ASUS is always experimenting with new tech, and by now you should have seen the duo screen laptop in the ZenBook Pro range. Today, the duo screen design language is heading straight to the Zephyrus gaming series, creating the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 (GX550). The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 retails for a whopping S$6,998.
Build quality and design
The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 has similar exterior design as the Zephyrus S15, but what’s different is on the inside. Instead of the traditional keyboard & trackpad layout, you have the keyboard & trackpad at the bottom, while the second screen sits at the top.
You can expect this laptop to be heavy and hefty due to two screens in a laptop. The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 weighs about 2.4kg, and is about 2.1cm thick. There is nothing much to complain about build quality. You can lift the lid with one hand, and the hinge feels sturdy. There is almost no flex on the base (ie. keyboard & screen deck), but the screen does flex a little if you apply some pressure.
Do note that there is no webcam on the laptop, so ASUS throws in a GC21 external webcam if you ever need to use a one.
Tech specs
| Colour | Gunmetal Grey |
|---|---|
| Display | 15.6″ Full HD 1920×1080 300Hz Display |
| Processor | Intel® Core™ i9-10980HK Processor 2.4 GHZ (16M Cache, up to 5.3 GHz) |
| Memory | 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz |
| Storage | 1TB + 1TB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 3.0 RAID0 SSD |
| Graphics Card | NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 (Max-Q) |
| VRAM | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Wireless Network | Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home (64-bit) |
| USB Port(s) | 2x USB 3.2 (Gen 1) Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 (Gen 2) Type-A, 1x Type C USB 3.2 (Gen 2) |
| HDMI Port(s) | 1x HDMI |
| Web Camera | NIL |
| Weight | 2.48 kgs |
| Dimension (cm) | 36.0 cm x 26.8 cm x 2.09 cm |
| Warranty | 2 Years International Warranty |
| What’s in the Box? | Gladius Mouse II + 64W PD Adapter + ROG Delta headset + Ranger Backpack + ROG EYE Webcam |
Display
The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15‘s primary display is a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920 * 1080) with a 300Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. The second display sports a 4K (3800 * 1100) with a standard 60Hz refresh rate, which is touch enabled. Note that get the 3ms response time, remember that you have turn on Panel Overdrive in the Armoury Crate software. For general web browsing and consuming media, the display produce vibrant colours, good viewing angles and contrasts.
ScreenPad Plus
If you want to find out more about what this second screen can do, you can check out the review of the ZenBook Pro Duo, where I go in-depth with video demos about the features and quirks of the ScreenPad Plus. Since the functionality of the ScreenPad Plus is the same on the ROG Zephyrus Duo, the following paragraphs in blue italics will be from the ZenBook Pro Duo review:
What I can do with the second screen?
The system see the ScreenPad Plus as a second display on ‘extend’ mode. So you can do things like drag and drop. But other than just being a second display, ASUS has also added many functionalities to make it easier for users to make use of the second display.
ASUS tries to suggest you to use ScreenPad Plus the moment you start dragging a window. When you start to drag a window, a contextual menu pops up, giving you three options – (1) sending the window up/down, (2) add it to Launcher, or (3) view the window in ViewMax mode. All you have to do is move the window into one of the three boxes of your selection. I’ll elaborate more on (2) and (3) below.
Launcher is something like a start menu for the ScreenPad Plus. You tap the little arrow icon on the left and it will pop open a small window for you access ScreenPad settings (eg. brightness, Task Group, etc) and quick launch of apps on the ScreenPad. Let’s go through some of the stuff in the Launcher.
Task Group
Task Groups allows you to preset apps to open in an arrangement that you would like. You pre-define up to 5 apps in a Task Group – 2 on the main display, 3 on the ScreenPad Plus. This comes in handy if you want to quickly switch between different workspaces and want to save the trouble of minimising and opening apps. For example, if you work on photo editing and report writing, then you can a Task Group dedicated to each task.
Task Swap
Task Swap allows you to switch screens while maintaining the window placement.
App Switcher
Native app switcher that shows all the windows open on the ScreenPad Plus. Not exactly sure how useful that will be since you probably won’t be putting a lot of windows on the second screen, but it’s there if you need it.
Keyboard Lock
This allows you to disable the keyboard. This function will come in handy when you are sketching on the ScreenPad Plus and do not want any unintended key presses. ASUS also included a stylus in the package for you in case you want to sketch or draw on either screens.
