Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Laptop of Tomorrow is HERE”.
I mean it’s kind of it’s got a science fiction feel to it. It’S like it’s like something you would see in the future in a science fiction film you like, oh, I wish we have that right now, like this, that’s what this is. So I just realized just how many different Zen books we’ve looked at over the years here on unbox therapy when they brought along this year’s version. The 2024 Zen book Duo. It was like, let’s do a little trip down memory lane to just see how far the Zenbook line has come.
Let’S start in 2018, this here is called the Pro 15 ux 580g. Now this one at least initially looks like a pretty standard. Laptop we’ve got some HDMI some Thunderbolt couple of usba ports, there’s a Micro SD and an analog audio jack. Now Zenbook has always had this kind of elegant design. These kind of luxurious, looking colors. So this is almost like a dark, bluish brushed. Look fingerprint scanner. Was there full-size keyboard and fairly generous trackpad, but the form factor was fairly typical now, even back in 2018, they were thinking about the future of the Zen book and designing prototypes like this one. So this was called project precog, and this thing is like incredibly small. Now, when you open it up, you realize this is something quite different and it certainly was something a lot different back in 2018.
As you see the two displays there. This is a dual screen, laptop, obviously, an early concept of something that eventually went on to be manufactured, so this Hardware is not final or anything like that. This was experimental at the time, but it was around this thinking of like what might happen if we were able to have a dual screen laptop and have the secondary screen act as your input similar to a tablet, but with a secondary display, Zenbook Duo 14. We’Re up to 2021 now here is where we introduced the secondary internal display with the incredibly unique hinge mechanism here, which lifts up the secondary screen, which had touchbased inputs. This kind of matte finish in order to deal with Reflections and this unusual portrait orientation trackpad and offset keyboard now, even though the trackpad was and portrait orientation the way you operated it, you wouldn’t know the difference because it mapped to the display accordingly and the other Thing that happened here was we got a little bit of enhanced cooling by lifting everything, the entire deck up off of the tabletop, so you have tons of air flow that was going on underneath also in 2021, 14x OLED lightweight slim still, an interesting hinge, design lifting The deck of the laptop up off of the desk but of course not having that secondary display there and instead opting for the thinnest and lightest possible, and you just look at that hinge capability. So you could have that kind of laying down on the couch pick.
Any angle you might need in order to get comfortable 2022 Zenbook fold and they called it 17 because, obviously, in its unfolded state with the keyboard deck, you had this enormous display, and this really interesting case. Slst concept. I mean this almost looks like some sort of an art tablet. Then you fold it down like this and you would throw on your wireless keyboard and you had something that’s more like a laptop interface now.
This was incredibly ambitious at the time also, and it was leveraging the new technologies in terms of folding OLED displays, but, of course, the technology being fresh and new. You ended up with something that was substantially thicker than some of the other offerings. So that brings us to 2024 and the Zenbook Duo for 2024. In here we have the retail packaging for the new model. Now I can tell right away like I haven’t seen this device before, but I can tell right away that this thing is going to be pretty slim and small in this tiny little box. If I look around the Box, uh no real indic ation of what I’m dealing with we lift and we still have that special angled unveiling of the device which is indicative of that hinge, design they’ve been using on the Zenbook okay.
So now we’ve got the device itself. Oh wow, the packaging becomes a small little stand to increase the angle of the keyboard deck. You know what, before I open, that let’s just check this second bag here: oh, oh, a stylus pen, 2.0 with 4,096 pressure sensitivity and look at the little 65 WT power, brick quite portable huh, interesting, a metal stand builtin. So why might we want to have it like wo? Because I guess we want to lift it like that? Oh, my goodness, all right, so it is not going to be folding OLED.
Instead, it’s two screens two dedicated displays. What is going on will do you have a good visual of this wow that is Sleek, obviously far sleeker and Slimmer than previous iterations of the dual screen laptop and then the keyboard attachment which, when it’s installed, it really fools you into thinking. It’S just a regular laptop, that’s the biggest difference. This is not like secondary, but instead it’s behaving so much more like what you would expect out of a dedicated laptop. So this kickstand on the back, allows you to prop the entire thing up when you’re working at a desk and then remove the keyboard and still have your trackpad and keyboard-based input or to select an external peripheral that you might want to use.
Obviously, external keyboard and mouse of you’re choosing and then have this dual display setup like this now. Could you also yeah, but you could do dual portrait like that, then the whole thing fold the stand down and you can also fold it up without the keyboard installed and it actually gets even lighter. If you do want to travel like that and you’re going to use primarily, I guess the pen based input or the touchbased input, your power switch.
It’S really, interestingly, integrated up top there. You look around the device and you’ve got two Thunderbolt. You’Ve also got a usba port on the other side, fulls size HDMI is still there and your analog audio jack, but this is one of the most polished versions of a dual display laptop that I’ve ever featured here like this.
It really fooled me at first. I was like wait, where’s the duo, what’s so Duo about it, so the power input on the keyboard deck itself. I just noticed, as well as a dedicated Bluetooth, switch and a battery indicator so because you have those Pogo pins on there. The main laptop unit is going to be charging up the keyboard deck so you’re not even going to need to think about it, just so long as it’s installed. So the new Duo is going to feature Intel Core Ultra 9 chips.
It’S going to have up to 32 gigs of memory up to 2 tbyt of SSD storage. Those two Thunderbolt ports are Thunderbolt 4, capable the weight comes in at 1., 35 kg and the thickness 14.6 mm, and these OLED displays are both 3K and 120 HZ. So tons of pixels, when you add them both up immediately, that we’ve got a vibrant and colorful display and that’s not even Max brightness actually, and then I remove the keyboard and immediately I have my secondary display that lights up my trackpad. It behaves like a dual screen situation. I’M going to prop it up for you. You know what I’m going to prop it up for you, so you can just appreciate the dual screen situation going on.
I mean that it. You know what it’s pretty cool folding all the way back as well beyond one of the side. Benefits of this is just the desktop experience, because it’s elevating my main monitor so much higher that if I happen to be sitting in front of this and working, this is such a more comfortable location for my work than where a typical laptop would end up, which Would be down here and then I can just sort of put my secondary things on this display. But, like my main reading, or my main work is happening on this higher display in order to keep my neck sort of propped up.
Almost as if I’m looking at an external monitor or something on a monitor arm, and yet because of the way they designed this stand, it’s extremely sturdy, it’s kind of bizarre typing on something this thin like. I don’t even think I’ve typed on a la on any laptop. Well, I’ve definitely not typed on a laptop this thin, but any keyboard. This thin yeah, somehow there’s some key travel there and a fairly large keyboard also, so I can just be watching a video up top and just reading some news down below now: let’s go ahead and throw some volume and of course, we’ve also got touch stage. That’S like somewhere at arms length, it’s a versatility thing! It’S like I’m ready to go. I slap the keyboard back here this here that there and I’m ready to go. Let’S go ahead and just do a quick demo of the pen here, the hidden retracting, USBC door for charging addictive click. So I mean the story of a product like this is versatility. However, they’ve made strides in creating a device that hides its versatility better than previous generation and still performs the initial task of being a laptop better than some of those previous generations. So there you have it Zenbook Duo the evolution of the Zenbook Duo. This is a 2024 model. I don’t think you can argue the fact that this is the most evolved version and the best case yet for a dual display device in a laptop form factor. .