Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 Review (GX650RXZ-LO227WS): In League of its Own

Asus has always been in a dominant position when it comes to producing gaming-focused laptops. The recently launched Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 is proof of the same. The laptop offers unmatchable performance along with high-quality speakers and a lot of other stuff.

I got my hands on the laptop for the purpose of reviewing and testing it to the extremes. One thing which I must quote at the very beginning is that Asus has worked seriously on elements like screen size, high audio quality, enhanced internal components and whatnot.

The laptop’s dual-screen gives you a premium feel as the secondary screen comes with a hinge. As soon as you open the laptop, it shifts upwards. Without any further ado, we will discuss about all the aspects of this laptop by Asus and will try to figure out if it is a worthy one or now.

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 review: Pricing and availability

The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 is available in the Indian market at a starting price of Rs 2,49,990. The variant we reviewed (GX650RXZ-LO227WS) is available at a price of Rs 3,91,990. The laptop is being shipped in a single black colour option. It can be purchased from the official Asus E-shop, Amazon India, and all offline stores of Asus.

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 review: Unboxing

The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 comes in a brown coloured case, and the box is quite heavy due to the accessories. The laptop only weighs around 2kg, and the charger is not light in weight too. You get the following things inside the packaging:

• Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 unit
• Necessary documents
• Power Adapter

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 review: Design

Asus has left no stone unturned to justify the price point of the laptop with its amazing design. The rear panel of the laptop has a sleek pitch black finish with a dot matrix pattern, and we can also spot the ROG logo out there. The secondary display of the laptop rests at a 13 degree angle, and when the main screen is bent to the maximum.

The airflow vents of the device are placed just below the display for the purpose of making the cooling system more effective. Further, the way might it has been used to enhance the aesthetic look of the laptop reminds us of the capabilities of Asus.

The secondary screen of the laptop is covered with two thick bezels. All in all, the dual screen is not just a gimmick here, and we will further discuss how it helped in increasing the efficiency of the laptop. Apart from all this, the smartphone also has a 720p infrared camera that also works for the facial recognition thing.

Nonetheless, we can say that the 2+ Kg weight of the device makes it a bit complicated to carry. I had an issue myself with the weight but with the kind of power it delivers you won’t mind carrying it around.

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 review: Connectivity and ports

The distribution of the ports on the laptop eases the pain as you are not supposed to connect all the stuff on a particular side. Still, personally, I feel that the charging point position could have been better in the device. On the 2022 Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 the charging point is located at the side of the left edge.

The laptop has a 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port that also supports DisplayPort while connecting an external monitor. On the left side, we get to see a 3.5mm headphone jack, DisplayPort support, microSD card reader, USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, etc.

Not only this, but the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 also has an HDMI 2.1 port, 2.5G ethernet port, and a standard USB port at the back just behind the main display.

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 review: Display

Well, the display of the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 can be said to be one of the most captivating features of the same. The device offers a dual display, and the secondary screen of the same is capable of running anything and everything. The mini LED display of the laptop offers a whopping 1100 nits of peak brightness.

The primary display of the laptop also offers a vibrant experience, and we experienced the same while running multiple games along with watching a couple of movies too. A major highlight regarding the same was that it was beautifully displaying the pitch black colour on the screen. However, after putting around Rs 2 and a half lacs in a laptop, that’s the least anyone as an audience can expect.

The secondary screen aka ScreenPad Plus is touch-sensitive and can prove really handy for designers or content creators. It is 14-inches in size and supports a 1950×550 resolution. To make it worth the space, Asus has offered multiple functionalities in the ScreenPad Plus and has independent display settings.

The secondary screen of the same can be used to run social media applications, browsers, YouTube and a lot more. It is basically configured as an external display via windows. This pretty much explains how the screen can be used while the laptop is your daily driver.

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 review: Performance

Starting off by boasting the components of the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 (GX650RXZ-LO227WS). The laptop works on the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX processor coupled with NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti graphics processing unit. In addition, the device also has 32GB RAM along with 2TB SSD storage. We can say without a doubt that the gadget has emerged as one of the fastest gaming machines of the year.

