My wallet is saying no, but my heart is saying yes.
RATING: 8.6 / 10
Pros: Fantastically unique design, brilliant dual OLED displays, surprisingly good speakers, great performance. Cons: Stupendously expensive, big and bulky, maxes out at 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.
When you’re buying a laptop and trying to figure out how to spec it, there’s a line you sometimes cross after you make sure all your core requirements are met. You start adding things that are just nice to have, like extra memory and more storage. However, with the ROG Zephyrus Duo, it feels like ASUS is trying to push that boundary into another dimension — because there isn’t really a situation where a $4,500 gaming notebook with dual OLED displays and up to an RTX 5090 GPU can really be considered a normal desire.
That’s precisely what’s appealing about what might be ASUS’ wildest laptop to date. Even though this thing is outrageously expensive, it’s a fantastic example of the glorious overkill you get when a company focuses on making something that’s more powerful than practical.
Design and displays
One of the most surprising things about the Zephyrus Duo is that when closed, it doesn’t look that different from one of ASUS’ regular gaming laptops, like the Zephyrus G16. It’s a touch thicker at 0.98 inches (compared to 0.7 inches for the G16) and significantly heavier too (6.2 pounds vs. 4.3 pounds). But you still get a familiar design with a single slash across its lid with embedded LEDs and a boxy, minimalist chassis with subtly rounded corners.
That mimicry continues on the inside, where the Duo looks nearly indistinguishable from a typical clamshell thanks to its RGB-lit keyboard and large touchpad. Look closely, though, and you’ll notice differences: speakers positioned on the sides of the frame instead of the typical up-firing audio, and a side-mounted power button.
The Zephyrus Duo’s true form only begins to emerge once you realize its keyboard is held on by magnets. Pull it off and you reveal a second 16-inch 3K OLED display — identical to the one up top. In clamshell mode, you can use the upper display for gaming while the lower half becomes a place to keep widgets, stash extra browser tabs, or display a virtual keyboard and mousepad. ASUS included handy gestures like touching an app’s title bar and flicking it to the other screen.
While a couple of keys felt slightly mushy, for a detachable keyboard measuring just 5mm thick, you still get a nice bounce with ample key travel. A row of pogo pins on the bottom edge of the laptop means the keyboard automatically recharges when reattached.
The real magic happens when you fold out the Duo’s built-in kickstand and prop the whole system up into a stacked dual-screen configuration, with the detached keyboard laying flat in front. From here, you can game on the top screen while the bottom serves as a second monitor for Discord, guides, walkthroughs, or any other app you need. You’ll want to bring a mouse — the touchpad, large as it is, isn’t a proper substitute for a dedicated pointer.
Source: ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo Review: Dual OLED Screens, $4,500 Price Tag