Asus announces foldable Zenbook laptop with OLED screen and a fresh lineup of laptops

The foldable market is catching up and nearly every brand wants to board the ship before it sails for good. Asus is the latest brand that is trying its luck, but the Taiwanese brand is known for going out of its way to do things. Instead of a foldable phone, Asus has unveiled a foldable laptop in its Zenbook series. Called the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, the world’s first foldable laptop has a big screen on the front that folds from the centre into two smaller screens.

Foldables are convenient because they can fold into a compact form factor, so while people may not be comfortable carrying a 17-inch screen, they will have absolutely no issues fitting its folded form into purses and bags. That is the concept behind the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED.

Its 17.3-inch 2.5K touchscreen display will fold in the middle to create two 12.5-inch screens with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels each. There is no built-in keyboard on this laptop, but for those who need it, Asus will sell an ErgoSense Bluetooth keyboard with a touchpad that you can slap on the lower part of the touchscreen display. And that gives you flexibility in terms of how you want to use this device - as a PC, a tablet, or a laptop.

The OLED screen used on the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED is PANTONE validated, along with TUV Rheinland, and has a 100 per cent DCI-P3 gamut. The display supports Dolby Vision, which is good for watching movies and games. And to top that, the device has Dolby Atmos-powered Harman Kardon speakers. It uses the freshly-announced 12th Gen Intel Core i7-U processor with Iris Xe graphics. There are two USB-C ports on the laptop. It has an HD IR camera for Windows Hello-powered facial recognition and a 5-megapixel webcam with Asus 3D Noise Reduction technology for clearer calls.

Asus said the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED will ship in Q2 2022, but its price is not available right now.

Asus launched the Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition that marks the 25th anniversary of the Asus P6300 laptop that went to space on a 600-day mission. The laptop uses a space-themed design that has a special Zero-G Titanium color. It comes with an additional 3.5-inch OLED display with Asus ZenVision technology that can be mounted externally on the lid to show customisable messages and animations.