Asus Zenbook Duo (2026) Review : The best dual-screen laptop yet

Design and Keyboard

• Redesigned ceraluminum chassis
• Unchanged, but okay, port selection
• Snappy keyboard and solid trackpad

Asus has redesigned the chassis of the Zenbook Duo (2026) in some small but important ways compared to the older Zenbook Duo (2025) to further optimise the dual-screen form factor, making it the most complete version of this laptop yet.

For instance, there’s a new hinge mechanism that Asus calls the ‘hideaway hinge’, which is designed so the laptop can be folded completely flat with the displays at the same level alongside much thinner bezels, so there’s a seamless look across the 22 inches of diagonal real estate of both screens.

Moreover, the entire chassis of the Zenbook Duo (2026) is made of Asus’ innovative ceraluminum material, which combines the durability and scratch resistance of ceramic with the lightness of aluminium. There’s also a smaller, but still durable, kickstand on the underside. For a laptop with two 14-inch screens and a detachable keyboard, the 1.65kg weight isn’t unreasonable at all.

Also aiding this laptop’s portability is the fact that it’s around 23mm thick, which for a laptop with two screens and a separate keyboard sandwiched between them is rather excellent.

The slender nature of the Zenbook Duo (2026) has compromised its port selection against more conventional 14-inch ultrabooks, though, with it only coming with a pair of Thunderbolt 4-capable USB-C ports (one on each side), plus a USB-A, HDMI 2.1 and 3.5mm combo jack, It would have been nice to have a card reader, second USB-A or otherwise for some added flexibility.

Where this laptop is flexible is with its numerous use cases, as it can be used as a conventional laptop with keyboard attachment covering the bottom screen, plus with both screens in play with the laptop elevated on its kickstand and the keyboard kept separate. For vertical working, you can turn the Zenbook Duo (2026) on its side so it resembles more of a book-style foldable phone rather than a laptop with the keyboard in tow via Bluetooth.

The keyboard has also been redesigned, and can attach to the laptop’s chassis via Bluetooth (when detached and using the laptop with its two screens), retractable pogo pins and even USB-C. It has its own USB-C port on the left side, too.

It’s a comfortable keyboard with a smaller form factor, and Asus has bundled a slick trackpad that’s lovely to use. As much as this has been redesigned over the older model, the keyboard attachment still feels a smidgen flimsy for my liking.

You can also use an on-screen keyboard and trackpad on the bottom screen by tapping six fingers on the screen, and while it’s helpful to have, you don’t get anywhere near as much tactility or feeling as with an actual keyboard. I can see it being useful if you’re in a pinch, but the physical keyboard and trackpad are much more responsive.

The packaging here seems to be entirely plastic-free, with the laptop coming in a cardboard box and paper bag, along with the cable and power brick.

Display and Sound

• Bright and sharp Lumina Pro OLED screens
• Deep blacks and fantastic contrast
• Surprisingly capable speakers

Asus has kitted out the Zenbook Duo (2026) with two of its new Lumina Pro OLED screens that provide some noteworthy upgrades over the older model. On paper, things look similar with two 14-inch 3K (or 2880×1800) resolution, although the refresh rate is up to 144Hz (against 120Hz on the old ones) on both screens.

The panels are both touchscreens and feel responsive in use, even without a stylus – they accept inputs from Asus’ stylus without a hitch, though. Plus, with 16:10 aspect ratios, there’s an extra bit of vertical real estate that makes sense for modern workloads, and it’s possible to unfold the laptop and have the output reflect on both screens, which is ideal for collaborative working.

As expected from an OLED screen, these panels have exemplary colour accuracy, with perfect coverage of both the mainstream sRGB and creative DCI-P3 gamuts, while Adobe RGB coverage at 95% is also excellent.

The new Lumina Pro OLED screens are also supposedly much brighter, with 1000 nits of peak HDR brightness and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 1000 support. My colorimeter measured 460.5 nits of peak SDR brightness, which is around 25% brighter than the peak of the old panel, for even punchier images.

In addition, there are deep blacks and gorgeous contrast on both panels, with a measured 0.01 and 33650:1 respectively. The 6900K colour temperature is also pretty good, too.

Asus has upgraded the speaker array of the Zenbook Duo (2026) with a new six-speaker array that projects sound outwards from the sides of the laptop. As a result, they’re best heard with the laptop propped up on its kickstand, and audio is decently clear with good depth to it. There’s even spatial audio support with Dolby Atmos.

Performance

• Panther Lake provides modest increase in single and multi-threaded performance
• Immense boost in integrated graphics
• Fast, capacious SSD

The major update with the Zenbook Duo (2026) over its predecessor is the move to Intel’s new Panther Lake generation with the top-of-the-line Core Ultra X9 388H. 

As well as the naming convention changing slightly, this new processor aims to blend the gains we’ve seen in the last generation of Intel’s mobile chips, with the power of Arrow Lake H and the efficiency of Lunar Lake.

The basic arrangement of the chip is slightly different, too, in spite of coming with 16 cores and 16 threads. The core arrangement now incorporates four P cores, eight E cores and four low-power E cores, and is built on Intel’s new 18A process that makes some small but noteworthy changes to the way transistors are made to make sure the processor is using as much of its power as efficiently as possible, in basic terms.

In putting the Zenbook Duo (2026) through the usual run of synthetic benchmarks, it provides a small boost to single-core performance. We’re seeing an eight percent boost in Geekbench 6 and a two percent or so increase in Cinebench R23. 

As for multi-threaded numbers, Geekbench 6 is up around 12 percent, with Cinebench R23 up by 32 percent. That’s more like it.

