Review: ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581

Whenever a company decides to take on a new challenge and raise the stakes with a tech product, we expect lots of complaints and criticism from people because they will assume it’s a gimmick. However, this ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo Laptop is so beautiful and unique its hard to say anything bad about it. It will definitely make you stop in your tracks and take a closer look, not only due to it’s visual appeal but also the way it stands out from all other laptops.

As an introduction, lets break down the obvious. It has much more power than most people will ever need. It has two 4k resolution touchscreen surfaces to work on, living up to it’s name Duo. The main screen is a full 3840×2160 true 4K display that seems almost unreal to look at and the secondary screen is almost half the length size, coming in at 3840×1100. The lower visual panel spans the entire width of the laptop and includes wrist rests to give that extra support for long working or gaming use. This makes it perfect for any desk or table. Although it weighs 5 1/2 lbs. and feels a little bulkier, it has more working area then any other laptop available on the market at this time.

So why two screens? What makes this better and more efficient than having only one?

Let’s compare the Pro Duo to every other laptop. As an example, on the main screen we are working on a short film script. We have the complete left side of the screen designated for our writing tools. The right side we are using for some sort of visual aids to help us process the ideas we come up with. This can be pictures we have taken, videos, movies, another program running, etc. The ideas are flowing, but we need a thesaurus to come up with some better wordage for our story and we do not want to adjust the main screen. So this is where the lower screen comes into play. We open it up and it doesn’t effect our workflow. Of course, this is only one example of the many ways we can use this incredible screen. The second screen can be used for so many things such as multiple website pages, extra apps, or just used as an extension to the main screen.

One of the coolest and most useful features is the ability to pre-set and save how the screens are setup for apps. As stated in our above example, we can save the layout for future use. We can also find that ASUS has dedicated buttons to flip the screens. So if you’re running games or watching a movie on the main screen while working on the smaller screen and need to quickly switch it up, you can do this with a touch of a button made for this specifically. The matte coding on the main screen causes a bit of glare but not very bad and, in my opinion, is much better than a super glossy screen that causes sharp lights flaring from all directions.

How are the graphics and battery life? – Since the screens are amazing, how do the graphics compare to other laptops and what pull does it have on the battery life?

As regards to graphics, in one word they are “Incredible” – Asus did not spare expense with adding the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPU pro level graphics card to this machine. This is considered the fastest mid range graphics card in the GeForce Turing line-up as of it’s release date. With the power of this machine and its use of hardware and software combined, we can firmly state that the ZenBook Pro Duo Laptop is awe inspiring and lightening fast. The insane speed makes this laptop a powerhouse like no other and feels similar to the power you would get from a gaming desktop! The battery life does get hit hard due to all this power and beauty, averaging about 3 hours, but that shouldn’t be a big deal to many who purchase this laptop since we are talking about an easily movable desktop comparable performing system, that can be plugged in and stay charged on the go.

What are genuine expressions and feeling about this laptop?

At the end of the day, I have personally found that this laptop is easier and faster to work on than any other windows laptop I have ever used. The genuinely cool features that are embedded in it, actually work exactly like I was  hoping. It has more power than needed and can take on any task I throw at it. The dual 4K screens are beautiful and not at all a gimmick. If you’re in the market for a laptop that is insanely fast and strikingly gorgeous, then this is one you should definitely check out. ASUS has built one of the best laptops to date.

The ASUS ZenBook Pro retails for $2,300 and is available for purchase at Amazon