- I just folded this clean in half.
(laughs)
I got you.
This thing's designed to fold in half.
The ZenBook 17 Fold is the largest foldable device
that we've seen hit the market yet.
It's equipped with an enormous vibrant olded display
that puts nearly every other laptop to shame
and offers unparalleled flexibility,
traditional clamshell of course.
Would you like a physical or touch screen keyboard
kick stand, naturally.
Book, well, that's a new one.
It looks like an amazing little package,
but perhaps like my demonstration of strength,
there is more here than meets the eye.
It's okay though because I'd never deceive you
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(techy music)
- The usability of any foldable device hinges
pun intended on the mechanism
for opening and closing the main display.
And there's a lot that Asus got right here.
The rear panel is partially covered in a large
full leather binding that protects the hinge assembly
and on the top portion,
we've got a really trippy holographic effect etched
on dark blue glass.
The hinge itself is surprisingly smooth
and well it is stiffer than you might expect.
I think it's fair to say
that it's still qualifies say a one finger lift.
Asus rates the hinge for about 30,000 folds
and while the 12.5 inch size might not impress you
in its clamshell mode
the story changes dramatically
when you pop off the removal keyboard,
more on that later
and open it up into tablet mode with a reassuring funk.
Now that's impressive.
The f-OLED flexible Oled panel comes courtesy
of BOE and is both Pantone validated
and capable of a whopping 500 knit peak brightness.
It runs at 2560 by 1920,
which is suitable for even up close viewing.
And did I even mention Dolby vision certification yet.
With the included kickstand
this thing is basically a home theater grade HDR display
that you can take with you on the airplane.
I've never seen anything like it
and they claim it should sound just as good.
Thanks to a quad speaker arrangement
with Dolby atmos support tuned by harman kardan.
Without rear speakers you shouldn't expect
any kind of meaningful surround out of atmos content,
but the audio is surprisingly clear
throughout the entire range with a very wide sound stage.
It gets easily loud enough for viewing with a friend
and while the base is a little lacking compared
to the latest from Dell or Apple.
I'd give it a solid A minus.
(upbeat music)
Probably the best thing is we haven't talked
about so far or even really noticed, the crease.
Every foldable is going to have a bit
of waviness near the fold,
but on the ZenBook 17 Fold,
it's only really noticeable when the light catches it.
And from straight on it's hard to notice even that.
If this was a portable monitor instead of a computer
I'd be impressed as hell
and throw it straight into my backpack.
The super durable tech friendly one
I got from lttstore.com.
Now with limited lifetime warranty,
it's pretty good trust me, bro.
Unfortunately, it's not an external monitor
and that's where the sheen starts to come off a little.
To start with the CPU and GPU
are a little underpowered for the price.
The core i7- 1250U has a base speed of 1.1 gigahertz.
And the efficiency-cores is outnumbered
the performance-cores four times over.
It's not unusable and it can boost to 4.7 gigahertz
but the general experience in PC mode
isn't as smooth as I'd like.
You're not going to be gaming on this thing
and playing back 4k HDR content on YouTube,
nearly pegs the integrated XE graphics.
The good news is it doesn't get very hot under load
nor does the fan get very loud,
how they achieved that however, I can't tell you
since Asus specifically forbade me
from disassembling this one.
Frankly I don't think I would've tried anyway.
It looks extremely intimidating to take apart
but it apparently does come apart
and it's possible to upgrade the SSD.
This internal imagery also reveals
the 75 watt hour battery in there
that contributes to 11 hours of battery life
and 50% brightness.
It's not quite MacBook territory,
but despite the fact that I literally sneezed
while writing this line it's nothing to sneeze at,
by the way given the glossy finish of the display
and the smooth accumulating nature
of its rubberized bezel here
I'd recommend the down the front of the shirt technique
anytime you need to sneeze in front
of your Zenbook 17 Fold,
keeping it clean has been a real chore.
Not that I think many of you will end up
owning one of these.
I'm not even saying that you can't afford.
It's $3,500 US starting price.
It's just that it's time for me
to start talking about the problems.
Starting with the keyboard and trackpad
the included compact bluetooth keyboard
can conveniently be stashed inside of the fold
when it's well folded
and it has two bluetooth profiles
so you can use it on multiple devices.
Should that strike your fancy?
The keys themselves are pretty solid
and have way more travel than you'd expect
considering the keyboard's extremely thin profile.
It's also got a very slick glass track pattern
underneath that's big enough,
but it has one of the worst click hinges
I've seen in a long time.
It's supposed to click along the bottom here,
but it's so flopsy that you can actually click it
at the top point if you push hard enough
or even from the underside.
And if you're supporting the device one handed
it's so poorly supported that it will sometimes fail
to return to a neutral position and it gets worse.
While it's solid on a desk,
when you use it on the Zenbooks Folded screen
it's feet sit on the slightly raised rubberized
vessels making for some worrying deck flex
even while trying to type normally.
It also has the tendency to move around slightly too,
and generally feels not much better
than if you'd plopped a keyboard
on top of a tablet screen.
Making matters worse it's a dumb bluetooth keyboard,
meaning that while the Zenbook can detect its presence
the keyboard itself doesn't actually come out of sleep
when you open the lid,
you need to hit a key and wait for it to connect
and then wait for it to actually start working.
And if you leave it for a second or two,
without touching anything the touchpad
will skip when you touch it.
It's real pain and there's no wired option either
that port on the side is for charging only
and yes it must be charged separately too.
The very worst thing about it is the input leg,
nevermind for gaming.
It's so bad that it impacts even accurately
moving the cursor around the screen to click on icons
like the tablet size keyboard,
tablet really defines the Zenbook Folds IO too.
