Foldable laptops—those with foldable screens—have arrived, but it’s hard to tell if they’re here to stay. As futuristic as it sounds when you fold a giant screen in half and toss it in your bag, high prices and technical issues threaten to undermine the future of foldable laptops before they become mainstream.
I’ve been excited about the capabilities of these devices ever since CES 2022 gave us a sneak peek into the future of the foldable laptop. While they’ve been around since at least 2020 debuted from Lenovo ThinkPad X1 FoldUntil this year’s CES, I got real excited about the capabilities of a foldable laptop. That’s when I and many others got our first look at the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, a foldable laptop dominated by a stunning OLED display.
I’m fond of the nice OLED panel, and promotional material for the Zenbook 17 Fold introduced the many unique ways you can set it up thanks to the 17.3-inch hinged display. Since good OLED panels are still relatively rare in the world of laptops (although this is changing rapidly thanks to advances in display technology), I can’t help but be excited about the possibility of having one on a device that can be carried like a book, exposed and propped up on a table like a stand Or used on a desk like a traditional laptop.
I felt like a future I had never dreamed of was suddenly here, and all that was left for me to do was let go of my old, inflexible preconceptions about what a laptop should be.
But now that I’ve spent a few weeks using this system to review the Zenbook 17 Fold, I’m afraid the future isn’t quite ready for us. This foldable laptop does better than I expected, but it still has a number of drawbacks that prevent me from recommending it alongside the best laptops on the market.
Some of those issues, like connectivity issues I’ve seen with the included ErgoSense Bluetooth keyboard, are promised by Asus to address them by the time the laptop hits the market later this year. But some of its other problems can’t be addressed so easily, and I think it will be a while before we see a foldable laptop that can compete with the less flexible laptops in terms of price and performance.
But if you’re willing to pay for being a foldable laptop early on ($3,499 for the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, $2,499 for the 2022 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold), you’ll have some unique benefits that few laptop owners have. Others (so far) ) access.
After using the Zenbook 17 Fold for work and play, I’ve learned that while some of its configurations aren’t very practical, there’s at least one way it beats every other laptop I’ve ever tested. And if you are someone who loves a good multi-screen setup, I think you will appreciate this trick.
Foldable laptops offer convenient multi-screen productivity on the go
What I love about the Asus foldable is the way I can open it up and use it like a dual-screen laptop, with one screen on top of the other with the keyboard on my lap.
Asus is advertising the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED with promotional material showing how you can set it up in more than 5 different configurations. When folded, the 17.3-inch screen can effectively become two smaller 12.5-inch displays, so you can place a Bluetooth keyboard on top of the bottom half to use it as a 12-inch laptop, hold the screen in your hands like a giant Windows tablet, or place it On a desk with the keyboard in the front and use it as a traditional computer.
The Fold can be used to some extent in all of these configurations, although like the best 2-in-1 laptops, it’s too heavy to be used as a comfortable tablet for extended periods.
But unlike any other laptops I’ve used, the Zenbook Fold stands out as a dual screen computer. At home, I prefer working with at least two monitors at all times, as it helps me stay on top of the different projects I’m working on and generally feel more productive. But when I’m working from a laptop, I have no luck unless I want to connect it to an external monitor (I hope to have an HDMI output or adapter on hand!) or move around a portable monitor.
Not the case when I use the fold. What I love about the Asus foldable is the way I can open it up and use it like a dual-screen laptop, with one screen on top of the other with the keyboard on my lap. While Windows 11 isn’t always smart about how to automatically move and place objects on a foldable screen like this one, Asus’ included ScreenXpert software makes placing windows across both displays a simple drag and drop.
Placing the keyboard on my lap feels more comfortable and snug than on my laptop, too, which means I can work longer and more comfortably than any other laptop I’ve tested. And with the screen folded up to act as two screens, I can accomplish more of what I can do on traditional laptops.
While this is a bit less luxurious than opening it wide and using the 17.3-inch full screen, the loss of screen space is more than offset by what appear to be significant productivity gains. It’s also a much better dual screen laptop than something like Asus ZenBook Duo 14which tries to press a smaller screen next to the laptop keyboard.
In my Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review, I touched on this a bit, but I wanted to dig a little deeper here because I think this is an underrated but useful way that you can use a foldable laptop. In fact, I’ve found that it’s actually more useful than some of the ways Asus advertises your use of a foldable OLED. Don’t think seriously, for example, of mounting that metal 3.3-pound computer like a book for extended periods of time unless you have a steel wrist.
I also wouldn’t recommend using it as a tablet for more than light reading, because the weight of the fold and the cumbersome way Windows 11 handles touch input makes anything more complicated than browsing websites a painful hassle without a keyboard.
But if you love the idea of having a dual-screen laptop that can be displayed in a beautiful screen or folded and tucked into your bag, pay attention to what’s happening with foldable devices this year. The Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED is a great device with decent performance and some surprisingly useful configuration.
Even if you’re put off by the high price tag and technical issues that still plague this high-end foldable device, the fact that it’s already so good suggests we should expect better things from foldable laptops in the coming years.
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