The ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo 14 is a premium package

with premium specs.

But let's be honest.

You don't care about that boring stuff.

You care about this little guy right here, the ScreenPad,

the 12.7-inch, 120 Hertz touch screen here on the keyboard.

The tiny, external monitor

that's built right into the chassis.

It looks very cool,

but what do you actually do with it?

In the past, the answer has been "Not that much."

ASUS has been trying this sort of thing

for a number of years and it hasn't gone great.

There's been a 14-incher, a 15-incher,

even a giant gaming rig.

And in reviewing those models,

I always had trouble figuring out exactly what to do

with that second screen.

On these past models, that ScreenPad has been tiny,

it's been low resolution, it's been dim,

it's been full of glitches and resizing issues.

And worst of all, it's been fairly flat to the ground.

Meaning I couldn't really see much of what was there

without creating my neck to look.

For as long as I've been reviewing Zenbook Duos,

the ScreenPad has been a place to dump Twitter and Facebook

and whatever other distractions I didn't wanna look at.

But ASUS has done this Zenbook Pro Duo differently

in a few ways.

So this year's ScreenPad is very bright,

it has a higher refresh rate, and more importantly,

ASUS has raised the ScreenPad 12 degrees

above the keyboard deck.

And for the first time

since I started reviewing dual screen devices,

I can actually see the stuff that's on it.

I can see every detail of pictures

and read every word of articles

and I don't need to lean over at all.

This has changed the game.

I've actually been using the ScreenPad.

I've been using it in a variety of different ways.

And to show you how useful I found the second screen,

I figured I'd take you through the typical day

of a dual screen laptop user.

So the first thing I do when I sign on at 9:00 AM

is take a few minutes to chat with my colleagues,

check my emails, and get up to speed

with the news of the previous day.

So I put Slack on the ScreenPad

and split the top screen between emails and the news.

Slack doesn't quite fit on the ScreenPad,

and it looked a bit weird when I expanded it.

But hey, I could read my messages

and that's the most important thing.

I could easily view all three things

at once from my office chair.

Things were starting to feel a bit quiet

so I opened up Spotify

and stuck that on the bottom screen with Slack

so it was out of the way.

The ScreenPad was perfect for scrolling through playlists

and skipping through tracks

while I sipped my morning coffee.

As the morning dragged on,

I got bored of sitting at my desk.

So I took the Zenbook over to the couch

and this turned out to be a huge mistake.

The location of the keyboard at the front of the device

means there's nowhere to put your hands.

And on a desk, that's not a huge problem.

You can just push the laptop further away.

But on the couch, you are going to be typing

with your hands tucked up against your chest like a T-Rex.

So I ended up just ditching the keyboard and touchpad

and just using the stylus to navigate everything.

But that's also not ideal

because the top screen has some serious screen wobble.

Now some of you love having your keyboard in the front.

This kind of device would be great for all of you.

But if you haven't tried a front-mounted keyboard before

and you do intend to use this device on your lap,

that's something to keep in mind.

Anyway, back at my desk.

I had an article I needed to write

referencing a bunch of in-depth spec sheets.

Which is what you spend 99% of your time doing

if you're a laptop reviewer like me.

So I full screened my Google Doc on the top screen

and put the spec sheets on the ScreenPad.

I actually kind of prefer this

to an external monitor setup for this kind of workflow

because I didn't need to alternate

between looking at one interface and looking at the other.

I could easily see both windows at once.

And don't worry,

Spotify was still on the side of the ScreenPad

cranking out tunes without needing to be

on the main screen and potentially distracting me.

Okay, lunchtime.

I usually just scroll through Twitter

and emails while I eat lunch.

So I wasn't going to need the second screen.

With a three finger tap,

I could turn on TouchPad Mode,

which turns the ScreenPad into a massive touchpad

and use that to navigate.

Now, this isn't a great touchpad.

There's no physical clicking mechanism

and you're also like reaching over the keyboard

which is a little bit weird.

But the tap-to-click mechanism does work quite well.

And it's a nice way to take a break

from the tiny little touchpad in the corner of this device.

Which is just really tiny and I hate it.

Now, TouchPad Mode did cover up all the windows

I had on the bottom screen

so I wasn't able to see what I had down there

while I navigated this way.

But my Spotify stream did keep going.

And when I exited TouchPad Mode,

which I could do with another simple three finger tap,

they were right there where I'd left them.

