The sizeable flexible screen on the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold can be used with a keyboard or folded into a touchscreen laptop.
Flip phones are a fascinating niche industry with a few flagship devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.
Flip laptops are far more innovative.
Only a few of them have been on sale, such as the Lenovo X1 Fold.
Most others, such as Dell’s Ori idea, are still prototypes.
Asus is going right into the deep end of the pool at CES 2022, with a huge 17-inch foldable OLED screen called the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold, instead of a 13-inch screen like the iPad.
This is the world’s first 17.3-inch foldable OLED laptop, according to Asus.
This 2,560×1,920 touchscreen with a 4:3 aspect ratio can be placed behind a Bluetooth keyboard to simulate a 17-inch all-in-one desktop.
It can also be folded in half to form a 12.5-inch flip laptop with an on-screen keyboard on the bottom half.
Since Windows isn’t particularly good at this yet, there’s a custom software package for choosing which half of the foldable screen different programs should appear on.
The system will have a 12th generation Intel CPU, 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB of SSD storage, WiFi 6, and a 75 Wh battery.
Looking at the spec, my primary issue is that it only has one Thunderbolt port.
There is no word yet on pricing, but Asus claims it will be available in mid-2022.