Because we don't have a ton of historical game data, we're going with 3DMark tests, but look out for more games in the future. Keep in mind that on the XPS 13 with Adreno, 3DMark was being emulated.
I was surprised to see the Panther Lake system handle Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 , even on the low-end graphics settings at 1920 x 1200p. I took off around a suburban New Jersey airport and flew around the surrounding area with the system running the game between 44 and 52 frames per second.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware) (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) On 3DMark Fire Strike, the ZenBook Duo easily surpassed its rivals with a score of 13,581. The next highest was the AMD-based OmniBook Ultra at 8,557. The Mac wasn't included here, as Fire Strike isn't compatible.3DMark Steel Nomad is a more recent test, and the Arc B390 won comfortably here, too, with a score of 1,483. The MacBook Pro with M5 came in second at 1,122, so there was less of a gap on this test. Both of those had a sizable lead over other Windows-based ultrabooks.
The two, count 'em, two screens on the ZenBook Duo are each 14 inches, with 2880 x 1800 Lumina Pro OLED panels. They're not the brightest or most vivid that we've seen, but they're still quite good.
The dual-panel design really shines for productivity, letting you easily organize multiple windows either one on top of the other or side-by-side.
But they also are solid screens, generally. Using the top screen in laptop mode, I watched the trailer for The Odyssey , and was particularly impressed by one scene in which Odysseus (Matt Damon), leads his men on a boat through deep blue water and a dark blue sky. The amount of detail I could make out was impressive, despite how dim the scene was. In another, bright orange flames lit a cave as the men discovered the cyclops.
The top screen covered 123.1% of the sRGB gamut by volume and 87.2% of the DCI-3 gamut. The bottom screen reached 118% and 83.6%, which is close enough that I couldn't tell the difference. That was the same pattern for brightness, where the top screen measured 435.2 nits on average while the bottom reached 455.6 nits.
These weren't as bright or as vivid as Lenovo's screens (the MacBook Pro's Mini LED was the brightest option), but proved superior to the HP OMniBook ultra and the comparatively dull LCD in the XPS 13 (9345).
The keyboard and touchpad on the ZenBook Duo are on a small slate that is separate from the dual-screened laptop. You can attach it over the bottom screen with pogo pins and magnets for a classic laptop experience, or use it separately with Bluetooth (my preferred way at a desk) to get two screens.
Asus says that the detachable keyboard's keys have 1.7 mm of key travel. The keys, however, feel a bit mushy, and I wish they would pop up a bit faster.
Typing with the keyboard on the laptop, I did great on the monkeytype test, hitting 102 words per minute with 99% accuracy. I've been faster, but that's hard to complain about. But with the keyboard on a desk, my fingers weren't hitting keys, which were far lower than most desktop keyboards, and so I dropped to 79 wpm with 93% accuracy. If I were using this at my desk all the time, I would pick a different Bluetooth keyboard. As a portable machine, though, I want the standard keyboard to work great in every position.
The touchpad is 5 inches wide and more than 3 inches tall. It isn't the most premium-feeling touchpad, but it does the job even with its stiff click. Asus has packed the touchpad with sensors — you can swipe your finger on the left side to adjust the volume or the right side to dial in the brightness. Swiping along the top scans through media. This is fine, but I tended to just use the keyboard function row, because those are labeled and I didn't have to remember them.
While Asus bundles a stylus with the ZenBook Duo in the United States, it didn't come with our review unit.
Asus's six-speaker sound system (four woofers and two tweeters) gets quite loud. Listening in a small room in our office, the sounds of the Beaches' cover of "I Ran (So Far Away) easily filled the entire room.
The speakers made that song and others very vocals-forward. I usually prefer that, but it was so much the case that it sometimes drowned other parts of the song out. The thumping drums and even a tiny bit of bass were noticeable, but overwhelmed, while the guitars were lost in the mix.
I was surprised to find that there is no preset equalizer in the Dolby Atmos software. I found that both the "detailed" and "balanced" presets did a better job toning down the vocals to highlight the low end, though balanced made the whole song a bit too soft.
