Asus Zenbook 17

Asus has unravelled its first-ever foldable laptop-tablet hybrid called the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED at CES 2022. It is essentially a tablet with a desktop-grade processor that folds in half. One of the screens doubles up as a virtual keyboard in its folded state. Alternatively, one can also attach an external, physical keyboard to the Asus ZenBook Fold 17 OLED. It can operate in six different modes, according to Asus. Unfortunately, we have to wait until mid-2022 to get our hands on one. Asus adds that it will reveal the ZenBook Fold 17 OLED’s price in the coming weeks.

The Asus ZenBook Fold 17 OLED’s screen is 17.3 inches with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,920 pixels (4:3 aspect ratio) in its unfolded state. Otherwise, it is a 12.5-inch device with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,280 pixels (3:2 aspect ratio). It covers 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut and an 87% screen-to-body ratio. The laptop/tablet hybrid has noticeable bezels with a pill-shaped cutout at the centre, with a colour sensor, IR camera and 5MP QHD webcam. Asus claims that the colour sensor detects the ambient light levels and adjusts the screen’s brightness and colour temperature.

The Asus ZenBook 17 Fold OLED packs a 12th-generation Alder Lake Intel Core i7-1250U processor and 16GB RAM. A 75Wh battery powers the laptop/tablet hybrid, which can be folded and unfolded up to 30,000 times. Its onboard software detects the tablet’s orientation and switches between portrait, landscape and folded mode. Input options on the Asus ZenBook 17 Fold OLED are a tad lacking, given its 1.6kg weight and compact form factor (8.7mm thickness). We get two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports and a 3.5mm audio jack. On the wireless side of things, we get Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2.