Now, we happened to have some other members

of the Verge team in the office as well.

So I brought this thing around

and asked what they thought of it.

- Wow. Okay.

- Wow-wee.

- Oh, that's cool.

- I feel like a child who's using a computer

for the first time.

- Oh, so far. Nice. It's a little mushy.

Doesn't sound too clicky.

- I'm expecting it to like mold to my hand.

- I do like how seamlessly it just goes

from one screen to the next.

Like I was expecting it to be a little bit more hitchy.

- [Chole] So I could see this being helpful.

- [Becca] Is this also touchscreen?

(gasps) - [Monica] Yeah.

- [Becca] You can touch everything.

- Like, I like that it can do this.

This is nice. Like you do want a tablet that goes up

'cause it will destroy your wrist

if you're drawing all day on flat.

- This is actually awesome.

Is this like 120 Hertz, you know?

- [Monica] Yeah. - Ah.

- If I was guarding a museum, you know,

and I had to have a lot of screens,

that would be my best use case.

- [Monica] Okay. So back to my day.

In the afternoon, I had to do some light editing

on a batch of photos.

This Zenbook has this neat feature called Task Groups

where you can save a group of tabs and apps

and open them simultaneously later with a single click.

So if you wanted a quick way to open Lightroom and Photoshop

at the same time, which I did here,

you can put them in a task group on the ScreenPad

and save yourself a click.

This is probably my favorite ScreenPad feature.

I'm a huge fan.

So to finish off the day, I had a Zoom call

where I needed to reference some spreadsheets.

So I stuck the Zoom call on the bottom screen

and put the spreadsheets on the top screen.

I could then pop the ScreenPad into TouchPad Mode

without interrupting the Zoom call

and use it to scroll through the data.

When we were done with the spreadsheets,

I swapped the two screens' content

to put the Zoom call upstairs

and the spreadsheets downstairs

using this handy little swap button

that's right above the touchpad.

Seriously, this button is the best.

It is my favorite button ever.

This was about when I had to plug the device into power.

It generally lasts around a little over five hours

with this workload.

That's not a super long lifespan

and it is a bummer that this device

may not last everyone an entire workday.

But the Duo is running two bright, high-resolution screens

so it's a little more excusable

than it would be on most laptops.

If you're trying to save power,

you can also turn off the ScreenPad

with this handy button here.

Seriously, this row of buttons is my life.

Finally, work was over

and that meant it was time for gaming.

Now, the RTX 3050 Ti isn't designed

to play the latest and greatest games

at the highest frame rates and resolutions,

but it can certainly make lighter titles a possibility,

including Overwatch which I'm playing here.

Now, you'd think a dual screen device

could be a dream machine for gaming.

You could run a Twitch stream

or have your Discord open on the bottom screen

while your game runs on the top.

But it's not quite that simple.

When you click on something on the bottom screen,

you actually click out of the game,

which means that some titles will just minimize.

Now you can get around this in some cases

by running the game in Windowed mode.

But I mean, come on.

Are you really trying to run your game in Windowed mode?

Like all the time really? Come on. Come on.

Now, this doesn't mean this is a bad laptop

for playing games.

It just means that there are still very cool use cases

I think it could have

that ASUS hasn't quite figured out yet.

And that's sort of a theme of this laptop.

It's still not quite everything it could be.

But as of now, it does what it's supposed to do.

I figured out things to do with it

that I can't do on any other device.

Despite the fact that the touchpad is minuscule,

despite the fact that I was typing

like a T-Rex for quite a while,

and despite the fact that the lid wobbles

like a nervous kid at a spelling bee,

I had a good day with the Zenbook Pro Duo 14.

Now is this a laptop you should buy?

Only you know the answer to that question,

in your heart.

But on a device like this, that's high praise.

For quite a few years,

the answer to that question

for many of these funky, dual screen devices

has been "Absolutely not."

And I don't wanna say that anymore.

I think most people will figure out ways

that this dual screen setup could add to their workflow.

So the decision now mostly comes down to one question.

Do you want a keyboard in the front?

Thank you so much to all the Verge staff

who helped out with this video.

And one thing we learned from all of those interviews

is that at least some of them think I'm very cool

for having this laptop, like some of them.

So if you think I'm very cool or if you don't,

I don't really care,

please like and subscribe to The Verge.