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This INSANE Dual Screen Laptop is REAL - ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo First Look

JonoT

 

The ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo is the first two-screen notebook we've seen that REALLY makes a lot of sense. It's a fantastic idea, and realistically every laptop maker is going to be doing this in the next year.

 

Buy: ASUS Zenbook Laptops 
On Amazon: https://geni.us/dK01c5
On Newegg: https://geni.us/dpRzzXM

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Pretty cool, but I feel like this is going to be expensive as fuck and that will scare people away.

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Has the MSRP been declared? i'd pay about 500 usd extra for a second screen like that!

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Excited Linus didn't mention the screen size - I'm assuming the larger one is a 15.6 inch panel and the smaller one 14 inches.

 

For the productivity crowd this layout makes a ton of sense. My worry is that wrist rest implementation will make it difficult to use if you aren't actually sitting at a table, which let's face it, for the majority of laptop users is normal fare.

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I think I found my new laptop for when this thing releases.

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This is exciting! Curious about weight, battery-life, and the bottom-aligned keyboard, but wow! Another excellent video, hope you guys are right. I'd like to see other vendors copy this, some next-gen Ryzen options, and top/bottom-aligned screen options, maybe even as an external mountable option (you could have a "trackpad app" window and put it anywhere you want, like the "keyboard app" on tablets/phones.)

 

With the elevated hinge, however, this design feels very complete. I imagine you could play games nicely on this while keeping your chat, cam, music, etc on the bottom.

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29 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

The think pads W line had dual side by side screens way before this.

And ascer had dual screen laptops a few years back . It's nothing new.

Yes, but the hinge on this is very important for performance, (and could honestly be equally the new direction for laptops,) and the physical keyboard and screen for functionality ties it all together in a new way. They may be on to something.

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Love the idea, would definitely be in the market for something like this if it:

 

  • Supported 32gb RAM
  • Could have a 2070 MaxQ
  • The keyboard was more centered and less compact (Linus, would love to see you focus on keyboard stuff like overall & key size, travel, fn button placement, arrow block placement & size, home block, etc...)
  • "4k" on both displays
  • Doesn't cost over 2.5k CAD

I do development, running local emulators, containers and sever processes. Something like this would be sweet if it could be tuned to my needs.

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7 hours ago, Mr. horse said:

Not really it's nothing new at all. dual screen laptops with physical keyboards are not all too uncommon with drafting/cad laptops.

We are really starting to bump into the lower bounds of physics when we try to pack more power into small form factors every year. At some point, something new is going to have to catch on, like transforming, modularity, etc. The elevated hinge is there for a reason but disguised really well by the screen, (and may be why you overlooked it,) while serving for better viewing angle, which is a smart step in the right direction I believe. We both agree about other devices having additional screens as well.

 

Screens are also evolving to meet these demands, and I imagine we will get closer to the proprietary tech that makes tablet/phone screens so thin, light, and efficient while somehow keeping the high-end visuals, so any evolution on that front is still new per se. (To extrapolate, I always liked the idea of "lapdocks," again, another old idea, where you drop your phone into where the touchpad goes, but I could see folding phones open up new doors there -- a la secondary screens like this.) It's a small step in a long run, but still counts in my book I guess.

 

As tech evolves, old ideas are always refreshed, and testing the market over time proves it either crazy or finally worthwhile. (Tablets existed years before it was mainstream and nobody cared, the palm pilot was replaced by phones, etc.) So, no, a screen, in it of itself, is not a new idea, but I don't know what you expect to see, a fishing rod? It's a particular design for the latest tech to improve the overall experience. What does it matter where the ideas came from?

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On 5/27/2019 at 4:04 PM, Mr. horse said:

The think pads W line had dual side by side screens way before this.

And ascer had dual screen laptops a few years back . It's nothing new.

Thinkpad W DS laptops died like 10 years ago and were clunky as heck. The acer dual screen laptop and lenovo android dual screen "2 in 1" were horrible to type on and awkward. If you have any links to the drafting/cad laptops that you said this is common on I'd love to check it out but I haven't seen anything dual screen and usable in years and nothing with decent modern hardware.

 

 

 

 

I really like this and I hope I can get my hands on one. I've got a yoga with windows ink and it's been pretty good but having that dual screen with a easy to use scratch pad above the keyboard could be sweet. Hopefully it's got a button to toggle the keyboard on and off for wrist input. At any rate it's a slick design, new concept or not.

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I genuinely do not get why someone could get excited about this and I guess that's because I don't use Windows, but i3-wm as a window manager. Extra screens are now really pointless, since I can switch (virtual) screens via keyboard faster than I can switch screens by moving my eyes.

