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If you’ve ever had a 17-inch laptop, you know they are a delight to use and a pain to carry. Also, they can be heavy. But what if you could fold it in half so it was just an eight-and-a-half-inch notebook? Asus thought that would be a terrific idea and so they did it. They took a 2560 × 1920 resolution 4:5 OLED screen and put a hinge in the middle of its back. OLEDs are the only display technology available now that can tolerate being folded and not lose pixels as a result of it.
The laptop is just a big screen, so how do you use it? Well, you can hang a Bluetooth keyboard on it, or fold it like a clamshell and make one-half a virtual keyboard. If you do that, the display becomes a respectable 1920 × 1280—twice. Or you could fold it, stand it on edge and use it as a dual display, one for you and one for a visitor.
Asus showed this, in person, at the CES conference, and it won the wow factor from everyone who saw it. It’s called the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, and it’s built to withstand MIL-STD 810H¹ durability standards and offers two distinct display modes.
Right now, it’s a concept device, no price or availability data, or specifications about what’s driving the display or powering the SSD, but Asus doesn’t mess around so it’s probably the latest greatest stuff. Also, Asus has always been a quality/price leader so it should be affordable. It most certainly will be a conversation creator—a new way to meet people.
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¹MIL-STD-810H testing is the test standard most commonly used to determine if a product can withstand the effects of difficult environmental conditions. Version H represents the eighth version of this military test standard. Even though MIL-810H is a military standard, many commercial products are tested for it.