ASUS ZENBOOK DUO 14 STUFF SAYS ★★★★✩ It has its flaws, but the Duo 14 is an innovative option for Apple-dodgers

£1299 / stuff.tv/duo14

Laptop design hasn’t changed much in the past 40 years: screen at the top, keyboard at the bottom, hinge in between. While the displays sometimes fold both ways, twist or detach completely, it’s always a variation on that common theme – but Asus’s Zenbook Duo 14 isn’t like other laptops.

Lift the lid to reveal its 14in touchscreen and you’ll be greeted by a second, 12.6in one – dubbed the Screenpad Plus – taking up some of the space that would normally be filled by the QWERTY. You can use it for toolbars, timelines, control panels and anything else that you need constant access to but don’t want clogging up the main display – a bit like a supercharged version of Apple’s Touchbar. It also comes with a 4096-point stylus.

Squisherman’s blues

That second display’s inclusion means the keyboard is slightly condensed – so some keys are on the small side, there’s no room for anything to rest your wrists on, and the trackpad has to be squeezed in at the side. The buttons themselves are decent, with good consistency and a nice level of snap, but it all feels a bit awkward – at least until you get used to it. Well, compromises are inevitable with a design like this.

An 11th-gen Core i7, a Geforce MX450, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD make for a solid rather than spectacular loadout, but battery life is impressive.

KEY SPECS

● 14in 1920x1080 + 12.6in 1920x515 IPS touchscreens ● 11th-gen Intel Core i7

● 16GB RAM ● 512GB ● Windows 10 Home ● 2x Thunderbolt 4/USB-C,

USB 3, microsd, 3.5mm ● Up to 17hrs

● 234x222x17mm, 1.58kg