ViewMax is a mode whereby your window is expanded across both screen. I guess this is useful if you want to view you window in a kind of square-ish ratio (3,840 * 3,260 pixels). ViewMax would look even better if ASUS had managed to slim the chin bezel even more such that both screens look like one single display.
The main change of the ScreenPad Plus on the ROG Zephyrus Duo is its form. The ScreenPad Plus on the ROG Zephyrus Duo is now elevated at at 13º angle, which makes using and viewing it much easier than before.
The second screen comes in handy in many scenarios. While typing this review, I have Photoshop, media, and other draft reference at the bottom as quick reference so I do not have to Alt+Tab constantly. It is also a great space to dump my media bins in Premiere Pro so I can retain a large screen real estate for my timelines. As for a gaming streamer, I can see the ScreenPad Plus being useful for keeping the stream content and chat at there, so that you can have an occasional look while gaming. The ScreenPad Plus is also a touch-enabled display.
Performance
The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 is also a beast of a laptop with it powered by the latest Intel i9-10980HK CPU and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GPU. This laptop is likely designed for either content creators – who open heavy applications like Premiere Pro and Photoshop, and streaming gamers – who play games and stream and chat at the same time. Having the i9-10980HK CPU will power through these CPU-intensive workloads and handle heavy multitasking easily.
The powerful RTX 2080 SUPER GPU allows you to game with the best possible graphics and handle GPU heavy applications. The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 also comes with 32GB of DDR4 RAM and 2TB of SSD storage.
The are four power profiles to choose from namely – Silent, Performance, Turbo, and Manual, listed the ascending order of power. On battery, only Silent and Performance profiles are available.
Here are some benchmarks done in Turbo Mode for your reference:
- Geekbench 5: Single-core = 1315, Multi-core = 8346
- PCMark 10: 5437
- Cinebench R20: 3914
Performance in games in pretty good. I am able to achieve over 90fps on Turbo mode for most of the games tested below. I tested each games with the best possible graphical settings in-game, so you’ll definitely get better FPS performance if you tune them down. Here are the average fps I got in the following games at maximum possible graphic settings:
- GTA V: 103fps
- Hitman Absolution: 98fps
- Valorant: 214fps
The laptop can run pretty warm but it does not seem to impact performance in games or in content heavy applications. Because there is no keyboard deck now, you won’t feel the uncomfortable heat on your wrists. With the fans kicking to cool the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 down, you can expect noise levels to get quite loud. Running the gaming tests at Turbo emitted lots of fan noise which can tarnish the gaming audio experience.
Keyboard and trackpad
They keyboard on the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 has rather low travel distance with an adequate amount of actuation force, it’s not the best keyboard that I’ve tested amongst ASUS gaming laptops for sure. A rubberised wrist rest is provided since there is no longer a keyboard deck. The typical hotkeys are now located at the top right of the keyboard. As you lose the page up/page down keys, there is now a hotkey to swap the arrow keys to them. The keyboard also supports per-key RGB back-lighting.
As for the trackpad, it’s Windows Precision and now located to the right of the keyboard with a portrait orientation. The size is enough for casual use, but if you want to get some work done, I suggest using a mouse. The touchpad also has the virtual NumPad which I find works reliably for me.
Ports selection
You have a wide array of ports available, and they are located on all three sides of the laptop.
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
- 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
- 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
- 1 x LAN RJ45 Jack
- 1 x HDMI 2.0b (supports 4K up to 60HZ)
- 1 x 3.5mm Audio jack
- 1 x 3.5mm Microphone jack
As for connectivity, the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 has Intel Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and GigaBit LAN.
Battery life and speakers
The battery on the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 is a 90Wh one. For general day-to-day use of surfing the net, watching some videos in YouTube/Netflix, and composing this review in Silent Mode at 50% brightness, the battery lasted me around 4-5 hours. Do note that if you are not plugged in, the screen’s refresh rate will lower to 60Hz to save battery, and will revert back to 300Hz once you’re plugged back in.
As for speakers, they are positioned at the side of the laptop and sound pretty good. They are able to get quite loud, but lacks warmth and bass presence to sound full.
Conclusion
The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 is the perfect laptop for individuals who are both content creators and gamers. The second screen will surely add to the efficiency of your workflow be it creating content or streaming. But this is only if you cna afford it. At S$6,998 it is huge premium to pay. With that money you could likely get a powerful gaming rig and two separate monitors. If you’re always on the go, or you table simply lack space, then the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 could be for you.