It also reflects from the benchmark scores you get from tests like Geekbench, 3D mark, Cinemark and others. At most of the synthetic tests, the laptop scored pretty well, proving its mantle. To test the performance, we installed some of the heaviest games like God of War, Valorant, Tekken 7, GTA V, and more.

Gaming performance score

Trust me when I say that the gaming experience was more than amazing. Though I made a mistake at first, launched God of War 2018 edition in the performance mode and then got confused about why the game was delivering only about around 90fps frame rates as soon as we switched it to turbo mode, the frame rates jumped to around 118fps. Make sure that the laptop is in Turbo mode while running a game.

All the games were working smoothly once the laptop was switched to the Turbo mode, even at ultra-high settings. One thing which can be a little bit irritating in the turbo mode is the fan noise. Asus has tried its level best to keep the noise low. Still, in the Turbo modes, the fans can be a bit noisy.

The dual-screen of the laptop makes multi-tasking pretty convenient. Moreover, it also helps in increasing the efficiency of editing software like Adobe Photoshop, YouTube, and others.

For example, we ran Adobe Photoshop on the system, and the editing screen was available on the main screen. The thing to notice here is that all the adjustment settings were available on the ScnreenPad Plus and the touch experience just made it better. The laptop can be said to be a paradise for creators, and video editor, specifically people who are related to art.

While gaming, I used the secondary screen to run the Asus Armoury crate and keep a tab on all the stats like the CPU and GPU usage, the temperature of the machine, etc. The secondary screen of the laptop can even be used to run apps that you need while gaming. For example, if you want to run a video of gameplay and play the game alongside, just run YouTube on the touchscreen and the game on the primary display.

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 review: Keyboard, trackpad, and numpad

We can say that the laptop is a real beauty when it comes to the keyboard, numpad and trackpad. The numpad and the trackpad of the device are integrated. You can tap the mini icon at the top left corner of the trackpad to convert it into the numpad. However, the placement of the trackpad is a bit vague as it is very difficult to operate without a mouse, next to a nightmare.

The keyboard of laptop has an excellent set of keys that can be used gently without any pressure. Though a few keys could be confusing for you as a new Asus user, just like me. Nevertheless, you will learn the operations soon, and it will be nothing but a piece of cake. For example, you can adjust the fan speed and call the armoury crate directly via the buttons available on the keyboard, which is kind of amazing.

Asus ROG Zephyrus Due 16 review: Battery

Here comes the most important part of the whole scenario. While buying a gaming laptop, never think about getting a decent battery life, irrespective of the money you are investing into it. Same is the case with this masterpiece by Asus that offers around 3 to 4 hours of battery while streaming movies.

As per my experience, being an anime fan, I started watching Koruko No Basket on Netflix. After around 7 to 8 episodes of 30 minutes on average, the laptop started begging for power. That was pretty justified considering it is designed to be used with connected power mostly.

This puts a stamp on one thing you need to carry the charger of the device everywhere you go. And the charger, it is pretty heavy as it has a brick that weighs somewhere around 1Kg. Well, it is a universal truth that none of these heavy machines work efficiently without the adapter, that’s why the adapters are heavy enough to sink ships down, just kidding.

Review verdict: Should you buy 2022 Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 or not?

I’ll like to clear out in the first place that if you are not a gaming enthusiast, then this laptop will seem like an overbudget gadget to you. However, if you are into gaming and you love the way how futuristic the machine is, then go for it right now.

Still, investing an amount of around Rs 2,50,000 is a great deal for anyone, either a gaming enthusiast or not. The investment is supposed to be made at a time when you can get a console like PS5 at a comparatively lower price. Not to forget, that the laptop is one of the best machines for creators who want to edit videos, photographs, run-heavy editing software, etc. It can be dubbed as one of the best in its segment with a unique approach and a handful of features to enhance the gaming experience.