Asus has made it extremely simple to replace the single easily repairable part on the ZenBook Duo: the SSD.Beneath the kickstand, there's a plate held in by two Torx T5 screws. Unscrew those, and the plate comes right out, giving you access to the drive if you need to repair or upgrade it. You can also access some of the main cables here. One is definitely for the battery, and the other appears to be a ribbon cable, likely to the displays.
We've seen easy-access SSD doors before, primarily on some of Microsoft's Surface devices, but Asus is using a full-size M.2 2280 SSD, while Microsoft uses smaller drives. But it's a good idea, and I hope Asus puts it on even more of its laptops.
There are eight Torx T5 screws of two different lengths lining the bottom of the laptop. While we got those out, pry tools didn't give us a way into the machine. An Asus representative told Tom's Hardware that "opening and putting the device back together is not an easy task and not something we would recommend the average user to do," but added that inside the laptop, the Wi-Fi card is technically replaceable.
I thought it was folly that Intel loaned us a dual-screen OLED laptop for the debut Panther Lake review. Surely, that wouldn't be a good show of efficiency.
I was wrong. The ZenBook Duo and the Core Ultra X9 388H were impressive on our battery test, especially given the fact that there are two screens. Our battery test runs at 150 nits with the device connected to Wi-Fi, browsing the web, running OpenGL tests, and streaming videos. With one display on and the other covered by the keyboard, the laptop lasted for 14 hours and 23 minutes. With both screens mirrored, the system ran for 11 hours and 5 minutes.
Both of those trials were far longer than the Yoga Book 9i (6:49) and isn't far off the HP OmniBook Ultra X, but the Dell XPS 13 with Snapdragon X Elite lasted the longest at 19:31, though Dell sent that review unit with a dim, comparatively low-resolution 1920 x 1080 display.
The ZenBook's successes here can't be attributed solely to the Core Ultra chip, though. It is also packing a massive 99 WHr battery, which we usually only find in the most powerful gaming laptops. The previous version, the UX8406, had a 75 WHr battery, so the larger power source is definitely helping.
We measured skin temperatures on the ZenBook Duo while running an intensive stress test.
The hottest points on the system were on the back of the lower screen — the "bottom" of a normal laptop, where the internals are held. The top screen was cool to the touch, and the keyboard and touchpad are separate from the main unit.The laptop measured 104 degrees Fahrenheit at its hottest point, but that was under the kickstand, meaning if it were in laptop mode, it would be covered. At several points around the kickstand, the laptop hit 100 F, which isn't alarming.
During that same test, we also measured the CPU package, which averaged 74.29 degrees Celsius.
Asus is using a 1080p webcam on the ZenBook Duo. I'd love to see Asus start upping the resolution on its top-tier laptops, but this will do for most people.
Still, in some test photos, the images were a bit soft or blurry, with my beard and hair looking especially lifeless. On a video call, things fared better, but I won't tell you the image stood out from the competition in any way. The IR camera supports Windows Hello, and I logged in quickly and easily with my face.
You won't want to use the webcam with the screens in portrait mode, as the camera will be on the left side, and, I found, doesn't automatically rotate. You'll want to switch to landscape for any and all chatting, unless you use an external camera.
Like many other Asus laptops in recent memory, no matter how premium, the ZenBook Duo comes with quite a bit of preinstalled software.
Some of it, like ScreenXpert, is necessary. That app does all of the background work to make a dual-screen experience on Windows 11 smooth, including providing a shortcut to bring up the virtual keyboard, adjust brightness across different screens, and add gestures to make windows span both screens and flick windows between the screens.
There's also a bunch of promotional apps, including Adobe Offers to find "discounts" from the company, and 500GB of Dropbox storage for free for six months. Asus also links to McAfee LiveSafe in the Edge browser's bookmarks. This is a lot of ads for a machine that is over $2,000.
Asus sells the ZenBook Duo (UX8407) with a one-year warranty.
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/gaming-laptops/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/gaming-laptops/asus-zenbook-duo-2026-review#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.