Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “ASUS Zenbook Fold Review: 17″ Laptop In A 12″ Bag”.
This video is sponsored by surf shark folding smartphones have made it possible to put tablets in our pockets and relive the halcyon days of our flip phone youth. Now take that same flexible display technology and scale it up and suddenly you’ve got something the size of a big college textbook that can unfold into a 12 and a half inch laptop or a 17.3 inch mobile workstation. I’M michael fisher – and this is the asus zenbook 17 fold – a folding screen pc. If this seems familiar, you might recall a similar computer. I covered about two years ago.
The thinkpad x1 fold from lenovo that device’s disastrous debut, at least in my experience, is one that lenovo hopes to rectify with a new 2022 model. That i’ll show you at the end of this video, but the asus zenbook fold is a different beast entirely and i do mean beast free the fold from its extravagant packaging and you’re immediately confronted by both its prominent posterior and its sheer bulk. The thing weighs 3.3 pounds without its bluetooth keyboard and about 4 pounds when you fold that bundled accessory into the gap that asus built in for it, and it may look like the thinkpad x1 fold, but it’s on a completely different scale. It even dwarfs my 16-inch macbook pro thanks to its 4-3 aspect ratio.
It’S just immense, given the portability sacrifice, you have to make it’s fortunate that this oled panel is as pretty as it is at 2.5 k resolution, it’s more than sharp enough for work and, while 4k might have been nice for play the vibrant colors more than make Up for it, asus says it peaks at 500, nits brightness, which was usually bright enough for me even outdoors. The crease is basically invisible if you’re looking at it within, say 20 degrees of the center line and the sheer size means you can prop the machine up on its sturdy embedded. Leather kickstand and watch youtube videos or netflix from across your hotel room or condense. It down into its laptop posture and you’ve still got a fairly roomy 12 and a half inch screen to work with now.
While there are compromises on typing they’re, not where you might expect look at the size of this keyboard, it is comfortable. It is wide and these keys have springy clicky feedback and excellent pitch and travel as well. The downsides are that there’s no backlight, which is, of course terrible for working in the dark, also the magnets that dock it to the frame are a little weak and, unlike the lenovo that came before it, it doesn’t wirelessly recharge when it is so docked. You need to do that via usbc and you get about 24 hours of constant use per charge.
I’Ve been using the zenbook 17 fold for roughly 12 days during which i’ve appreciated its adaptability from home to the brooklyn production office to the far-flung reaches of the intermountain west and the many modes of transit in between now. Do i ever really need a 17.3 inch canvas, no at least not on a machine whose integrated graphics aren’t well suited to video editing, but a few times i have found myself writing a script or taking notes while referencing a spec sheet, and it’s been a relief To have all this space upon which to spread out heck, even checking my calendar feels less stressful on this luxury liner, if you’re a mini-windowed worker, this could be the machine for you. On the other hand, if windows are not your thing, don’t expect a folding screen to make it any better windows 11 on foldables kind of reminds me of android back when smartphone makers were first modifying it for things like multi-screen yeah, it can adapt but not elegantly Check it out boot the machine up in one posture, and it may think it’s in another ditto, the webcam, which, on top of being just not very good despite its 1080p resolution, will also turn you sideways in some apps, and no. This won’t always be fixable merely by turning the machine, because sometimes auto rotate doesn’t work.
That camera also supports windows, hello for logging in when it recognizes you and then a few times a week deciding it doesn’t know you at all or just being unable to activate. For some reason, i once made the mistake of trying to change my system theme while the computer was in battery saver mode and had to wait a full minute to get it to respond. Often the pc will wake quickly from sleep, but sometimes it takes a minute. You get what i’m saying it’s inconsistent now keep in mind.
This is a pre-production review, sample and windows. Unfoldables is a very new thing in general, and just so, we don’t place too much blame at microsoft’s feed. My review unit had some disappointingly familiar issues beyond windows. No, i don’t mean the mcafee antivirus preload, although it is more intrusive than ever before, or the speakers which produce a perhaps unavoidably thin sound signature, given their relatively small size nope. Mostly i’m talking about that wireless keyboard and track pad several times a day. My mouse pointer would either stop responding or develop a mind of its own.
