GoKawiilis a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.
The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo was my pick for the best laptop of CES: It had two high-end screens, great specs, and the promise of being a one-of-a-kind multitasking and gaming monster. Now that this over-the-top laptop is here, I can tell you it’s as fantastic as I had hoped for. It’s also as expensive as I feared. Our review configuration costs $5,500.
Woof.
This laptop has a lot going on: two full-size 16-inch OLEDs, a top-of-the-line Nvidia RTX 5090 Laptop GPU, a near-top-of-the-line 16-core Intel Panther Lake chip, plenty of ports (including an SD card slot), and a great keyboard and trackpad you can remove and use via Bluetooth. These are pricey features, and that’s before you consider whatever the 32GB of soldered RAM and 1TB SSD inside it costs these days.
But who is this for? Who needs a dual-screen gaming laptop? I once saw a last-gen model of the Zephyrus Duo in the wild at a retro gaming convention, and even though the owner was just browsing eBay on it, it felt like spotting a unicorn.
This is a laptop for nobody. Not a single person needs this or its sleeker cousin, the Zenbook Duo. But that doesn’t prevent dual-screen laptops from being incredibly cool and fun to use. Toss out your notions of “need” and “necessary” and just let yourself take in the potential of this all-in-one portable battlestation.
The Zephyrus Duo looks and feels a lot like an extra thick, extra heavy version of the ROG Zephyrus G16 it’s based on. But lift the keyboard from its retractable pogo pins to reveal the second screen, and the real fun begins. The displays are matching 16-inch 2880 x 1800 touchscreen OLEDs with 120Hz refresh rates and up to 1,100 nits of peak HDR brightness. Both screens are absolutely gorgeous to stare at, with crisp details and deep contrast.
Component report card Screen: A
Webcam: C
Keyboard: A
... continue reading