CES 2024: ASUS Turned The Zenbook Into A Dual OLED Screen Laptop And It's A Sight To Behold
Even though dual-screen laptops have been around for a while now, they are still seen as extravagant products that appeal to a tiny but premium audience. While several companies, including HP and Lenovo, have been making their presence felt in the dual-screen notebook space with interesting offerings, the most prolific brand in this segment has to be ASUS. The Taiwanese consumer electronics major has a wide variety of touch-enabled dual-screen laptops in the market already, including the ROG Zephyrus Duo, ZenBook Pro Duo 15, and the ZenBook Duo 14.
At CES 2024, ASUS unveiled a refreshed edition of the ZenBook DUO as a dual-screened laptop. Unlike older dual-screen laptops from ASUS that featured one main display and a secondary display—usually attached to the keyboard—the 2024 edition of the ZenBook DUO (UX8406) features twin fully functional OLED panels. At first glance, it seems the ZenBook DUO draws a lot of inspiration from last year's Lenovo Yoga Book 9i, which featured a similar display arrangement. Upon closer inspection, though, you may notice that ASUS is like a refined version of the Yoga Book 9i, making it a more usable and overall appealing product.
For example, the machine features a full-sized keyboard and touchpad accessory that slides above the bottom display, making it look like a traditional single-screened laptop. The built-in kickstand lets you orient the display in various positions that weren't available on the Yoga Book, and more importantly, the ZenBook DUO offers a much better spec sheet without being considerably more expensive than laptops with traditional displays.
ASUS Zenbook DUO (2024) UX8406: Everything you need to know
The most striking feature of the 2024 edition of the ZenBook DUO is the twin 14-inch 3K OLED panels. These panels boast a resolution of 2800 x 1800 pixels in the 16:10 aspect ratio. Both panels boast 500 nits of brightness, support a 120 Hz refresh rate, are Dolby Vision certified, and get Gorilla Glass protection for added durability.
The machine offers three Intel processor options: Ultra 9 Processor 185H, Ultra 7 Processor 155H, and Ultra 5 Processor 125H, and gets onboard Intel Arc graphics. Base variants of the ZenBook DUO ship with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, with 32GB upgrade options available. Storage options begin with 512GB SSDs on the base variants, going up to 2TB SSDs on the top variants. The machine is also well-equipped on the physical connectivity front with the inclusion of a single USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, twin Thunderbolt four ports, a single HDMI 2.1 port, and even a 3.5-millimeter jack (which the YogaBook 9i missed out on).
The ASUS ZenBook DUO (2024) gets a 4-cell 75Whr battery, which claims up to 13.5 hours of video playback time in single-screen mode and 10.5 hours in dual-screen mode. At 1.65 kilograms, it is about the same weight as traditional laptops—a remarkable feat despite its twin-display setup. Most notably, the laptop is also MIL-STD 810H rated for added durability.
The ASUS ZenBook DUO (2024) is slated to go on sale later this year in the U.S., with a starting price of $1,500 for the base variant.