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ASUS ZenBook Duo UX481 review: Can dual displays work in a smaller package?

By Kenny Yeo - 27 Nov 2019

Performance analysis

Performance Analysis

Unsurprisingly, the ZenBook Duo proved to be a brisk notebook. Thanks to its 10th generation Core i7 processor, a generous amount of memory, and fast storage, the ZenBook Duo was easily the top performer in PCMark 10 and was about 7% faster overall.

And because it has discrete graphics in the form of the GeForce MX250, it was one of the best performing notebooks in 3DMark too ― bested only by the Razer Blade Stealth which features a GeForce MX150 GPU.

The ZenBook Duo’s gaming performance was credible too. It managed very playable frame rates in Tomb Raider even on the more intensive High settings. However, the MSI Prestige PS42 and Razer Blade Stealth both performed better even if they were powered by less powerful GeForce MX150 GPUs. The likely reason is that the ZenBook Duo has to drive not one but two displays. Remember, the ScreenPad Plus isn’t some low-resolution display. With a resolution of 1,920 x 515 pixels, it’s nearly half the resolution of a Full-HD display. In other words, that’s another million pixels that the ZenBook Duo has to draw.

Battery life

We used PCMark 10’s new built-in battery benchmark to evaluate the ASUS ZenBook Duo’s battery life. Since we only started using this benchmark recently, we are still building up results, hence the shorter list of comparison notebooks. We tested the notebooks on the Modern Office and Gaming workloads. The first simulates regular daily use with web browsing, word processing, and video conferencing workloads. The Gaming workload is self-explanatory and represents a worst-case scenario of how long the notebook will last if it was taxed to the maximum.

Battery life was commendable especially when you consider the ZenBook Duo has two displays and that we ran the secondary display at maximum brightness too. It comfortably lasted over 7 hours on the modern office workload and it was one of the few notebooks to clock over 2 hours on the intensive gaming workload. Deeper investigations revealed that, despite having two displays, its power consumption figures were actually quite reasonable.

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8.0
  • Design 7.5
  • Features 8.5
  • Performance 8.5
  • Value 8.5
  • Mobility 7.5
The Good
Clever packaging
ScreenPad Plus genuinely useful
Great specs, good performance
Matte main display
Wi-Fi 6 support
Attractively priced
The Bad
Odd keyboard layout
Tiny trackpad
Main display doesn't support touch
ScreenPad Plus can be too dim
No Thunderbolt 3 support
USB-C port cannot be used for charging
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