Usually this didn’t affect keystrokes, but one time while typing this weird phantom issue gave me a whole page of with no sign of stopping until i hit escape. Another time was scarier, the backspace key got virtually stuck and deleted a whole two sentences instead of the single letter. I intended i’m glad it wasn’t, writing a script then, and finally, the keyboard also had to be repaired several times when the bluetooth connection, faltered, asus blamed. This on pre-production hardware and promised that the retail versions would work as intended and i’d love to believe that, but after running into similar problems with the keyboard on lenovo’s x1 fold, you know i’m just gon na have to see it to believe it. Fortunately, the rest of the connectivity stack worked flawlessly from bluetooth audio to the wi-fi 6e radios. The system was also responsive on the whole, and i only heard the fans spin up once during a minute. Video call and my most pleasant surprise was battery life. I did most of my research and writing for the past two, mr mobile videos, on this machine dividing my time pretty evenly between 17-inch easel posture sessions and the more conventional 12-inch laptop mode with brightness at about 80 percent. I averaged five and a half to six hours between charges. That’S not great for a conventional laptop, but it’s well beyond what i expected from a foldable with a 12th gen core i7 at its heart. The 65 watt travel adapter is compact, as it should be, and it takes the zenbook fold from zero to 20 percent in about 15 minutes or from zero to full in about two hours or even a folding. Pc should be considered in context with the competition.
Why? I’M a little worried about the zen book, given what lenovo’s bringing to the table right after this one of the things i never thought i’d miss about the internet until it was gone, was that it was mostly neutral these days, your internet service provider can change your Speed based on what kind of surfing you’re doing like slowing down your connection, if you’re streaming, video or your employer, can restrict certain traffic that it thinks you shouldn’t be able to access and websites can even show you different prices, depending on where you are in the World, even when that doesn’t make much sense. Well, i think all that’s pretty shady, so i’m happy to be sponsored by surf shark. It’S a vpn that keeps your browsing private, safe and yeah neutral. That’S what the internet should be get surf shark at the link in the description and use code, mr mobile for 83 off and three extra months, free thanks to surfshark for sponsoring this video.
While i think the zenbook fold is great competition for lenovo’s, first flexible screen machine well as they say that was then just this week, lenovo took the wraps off its new thinkpad x1 fold for 2022 and after about an hour getting to know that device. I got the strong sense the company isn’t eager to give up any ground in foldables, the new thinkpad is half as thick as the zenbook fold, with a woven performance fabric and aluminum frame that folds completely flat when closed lenovo gave up on enclosing the keyboard. This time around, instead settling on a wider, more comfortable design that now includes both the iconic trackpoint eraser mouse and, crucially, a backlight like the zenbook. It ditches wireless charging but retains the magnetic attachment.
Lenovo also sacrificed the built-in kickstand in the name of thinness. Instead, designing a separate cradle that props up the thinkpad while in use and then folds flat and attaches magnetically when it’s time to hit the road by the time you stack the keyboard and the cradle onto the machine. It weighs about the same four pounds as the zenbook. By the way, the screen unfolds to a 16.3 inch canvas an inch smaller than the zenbooks with the same aspect, and while the battery is a bit smaller too, i think it’s interesting that lenovo’s customers will be able to customize how big they want their battery. At the point of purchase, add in a brighter screen more ram options, optional, 5g and the price gap will surprise you even more while some lenovo trim levels take it much higher. The new thinkpad x1 fold will start at 24.99 when it goes on sale in november.
A full thousand bucks cheaper than asus told me, the zenbook 17 fold would sell for now, while that kind of competition might not be warmly greeted by the zenbook folds makers, me, i tend to think it’s a good thing because to bring it back to smartphones again Here in the states we’ve seen what happens when one brand develops a stranglehold on the foldable space, something i’d prefer not to see repeat itself in pcs. Hopefully, competition will help bring the price down on the zenbook fold, not to mention its mammoth mass and that’s not just wishful thinking on my part, there’s precedent for that. Just look at the company’s dual screen: zephyrus and zenbook duo laptops at one time. We saw these as novelty one-offs, but today, after many generations of evolution, their true performance machines with one-of-a-kind capabilities, i’m convinced the zenbook fold will follow the same path because, where flexible screens are concerned, the only limit is the manufacturer’s imagination and on that particular front, asus Has seldom disappointed this review was produced following 12 days with the zenbook 17 fold, oled review sample provided by asus, but as always, the manufacturer had no early preview or copy approval, or indeed any editorial input rights of any kind, and it also provided no compensation in Exchange for its production, the loan sponsor of this video is surfshark.
If you haven’t had enough flexible displays check out more of my foldable coverage in the into the fold playlist at the mr mobile on youtube until next time from michael fisher, thanks for watching and stay mobile, my friends, you .