We can always bet on Asus to bring its groundbreaking notebooks and devices to South Africa (now to get those ROG phones here too). There’s more on the way, which is a long way of saying you can get the company’s new dual-display Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 in South Africa right now for R90,000.
Its predecessor wasn’t particularly gaming-focused, although it boasted gaming-capable hardware. The ZenBook Pro Duo was unleashed into the world in 2019, and turned out to be one of our favourites of the year. In April this year, Asus followed up with the Pro Duo, but under the Republic of Gamers moniker. It’ll now join the ranks of the Zephyrus range, and we can’t wait to get our hands on it.
Taking off in 3…2…1…
Unlike the Pro Duo, the Zephyrus Duo 15 features a swivelling second display above the keyboard. So, you’ll be able to run individual apps on the second display, and lift it for a better view. We’re not convinced that the original Pro Duo design with the static second display needed this function, and it come across as a bit gimmicky, but we’ll keep an open mind until we get some time to test it.
What we do reckon, however, is that the function will help keep internals even cooler. Displays naturally run very hot, and placing a screen over hard-working hardware makes the machine run exceptionally hot. So this system may have a practical function, at least.
The top display is a 4K UHD panel, Pantone validated for all you designy boys and girls out there. For gaming, it’s fitted with Nvidia’s G-Sync tech that’ll optimise those graphics. Below, that ScreenPad Plus is a 14.1in touch display that lifts up at a 13-degree angle using a custom hinge.
Beast mode
As always, it’s the insides that really count. The Zephyrus Duo 15 is powered by Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GPU that’s slimmer than the original, so it’s ideal for a slimmer laptop. To keep this monstrous GPU busy, Asus has installed ROG Boost, which can clock the GPU as high as 1330 MHz in Turbo mode.
You can spec the Zephyrus Duo 15 up to an 8-core 10th Generation Intel Core i9 CPU — interesting that this one doesn’t make use of an AMD processor as we’ve seen Asus do in recent devices. Backing this up, you can fit up to 48 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM. This is likely due to limited space, but for real design and rendering chops, we would’ve liked to see it go up to 64GB.
There’s also space for space. With two NVM Express PCIe slots and four SSDs, you’ll definitely have enough storage on this bad boy. That’s depending on your spec choices, but it’s nice to have the options in a laptop.
Flipping awesome
Okay, so we’re getting a review unit soon, and can’t wait to report back on how this thing handles IRL. We know Asus to put out brilliant devices across its range, so this one’s going to be an interesting test.
What’s more, you can buy one right now, if you’ve got just under R100k burning a hole in your pocket. The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo retails from R90,000 and is available from Evetech.