 

This feels like another instance of adding epicycles, because the original design is broken.

 

http://wiki.c2.com/?AddingEpicycles

Quote

If you have a bad design (such as trying to work out the motion of planets on paper while constrained by dogma to pretend that the sun moves more than the earth), and if you then find you keep having to add more bad design to add features to that design, then you are "AddingEpicycles".

 

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On 5/27/2019 at 8:00 AM, JonoT said:

 

The ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo is the first two-screen notebook we've seen that REALLY makes a lot of sense. It's a fantastic idea, and realistically every laptop maker is going to be doing this in the next year.

 

Buy: ASUS Zenbook Laptops 
On Amazon: https://geni.us/dK01c5
On Newegg: https://geni.us/dpRzzXM

When is it coming out to public??? And when is it's release date???

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On 6/1/2019 at 5:28 AM, Bramimond said:

I genuinely do not get why someone could get excited about this and I guess that's because I don't use Windows, but i3-wm as a window manager. Extra screens are now really pointless, since I can switch (virtual) screens via keyboard faster than I can switch screens by moving my eyes.

 

This feels like another instance of adding epicycles, because the original design is broken.

 

http://wiki.c2.com/?AddingEpicycles

 

Well you don't have to get excited, since it's not targeted to you at all. You're talking about a tiling window manager in Linux, while this is a high-end gaming laptop namely for Windows. But even on Linux, where most games work with Steamplay, you aren't going to be key-command ninja-ing your way in and out of your game window to read a chat, or view a video-chat/stream, for example. (But to be fair, even as a second monitor, interacting with anything on the second screen likely alt-tabs out of the game on the main screen, at least in Windows.)

 

And still, I don't think the overall claim that second screens are useless because of window managers makes sense, as it's very common for developers to have second monitors, widescreen monitors, landscape monitors, etc. The market for monitors these days is in a frenzy. This is just a really cool option in a slick design.

 

I'm sorry I'm starting to sound like a shill, but these criticisms just don't even make sense. Here's a real criticism: it's too damn expensive, due to the overall laptop marketing tiers, and Intel / RTX premiums, and all that... Not to mention the battery life, weight, perhaps even drivers/software, may very well be problematic. I'll leave it alone now. :)

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11 hours ago, xoftware said:

And still, I don't think the overall claim that second screens are useless because of window managers makes sense, as it's very common for developers to have second monitors, widescreen monitors, landscape monitors, etc.

My claim wasn't that second screens are useless, my claim was that second screens fix a fundamental design problem and that people wouldn't need them if that underlying bad design was fixed.

 

I don't know about other people, but I can point my eyes only at one point at any given time.

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On 5/27/2019 at 7:00 AM, JonoT said:

 

The ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo is the first two-screen notebook we've seen that REALLY makes a lot of sense. It's a fantastic idea, and realistically every laptop maker is going to be doing this in the next year.

 

Buy: ASUS Zenbook Laptops 
On Amazon: https://geni.us/dK01c5
On Newegg: https://geni.us/dpRzzXM

Everytime I look for a Duo laptop I can't find one. I have clicked on the links and the images do show the duo laptop.

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1 minute ago, Bloodmooninjanuary said:

Everytime I look for a Duo laptop I can't find one. I have clicked on the links and the images do show the duo laptop.

It's not out yet, links are for if you wanted a Zenbook laptop in general.

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

On 6/5/2019 at 7:45 PM, Bramimond said:

I don't know about other people, but I can point my eyes only at one point at any given time.

I don't know about you but I can move my eyes faster than I can switch windows regardless of window manager.

 

On 6/11/2019 at 5:53 AM, Bloodmooninjanuary said:

Ooooh ok what is the release date?

 

Keep an eye out on ZenBook Pro Duo UX581GV Tech-Specs

On 5/28/2019 at 9:02 AM, Results45 said:

Will there be a Ryzen version of this?

Good question. I doubt it, which makes me hesitant on pulling the trigger on this one.

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10 hours ago, sixequalszero said:

I don't know about you but I can move my eyes faster than I can switch windows regardless of window manager.

Either your eyes are super fast or your computer is super slow. It takes me less than zero point two seconds to switch windows, while I need at least half a second to move my eyes to another screen, which also necessitates moving my head, since my screen is like 40inch. Though, even with devices like the Nintendo Double Screen I can't move my eyes faster, than I can switch windows on my PC. But on screens this small I can match the speed.

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  • 4 weeks later...

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