When you hear dual-screen computing, one traditionally thinks of two displays side by side, but last night at Computex Taipei 2019, ASUS reimagined the dual screen laptop, introducing the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo and ZenBook Duo.
ASUS has moved the second display onto the keyboard deck, providing a second 4K touch screen on the Pro model.
The second display is located above the keyboard on the main deck. The ScreenPad Plus, as the second display is known, provides a multi-touch surface that can either extend the desktop, snap 1, 2 or 3 windows or feature custom controls for applications that you’re using on the main screen.
At first, this may feel like a gimmick, but with just a few minutes playing with a device with the ScreenPad Plus at the event both, Chris and Duncan are convinced that it would add real utility and versatility to a laptop experience. The uses are almost endless and that’s truly exciting.
Think of any number of tasks that this would make easier. Gaming, with your chat or livestream window on the second display. Writing a news story, with a source document on the other screen, editing some photos with a colour and tool palette on the second display. The uses are many.
ZenBook Pro Duo
The unquestionable flagship of ASUS’s 2019 Laptop lineup is the ZenBook Pro Duo, with configurations going all the up to an Intel 9th Gen Core i9, NVIDIA RTX 2060 GPU, 32GB of DDR 4 RAM and up to 1TB PCIe SSD. ASUS is positioning the ZenBook Pro Duo as a workhorse for any use case, from content creation to gaming and anything in-between.
The Pro model features a main 15.6-inch 4K OLED HDR display that looks beyond stunning, with a second display/ScreenPad Plus as a 3840 x 1100 14-inch display. Resolution geeks may spot that the screen resolution of the second display will be slightly different, so it will be interesting to see how windows handles the transition of content across the two displays.
ZenBook Duo
The ZenBook Duo is a 14-inch variant of ASUS dual-screen laptop featuring an Intel Core i7 9th Gen processor and GeForce MX250 graphics. It has all of the same ScreenPad Plus features as the larger model with a reduced resolution of the main and second display.
Often tech products are announced with new feature/ gimmicks that seem to exist only for the sake of existing. We really think that ASUS may actually have a real improvement to laptop usability with the inclusion of the second display/ ScreenPad Plus.
At present, there are no solid details on an Australian launch/ pricing or availability, but don’t expect it to be cheap.
I suggest you read the first and second paragraphs of the article. Or the title, or the older title before it was changed, or look at the history of laptops. Then come back and be on topic.
Shame there are no emoticons here. A “ROFL” one would be most appropriate.
Edit: Correction, “facepalm” would be the best.