There are physical buttons for volume up and down
and the power button as well along the top right corner.
The headset Jack is at the right or the top,
depending on the orientation
and while it lacks a dedicated charging jack
meaning you'll need to use
your Thunderbolt 4 ports to charge.
It does have two of those.
So I kind of consider this a non-issue
and use with a Thunderbolt dock with power delivery.
Also unlike Apple, Asus had enough sense
to include a type C to a dongle in the box.
So at least you don't have to shell out for one of those.
Should you want to use a mouse or a flash drive
though that doesn't mean
I'm giving it full marks for usability.
Let's make our way through all of Asus's recommended modes.
PC mode I already touched on it is in my opinion
the strongest argument for buying a Zenbook 17 Fold.
There simply isn't anything else
on the market with a screen this size
that packs up this small,
unfortunately laptop mode is not as good.
Folding the Zenbook and placing the keyboard
on it automatically switches the screen to portrait mode
and disables the bottom half
imitating a 12.5 inch display.
In this configuration,
it has no additional functionality compared
to a standard ultra book
and it's nearly twice as thick at the hinge.
The windows hello webcam is awkwardly
in portrait mode like this too.
You know, since the device is kind of
in portrait mode and I wouldn't have thought it possible
but Asus managed to make the windows 11 task bar
worse by adding a curve to it
that makes it hard to activate
with the touchscreen if you have large fingers like I do,
it's usable but if you want a laptop
then just buy a laptop.
But Anthony, you say you can easily solve this.
Just take off the keyboard.
(laughs)
Yeah, I could do that.
Look at how many comments I can read
under our YouTube videos this way.
And it's so fun to scroll
but the second I want to reply to anyone.
The experience is pretty bad.
The included window management software
and I think this is actually part of windows pops up
to help you better utilize the bottom display
but you'll find yourself really wanting
to use FancyZones to split the top and bottom
at a separate virtual displays
since dragging windows between them
is pretty cumbersome without a trackpad.
Using the Bluetooth keyboard separately
in what Asus calls extend mode
could make sense in some situations,
but it's hardly the killer app
this device desperately needs.
Tablet mode, on the other hand
have you ever wanted a massive tablet
while you're in luck,
I legitimately could see some people buying this
ZenBook 17 Fold for this reason
especially someone older or with a visual impairment
that makes large print a necessity for reading.
It does have some drawbacks though.
The 1.4 kilogram weight means
that you're gonna wanna rest it on your lap
or the seat back in front of you
or failing that Asus suggests holding it
partially folded in what they call Book mode.
Now this just about made my eyes roll out of their sockets
but it is legitimately easier to hold like this.
Like any foldable though
the ZenBook is only about 40% about the hardware.
The rest is software and out of the box
we got off to a bad start with McAfee live safe
just yelling at me that I was unprotected.
I chose to accept the risk only to be bugged again
and again and again,
this on a laptop that starts at $3499 US,
the same price as the M1 Mac 16 inch MacBook pro
which has a much faster CPU and GP, more IO
a better trackpad and double the memory.
Now why aside from the price
am I comparing it to a MacBook?
Because Asus has a service they call GlideX
that allows you to extend your mirror
your screen to an external device,
either wired or on the same wifi network,
just like Sidecar from Apple.
The problem, it's a subscription service
for a feature that requires no server.
It's literally your PC and your phone or tablet.
There is a free version,
but this can only be used via wifi
only does 720p at 30 FPS and is ad supported.
You get a year of pro with your Zenbook purchase
that's a $36 value for a feature
that's literally just a DRM lock.
Ugh! This is a really cynical cash grab by Asus
and they should feel bad for it.
If you thought that was a digression
go check out this exclusive over at floatplane.com
where Linus goes completely off at a tangent bill.
Oh if none of that matters to you at all
then on the PC side, you can buy an XPS 13
with the same laptop form factor for 1999.
And it also has a faster P series CPU
with three times the P-cores and twice the memory
compared to either the XPS 13 plus
or even a base model M1 MacBook pro
this thing might be in the ballpark per thread,
but doesn't cut it in multi-threaded.
That means that this laptop is almost purely
a content consumption device
that might be good for 2D artists
if like the Lenovo X1 fold it had an optional stylist,
but sadly it does not.
And if you needed to do any kind of heavier work
Macbooks aside the most expensive XPS 15 pre config
is still $600 less expensive, has a dedicated GPU,
a full fat core i9, 12900HK, far far more IO.
and yes double the memory too,
which is even upgradable.
We'll have these laptops linked down below,
but in the end what you are paying for
with the ZenBook 17 fold is the privilege
of being one of the first to
buy a premium foldable laptop
and the privilege of helping answer the question
of why it needs to exist.
Now, I'm sorry, if this is getting a little ranty
it's been a little ranty already I know,
but that really is a legitimate question.
Even Asus didn't really want credit
for the idea for this thing.
Rolling the bat poop ball down the hill onto Intel.
And given this was conceived before Intel's current CEO
Pat Gelsinger took the rings
when they had no clear answer to Ryzen
and were bleeding market share.
I honestly doubt Intel knows either.
I think it's possible that they were just throwing ideas
at the wall to see what sticks.
All of which is to say the Zenbook 17 fold
is a very niche product.
One that will appeal to a small number of people
and even smaller number which will actually
be able to afford it.
The cold hard truth is I don't see Asus
selling very many of these.
On the box is Asus's longtime motto,
in search of incredible, they'll have to keep searching
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- Thanks for watching guys.
I don't like to go negative like this
but it just really pushed my buttons.
For an example of when Intel did predict
the future of computers,
go check out our recent video
on their journey inside the computer kit from 1996.
It's way more interesting
than the view count would ever suggest.