The ZenBook 17 Fold OLED is an interesting look into the future of foldable laptops
ASUS is one of those companies that doesn't shy away from experimenting with form factors and design. The ROG Flow X13 became the first 2-in-1 ultrabook aimed at gamers followed by the Flow Z13, a powerful Windows gaming tablet mimicking the Microsoft Surface Pro. Now we have the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED, a large Windows tablet with a screen that can fold right in the middle. It also comes with a super slim Bluetooth keyboard, allowing you to use it in laptop mode or prop it up like a desktop. Sounds enticing, doesn't it?
However, the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED is not a mass-market product, but rather just a proof of concept. This raises the question, does it make sense to spend a lot of money on a first-generation product? Let's find out.
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In my first impressions, I mentioned how the design has been inspired by Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Fold. Yes, the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED isn't the first foldable hybrid laptop. Lenovo has launched not one, but two iterations of the X1 Fold. Physically the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED works as it should. I had no issues with the hinge mechanism while folding it, the discrete kickstand offers enough support for the tablet to stand upright, and even the keyboard slaps on fairly well using magnets. Thanks to its folding form factor, you have multiple ways of using this machine. Apart from laptop mode, you can use it in desktop mode, tablet mode, reader mode and extended mode. It even comes with a folio case, that allows you to carry it around safely.
The screen is the showstopper and on paper, it sounds quite good. Having a resolution of 2,560 x 1,920 pixels (when fully open) the panel promises to reach up to 500 nits brightness for HDR content, and about 350 nits for general use. It also supports Dolby Vision, covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, has Display HDR True Black 500 certification, PANTONE validation and a blue light filter for eye protection.
The ZenBook 17 Fold OLED comes with the unique ASUS ErgoSense Bluetooth keyboard. It is one of the slimmest Bluetooth keyboards that I have seen with a thickness of just 5.5mm. It comes with a built-in trackpad, a power switch and a USB-C port for charging. The key travel is decent, much like any laptop keyboard, and the battery is said to last for about a week. The keyboard can also connect with up to devices, thus you can pair it with an additional device like your desktop or an iPad. There are a couple of built-in magnets that allow the keyboard to stick onto the lower part of the tablet to transform into a regular clam-shell style laptop.
To sum it up, it's a great innovation but poorly implemented.
Let's talk about the core hardware. The tablet comes with Intel's 12th-gen Core i7-1250U processor that features two performance cores, eight efficient cores and the Iris Xe integrated GPU. There is 16GB of DDR5 RAM running at 5200MHz and a 1TB of M.2 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD. For wireless connectivity, there is Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.0. This is the sole configuration that ASUS is offering in India.
The hardware offers good performance that is suitable for daily productivity and media consumption. Unlike the more powerful H-series processors, the Core i7-1250U is a lightweight chip with a rated base TDP of 9W that can boost up to 29W. This was pretty much on spot when I stress-tested the machine with some benchmarks. As for the thermals, the CPU is cooled using a cold plate with dual copper pipes connected to a single cooling fan. The core temperatures of the CPU peaked at 96°C in my testing, however, the average temperatures hovered around 42-45°C. Apart from day-to-day workloads, the CPU is capable of handling light video and photo editing as well. There is no dedicated GPU, so gaming is a big no. I was hardly getting 30FPS in Apex Legends when it barely managed to run, after two failed instances. It is also worth noting that certain applications would only run on the entire screen and glitch out if you use them in laptop mode with only half the screen. Some of the apps did resize on their own while others required me to remove and then reattach the Bluetooth keyboard.
Running Windows 11 out of the box, there aren't a lot of pre-installed apps apart from MyASUS. This is the core control centre where you can access various settings including power, performance, audio, display, connectivity, input devices, privacy and security. There is also a special tool called ScreenXpert that quickly allows you to stack up to three windows either in landscape or portrait mode. It also offers additional controls like the ability to switch your camera and microphone on or off, switching between apps when using multiple displays and more.
The battery on the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED is rated at 75WHrs and can be charged using the 65W charging brick via USB-C. The large size of the screen does lead to quite a bit of power consumption, though I found the battery life to be above average. Using the efficient power mode and brightness pulled down to about 60 percent, I got six and a half hours of usage when using the full 17.3-inch display. Running a video on loop in SDR resulted in about four hours of battery life. Using only the top half (12.5-inch) in laptop mode, you can get close to 10 hours.
In terms of concept, the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED gets all my praise. One can enjoy content on its large 17.3-inch OLED display and when you don't have the space, simply slap on the keyboard to convert it into a portable laptop. You can even use it as a tiny desktop or utilise the entire length of the display in extended mode. The OLED screen is gorgeous (if not class-leading), it has enough horsepower for everyday tasks, and it even looks and feels premium to some extent.
However, it is only when you use the device for a few days that you realise some of the inconsistencies. The glossy finish on the display feels like a sore thumb, the Bluetooth keyboard needs a complete rework and switching between modes doesn't feel very fluid. Then there's the price. At Rs 3,30,000, this first-generation hybrid Windows machine can only do so much when it comes to core performance. In my opinion, it might not be worth spending so much.
There is no doubt that ASUS has put in an honest effort, but at the end of the day, the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED remains a proof of concept that can potentially become a mass-market product in the coming years.