Review verdict: ASUS has refined its dual-screen laptop this year with the Zenbook Duo (2025) UX8406CA, though the processor change means that whatever gains the laptop gets in processing power, it loses in battery life.
Pros
- Zippy performance with the new chips
- Solid kickstand
- Dual-screen productivity boost cannot be overstated
- The keyboard is surprisingly good to type on
Cons
- Battery life takes a hit with new silicon
- Heavy
ASUS has made a new version of its dual-screen laptop wonder for 2025, bringing incremental improvements and better software. Now that the novelty of a dual-screen laptop has worn off for many, is the Zenbook Duo (2025) still worth the money?
ASUS ZenBook Duo (2025) Review Philippines: Design
There hasn’t been much of a change in the design of the 2025 version of ASUS’ dual-screen laptop. If you put this year’s model beside the previous iteration, you’d be hard-pressed to see the difference.
All of the design quirks that make the dual-screen laptop possible are still here–the detachable keyboard, the second display under it, as well as the solidly made kickstand.
If it wasn’t obvious already, you can use the ASUS ZenBook Duo (2025) as a regular laptop by keeping the Bluetooth keyboard attached, though the magic starts once you take it off (it’s attached by magnets) and reveal the second screen underneath. The software is smart enough to detect that you want to use the second screen, so whatever apps or Windows that you’ve set there in the past will automatically populate the bottom screen when you take off the keyboard.
The laptop is a little heavier than what I’m used to, coming in at 1.65 kg with the keyboard, so be prepared to haul that weight upstairs and throughout the city when you decide to buy it.
It’s a little annoying that a laptop of this size would only have merely two USB Type-C ports and a single Type-A port, as there’s enough space in the chassis for more.
ASUS ZenBook Duo (2025) Review Philippines: Display
The Duo in the name of this laptop refers to the twin displays. Both are 14-inch, 3K panels (2880 x 1800) that use touchscreen OLED panels that have 120Hz refresh rates and 500 nits of peak brightness. ASUS also claims that the displays are PANTONE validated, have 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, are TÜV Rheinland-certified, and have SGS Eye Care Display.
The twin displays can be used as shown, or rotated to book mode depending on your use case. For the productivity-obsessed, having two displays like this is a godsend since you can keep an eye on your team chat (or your Facebook messages) at a glance without having to tap away from video editing or other productivity-focused tasks. It also comes in handy if you want to binge the latest episode of whatever TV series you’re currently obsessed with without losing precious hours of work so you don’t accidentally run into spoilers in your Facebook feed.
Since both displays are functionally the same, there’s no weird color shift or difference between the two. This allows you to switch from one display to the other without worrying about discrepancies in your work, a real concern for anyone doing video or photo editing that requires accurate colors.
ASUS ZenBook Duo (2025) Review Philippines: Keyboard and Trackpad
Because of the nature of the laptop, the keyboard that attaches to the bottom half of the display isn’t as deep as what most people are used to. That being said, it only required minimal adjustment to get used to. Since it’s a Bluetooth keyboard, it does have a finite battery life when it’s not attached to the laptop, though I’ve never really run it down fully during its time with me since I usually put it back in the dock when I was done typing.
The trackpad is perfectly fine – I’ve used better ones, but it’s not bad. You’d want to pair the laptop with a mouse especially if you intend to use it as a video editing platform, but for what it is the trackpad is perfectly usable, no major complaints here.
ASUS ZenBook Duo (2025) Review Philippines: Performance and Battery Life
This year’s ZenBook Duo gets Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 Processor 285H, which boasts higher performance numbers than last year’s model, along with 32GB of LPDDR5x memory and 1TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD storage. It performs significantly better and can crunch through 4K footage easily and quickly enough that it was my main laptop when I was producing clips and videos for MWC while we were in Barcelona a few weeks ago.
You can play games on the ZenBook Duo (2025), but we wouldn’t recommend doing it with newer titles. This isn’t a gaming laptop, and while it can run some older games in lower resolutions, running AAA games on this thing is going to be a pain, both for you and the laptop.
As for battery life, the 75Whr battery should theoretically be enough, but the higher power consumption of the new Intel chips takes a big chunk out of the battery life. Last year’s variant got around 5 hours and 30 minutes of run time out of the battery, and this year we only got 4 hours and 12 minutes, which is significantly less.
ASUS ZenBook Duo (2025) Review Philippines Wrap-up and Verdict:
The 2025 version of the Zenbook Duo is more powerful and refined than last year’s variation, but higher power consumption and low port count take it down a few notches in our book. Still, it’s one of the best implementations of the dual-screen concept we’ve seen, though like last year you’ll be paying premium prices for this thing if you want one on your desk.
ASUS ZenBook Duo (2025) Review Philippines: Price
The ASUS ZenBook Duo (2025) UX8406CA is priced at Php 139,995 in the Philippines.
