Earlier this year, ASUS teased the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED tablet (UX9702) with a promising design. Just imagine having a cool tablet that can be converted onto a laptop, with all the convenience of recently-released foldable smartphones. After months of preparation, the Asus ZenBook 17 Fold is finally official. ASUS took to the IFA conference to finally “kick” the product into the market. To those unaware, the device fits in the hybrid category since it can be either a tablet or a laptop. It packs a 17-inch OLED screen with 2,560 x 1,920 pixels and a 4:3 aspect ratio.
These possibilities with this product are really outstanding. For instance, when unfolding you can use this massive screen as a monitor. It comes with 500 nits of brightness and Bluetooth support. Therefore, you can hook ASUS’s Bluetooth keyboard or a third-party Bluetooth keyboard and use the product as a monitor. If you’re in the need of a tablet, you can also use it as a tablet, after all, it has a touch screen. However, it may not offer the best experience for tablet users, since it’s a massive product. Last but not least, you can fold the device and make it operate as a conventional laptop.
ASUS ZenBook 17 Fold comes with laptop hardware
ASUS equipped its ZenBook 17 Fold OLED with an Intel Core i7-1250U processor plus 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM. There are 2 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores providing enough power for every day’s usage. In terms of graphics, the device comes with an Intel’s Iris Xe. When it comes to storage, the product offers 1 TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD.
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In terms of connectivity, the product packs two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 tech for display output and charging. The product is charged at 65W. Last but not least we have a 3.5 mm audio device. There is a 75 Whr 4-cell battery keeping the lights on. It weighs 1.5 kg, so as we’ve said it may not be the best product to use as a tablet and hold with just one hand.
The pricing – expensive like a foldable would be
Well, you can expect this level of technology to be cheap right? Smartphone makers are still fighting to bring foldable smartphones to levels below the $1,500 mark. They are making progress after a few generations, but the road is still long.
The Asus ZenBook 17, due to its complexity and amount of high-cost components will cost €3,999/$3,499. That’s the price of two Galaxy Z Fold4s, just for comparison. The product may reach only a few enthusiasts that have such an amount of money to spend. With that price, it should not become much popular in the overall market. Anyway, this concept really proves that there is an interesting future for laptops.
This month will be quite hectic for ASUS enthusiasts. The company will present a bunch of new products including the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate set to come with the Dimensity 9000+.
