When Asus launched the ZenBook Pro Duo, its first dual-screen laptop computer, in 2019, it appeared inevitable that others would observe carefully behind with their very own takes on the multi-screen laptop computer. And for some time, it appeared like a struggle was brewing—Dell revealed its personal idea, HP launched a short-lived dual-screen gaming laptop computer, and even Intel obtained in on the enjoyable.

But up to now, an thrilling new market full of dual-screen fashions from varied manufacturers hasn’t materialized, and Asus doesn’t appear to provide a shit. The firm is pushing on forward, revealing at CES 2022 a brand new Zephyrus Duo 16, the following model of its flagship dual-screen laptops purpose-built for players and content material creators.

Asus is sparing no efficiency expense, equipping the Zephyrus Duo 16 with as much as an AMD R9 6900HK CPU paired with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics, as much as 64GB of DDR5-4800 storage, and as much as 2x 2TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD in RAID 0. And when you must improve your parts (not that you simply’ll must anytime quickly), Asus says the RAM and storage drives are simply accessible.

These highly effective parts are stored cool by a fabric Asus calls Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut Extreme liquid metallic. What feels like one thing made in a NASA lab is definitely a fabric with a 17x larger thermal conductivity than common thermal paste, Asus claims. This permits the Duo 16 to run 15 levels Celcius cooler than regular and ramps the TGP to 150W so you’ll be able to run extra demanding workloads for longer with out throttling.

The major display screen was expanded to 16 inches and is available in three 16:10 configurations, two of which instantly caught my consideration. The first is a 2560 x 1600-pixel mini-LED panel with Adaptive Sync, Pantone colour calibration, and a blinding peak brightness of 1,100 nits. Rapidly gaining adoption on TVs, tablets, and laptops, miniLED offers you the most effective qualities of OLED (deep black ranges, excessive distinction ratios) with out the danger of burn-in.

The different show choice is what Asus calls its Dual-Spec Panel. It does one thing we haven’t seen earlier than: improve the refresh price from 120Hz to 240Hz once you shift from 4K decision to 1080p. This means you’ll be able to edit pictures, watch movies, or browse the online with the very best decision, then drop right down to 1080p to get essentially the most fluid movement once you’re, say, enjoying a first-person shooter. How does it work? In 240Hz mode, Asus makes use of proprietary tech to scale the FullHD picture through the use of blocks of 4 bodily pixels for each single digital one. We haven’t seen the magic in particular person but, but when it really works as marketed, then count on others to observe Asus’s lead.

Both panels meet Asus’s new “Nebula HDR,” a spec that requires 100% of DCI-P3 colour protection, not less than 500 nits of brightness, and a response time of three milliseconds or much less. Minimum refresh charges are set to 120Hz for 4K or QHD, and 240Hz minimal for 1080p.

Oh proper, we haven’t even talked about that unusual second show situated simply above the keyboard. On the ZenBook Pro 16, the 14.1-inch, 4K secondary contactdisplay screen, or ScreenPad Plus, raises once you raise the lid earlier than settling at a 13-degree angle so you need to use it with out craning your neck.

One good change to this mannequin is that the highest of the second show sits practically flush with the underside of the first panel to provide the phantasm of getting one steady display screen. This means, you’ll be able to prolong your desktop downward and luxuriate in extra vertical display screen actual property with out an excessive amount of of an ungainly hole disrupting the web page. Alternatively, you’ll be able to drop different home windows or apps on the ScreenPad and use it as a monitor, although my favourite use for the second panel is for housing instruments or a timeline once you’re modifying pictures or movies in Adobe suite.

The Zephyrus Duo 16 seems just like its predecessor and isn’t a lot bigger regardless of rising from 15 to 16 inches. Still, you received’t wish to lug this factor round for longer than you must contemplating it measures 0.8 inches thick and weighs 5.5 kilos. With all that house, you get loads of ports, together with two USB 3.2 Type-C ports, two USB 3.2 Type-A inputs, an HDMI 2.1, a headphone jack, an Ethernet port, and a microSD card slot.

Asus hasn’t revealed pricing for the ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 however it’s anticipated to reach in Q1.