The Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, a laptop that’s so flexible it could join Cirque du Soleil. This clever but pricy piece of tech is like no other, with a foldable 17.3′ OLED touchscreen that’s bigger than my first flat, yet folds down to a size that makes it easy to pass off as a fancy writer’s notebook.
First off, let’s talk about the screen. It’s big, it’s beautiful, and it’s foldable. It is so color-accurate that it makes my designs look like I actually know what I’m doing. And with its PANTONE® validation and TÜV Rheinland-certified low blue-light levels, it’s like having a mini art studio in your lap. The crease created by the fold is really hard to spot with the screen turned on and to touch it’s extremely well responsive.
Watch the Unboxing of the ASUS Zenbook 17' Fold
The keyboard is detachable, it’s ergonomic, and it’s Bluetooth. Basically, it’s the perfect wingman for your laptop. And with 1.4mm key travel, 19.05mm key pitch, and 0.2mm key-cap dish, typing on this bad boy is surprisingly good considering the pancake flatness of the design. It attaches to the screen or you can use it on your desk, but it’s always a seamless connection allowing you to take advantage of the versatility of the foldable screen.
The design is something special, when folded up it reminds me of a fancy pen and paper style notebook. Some leather panels give it that vibe but it’s also the way that the screen folds over to create that book shape that really adds to the overall sensation. Having the Asus logo embossed on the side gives it that “I just made this notebook in a replicator as a birthday present for Captain Jean-Luc Picard”. It’s just so “Star Fleet” looking.
Performance-wise, this thing has the juice to become your daily driver. Built with an Intel Core i7 CPU and powered by 16GB of Ram and a whopping 1 TB of storage, it handles a lot of your general productivity applications and is good for casual gaming, I found it to perform particuarly well when using it to cloud game via the Xbox app, with such a versatile screen it would make an ideal companion for a worker who wanted to play a game on a commute.
There’s a 5MP AI webcam, HD IR camera, and a color sensor. It’s like having a mini James Bond gadget in your laptop as it fits seemlessly into the ultra thin bezel. ASUS 3DNR technology makes your video calls clear, it’s like the person on the other end is sitting right next to you. Just don’t forget to put pants on, or things could get awkward.
Now let’s get to the Elephant in the room. That Elephant is huge and made of solid gold because the cost of this device leaves me wondering just who is the target consumer for this impressive piece of unique tech. Amazon has the device listed at the most affordable I’d seen at around $5,493.38 AU (but listed on the US store). This makes it more pricy than the Zenbook Pro Duo which I think is a great machine to use with the second half screen ($2709.88) but even more expensive than the super powered up ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 16″ you can get for around $4,694/71 and that thing has some serious power and I highly rate it. The foldable technology is obviously still very expensive.
Having said that the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED is like a Swiss Army knife, but for laptops. It’s versatile, powerful, and beautiful. And with all-day battery life, you can use it for hours on end without worrying about it dying on you. So, if you’re looking for a laptop that’s as flexible as a yoga instructor and as beautiful as a sunset, look no further than the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED.
Doccy Darko
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