performance, I run benchmarks; Cinebench R20 for the processor, some tests from 3DMark and gaming benchmarks from Gears 5, Red Dead Redemption 2 and FarCry 5.
Processor performance: Cinebench R20
With Cinebench from Maxon, you can test how your PC performs when rendering Cinema 4D content. Processors with more cores will always deliver a better result here (except for single-core results). If you want to compare processors with Cinebench, this is only possible if both processors have the same number of threads.
3DMark: Gaming benchmarks
3DMark offers lots of benchmarks for testing gaming PCs and laptops. To give you an overview, I'm testing 1080p gaming (Fire Strike), WQHD gaming (Time Spy) and UHD gaming (Time Spy Extreme).
The ZenBook clearly performs better in all benchmarks than a mediocre gaming notebook with Intel Core i7-6820HK and Nvidia GeForce GTX 980. 1080p gaming with the highest quality settings should not be a problem with most games. The notebook is not really made for 4K gaming.
VRMark: Virtual reality gaming benchmarks
I use the VRMark benchmarks to find out whether the notebook is ready for virtual reality gaming.
Here the notebook only passes the VRMark Orange Room. This means you get enough power to play with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Gaming and FPS
Gaming is great fun with the true-colour OLED display. However, there is a small hurdle to overcome: The notebook has scaling problems and only ever displays the resolution preset in Windows. If you want to play with a 1080p resolution, you have to change the resolution to 1080p in Windows itself. If you don't, the game will retain the UHD resolution and only use a quarter of the display.
After asking the manufacturer, they confirmed that I was aware of the problem. They are currently working on a solution with Nvidia and Intel, which will be delivered as soon as possible via a driver update.
Gears 5
I run the Gears 5 benchmark with 1080p resolution and the highest possible quality settings.
The average 60 FPS is pleasing. Nothing stands in the way of smooth gaming in ultra quality.
Red Dead Redemption 2
I'm tightening the thumbscrew a little: Red Dead Redemption 2 needs more potent hardware to play at 1080p even at the highest quality settings:
Although the frame rate in the benchmark never drops below 31 FPS, the game always feels a little jerky at Ultra settings. That's why I also run the benchmark with high quality settings:
The high settings still offer a feast for the eyes and, in particular, a smooth gaming experience.
FarCry 5
To compare the notebook with other gaming laptops, I pulled the well-known FarCry 5 benchmark out of obscurity. Again, ultra-quality settings with 1080p resolution are given:
Conclusion: Can I keep this?
All in all, the device didn't disappoint me. On the contrary: if I were a video editor, graphic designer or artist, I would seriously consider buying one. But for what an editor needs to be able to do, it's a little too expensive for me. So I'll soon be wistfully returning the device to the manufacturer and in the meantime I'm happy to have two screens at work.
Martin Jud
Senior Editor
martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.chI find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.