These numbers are higher than both Arrow Lake H and Lunar Lake-powered laptops, not least owing to gains from the new architecture, I imagine, plus it beats out some of the Strix Point laptops and trades blows with the Strix Halo chip inside the Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025).

Where Intel has made some immense gains with the new Panther Lake chip is in the front of its integrated graphics. The Arc 140T or 140V iGPU that was inside the last generation of Intel mobile chips was beefier than its respective predecessor, although this Intel Arc B390 that the Core Ultra X9 388H comes with is a different beast entirely. 

That’s thanks to having 12 of Intel’s new Xe3 cores for a major boost in raw power, which is evident in a virtual doubling of the 3DMark Time Spy score over last year’s model. It managed a score of 7189; for reference, the Zenbook Duo (2025) scored 4332, and the 2024 model is sitting at 3057.

It pushes this Panther Lake chip closer to the Strix Halo chips from last year, even if Intel isn’t quite on par with AMD in this regard. Nonetheless, this is a chip designed for a fully-fledged ultrabook, rather than a mini PC or gaming tablet, as it were, giving it a different appeal entirely.

As much as the synthetic benchmarks provide some proof of the power of the Core Ultra X9 388H, getting into some raw gaming numbers presents an even stronger case. We’re getting 44.19fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p Ultra settings, with Returnal at 50fps. Last year’s model is only at some 50 percent of these numbers.

Going up to 1440p, Cyberpunk 2077 drops to 23.83fps, while Returnal sits at 33fps. It’s a testament to the increase in power of the iGPU that this new chip’s QHD results can beat last year’s 1080p numbers, which isn’t something I’ve seen before.

Of course, there are limits to its power, and even if we’re seeing 16.59fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at RT: Ultra at 1080p, it isn’t playable like this on integrated graphics just yet. Drop some settings down and apply Intel’s improved XeSS 3 upscaling, and you’ll see the FPS numbers climb to much more playable levels.

With the move to XeSS 3, Intel has also added in Multi Frame Gen powers in a similar vein to Nvidia’s move to DLSS4 (and now DLSS 4.5) with the RTX 50 series of discrete cards. This is operated in a different manner to DLSS, utilising a multiplier override in Intel’s graphics software, rather than the game itself, requiring the game’s graphics to have XeSS Frame Generation enabled before restarting once enabling the chosen multiplier (2x, 3x, or 4x).

There is likely to be a latency hit with Intel’s MFG as with Nvidia’s, and it’s common sense to aim for as high a base FPS figure as possible to minimise latency and for a smoother experience.

Intel has said that if a game already supports XeSS 2, then it’ll automatically support XeSS 3, which was the case with Cyberpunk 2077, where I tested it. It was as easy as enabling XeSS Frame Gen in the game’s settings, shutting it down, choosing the 4x multiplier in Intel’s software and rebooting Cyberpunk. At 1080p, it took rasterised Ultra Cyberpunk 2077 up to 152.84fps, and RT: Ultra to 102.98fps. For an iGPU, it’s very impressive.

My sample of the Zenbook Duo (2026) comes with a capacious 2TB SSD, plus 32GB of very fast DDR5 RAM. The SSD also delivers higher speeds than its predecessor, with read and write speeds of 7063.95 MB/s and 5836.55 MB/s, respectively.

Software

• Clean Windows 11 install
• Some handy Asus-specific apps
• Also a Copilot+ PC

The Zenbook Duo (2026) comes with full-fat Windows 11, with a reasonably clean install that seems to lack the annoyance of any pre-installed VPNs or antivirus software to be immediately uninstalled.

There are only a couple of other Asus-specific apps here for your troubles, though, such as MyAsus. This is a catch-all app where you can do everything from checking battery life to choosing which type of workload the laptop’s network connection prioritises.

In addition, there’s GlideX, where you can manage tasks such as casting or mirroring the Zenbook Duo (2025)’s screen to other devices wirelessly, or transferring files across the same network. You can also enable remote access to a mobile device, too. The Storybook app is designed as another means of organising photos and videos, using AI to recognise faces and file your photos for you, which is handy.

This Zenbook Duo (2026) also has the usual AI features that its contemporaries have, and is a Copilot+ PC, as the Panther Lake chip inside has enough AI horsepower. This includes image creation features in Photos and Paint, as well as the clever blurred background, auto framing and eye contact tools with the Windows Studio webcam effects.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 19 hours 43 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting for two working days

One of the most noteworthy upgrades to the Zenbook Duo (2026) alongside the beefier Intel Panther Lake chip is a large boost to battery capacity. This new model has a 99Whr cell, where last year’s model made do with a 75Whr cell. The capacity boost is arguably needed owing to the upgraded internal power and higher-refresh-rate OLED screens.

Asus quotes this laptop to last for up to 18 hours of video playback on a single charge with both screens on, and 32 hours with one screen running.

In my testing with the laptop in its more conventional form factor with the keyboard cover attached, covering the bottom screen, and with the brightness at the requisite 150 nits, the Zenbook Duo (2026) lasted for 19 hours and 43 minutes. That’s a major boost over last year’s model and means you’ll easily be able to get two working days out of this laptop before needing to recharge it.

Asus has also upped the wattage of the charger with this 2026 model up to 100W from 65W, leading to theoretically faster speeds. In my testing, the speeds were only marginally quicker, or identical, with a 50 percent charge taking 35 minutes and a full charge taking 82 minutes.

View Asus Zenbook Duo (2026) offers here

Should you buy it?