Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED Review

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED is the world’s giant folding display laptop, and this laptop is convenient, portable, and foldable.

I love this thing, I really do. This is undoubtedly very cool, and this laptop has lots of potential, it the best folding laptop that can be used. Asus is not the first company to release a folding laptop, but it is a significant improvement over what we have seen in the past from Lenovo. 

The Asus Zenbook 17-inch 4:3 display OLED is a great showpiece for Windows 11, the most futuristic laptop I’ve used all year. Only the Asus Zenbook 17-inch has an OLED panel, which is great. It’s a thin design with sharp edges, stylish colour options and vibrant viewing angles.

This laptop comes with a 17.3-inch folding OLED touchscreen display, and it is so beautiful it has a 4×3 aspect ratio of 1 million to 1 contracts ratio, 0.2 millisecond response time, 100 per cent DCI p3 Pantone validated visa display hdr 500 true black, a peak brightness of 500 nits customizable colour gamuts and around an 87 per cent screen to body ratio, when it is folded it is like carrying around a 12.5 laptop when it is unfolded at its thinnest point it is just around 8.7mm, and when folded it is around 7.4mm

The thing that shocks me is the price, which is almost $3,499. It is really too expensive in such a financially critical situation.

ASUS ZENBOOK 17 FOLD UX9702: Specs 

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Price

The Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED starting price of $3,499 in the US and £3,300 in the UK, almost €3,440 in Europe, Expected to go on sale in the fourth quarter of this year. 

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: availability

The Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED is expected to go on sale in the fourth quarter of 2022 with a starting price of 3,499, which is 1000 bugs more than the Lenovo ThinkPad x1 fold will start at 2,499 when it goes on sale in November.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: different viewing modes

Let’s start with desktop mode,

• where you use the kickstand on the back to fully utilize that beautiful 17.3 OLED touchscreen with the included Bluetooth keyboard.
• This is great for consuming content with a 2560 x 1920 resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio.
• The angle of the kickstand can be adjusted to change the tip of the screen, but I found it most sturdy when fully extended.

laptop mode

• With the screen folded, the keyboard attaches to the bottom half with magnets, becoming a traditional laptop with a 12.5” screen.
• The resolution gets cut in half, so we’re looking at 1920 x 1280 now with a 3:2 aspect ratio. You can also remove the physical keyboard and use the touchscreen as the keyboard.
• I thought it was easier to type with the physical keyboard, but the options are good.
• Asus calls this on extended mode when you use the Bluetooth keyboard but get more screen space.

Reader mode looks like a book with the screen folded a bit, and in tablet mode, you can use it as a massive 17-inch windows tablet.

The screen automatically adjusts quickly based on what mode you are in.

• If we pull off the keyboard, the lower half quickly turns on from being off to extending windows.
• Open apps might move around a bit depending on where you have them on screen, but I never found it annoying when adding or removing the keyboard.
• And just like a tablet, the screen rotates whichever way you turn it. The mode switcher pops up when changing the screen so you can select the layout you want the apps to take in windows.
• The Asus screen Xpert software also helps you select where to place windows when you start dragging.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Screen Bend 

• Looking front on the panel, I could not see where the screen bend was.
• It’s a bit more visible when looking at it at an angle of 120 degrees. But if I was sitting in front of this and using it, I couldn’t notice it.
• So I did not find the bend to ruin immersion or anything when in practical use. You can feel it slightly when sliding your finger across the bend.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Design

• The body of the zenbook 17 is made of magnesium aluminum alloy, which has this glow effect on the logo standing in for the ASUS name.
• It does feel sturdy, and you have to commend us for that. The laptop does feel light without the keyboard; when you add the keyboard, it does add a tiny bit of weight, but it is nothing that puts you off, and with the added sleeve. It will fit snugly into the bag.
• The hinge design is also fascinating. Asus has added a built-in leather kickstand to protect the laptop and keep it standing upright. Asus says the hinge and OLED panel have passed over 30,000 open and close cycles in tests.
• Also, you cannot place the keyboard in the wrong direction covering the camera. The magnets intently reject its keyboard.
• There is a little gap with the lid closed to accommodate the screen bend, but this space means you can keep the keyboard inside with the lid closed, making it easy to travel with the build quality, and the design feels premium.
• It is got a magnesium alloy finish with a dark blue glass logo. It feels nice to carry due to the faux-leather covering that wraps around the hinge, and the included case is made of the same material.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Display

• This laptop comes with a 17.3-inch folding OLED touchscreen display, and it is so beautiful it has a 4×3 aspect ratio of 1 million to 1 contracts ratio, 0.2 millisecond response time.
• 100 per cent DCI p3 Pantone validated visa display hdr 500 true black, a peak brightness of 500 nits customizable colour gamuts and around an 87 per cent screen to body ratio.
• when it is folded it is like carrying around a 12.5 laptop when it is unfolded at its thinnest point it is just around 8.7mm, and when folded it is around 7.4mm.
• Display in tablet mode when it is unfolded. The display size is 17.3 inches with a resolution of 2560 by 1920 pixels and a 4×3 Aspect ratio.
• When folded, the display becomes 12.5 inches with an aspect ratio of 3×2. HDR display the color looks very vibrant contrasty.
• The glossy touch screen has an excellent color gamut, and it looks great thanks to the OLED panel it gets bright enough when viewing regular SDR content, but it is rated to hit 500 nits in HDR mode.
• This is not a gaming laptop, so I have not measured screen response time, but it is old, and Asus are claiming a 0.2ms response time, which is extremely fast.
• It is still 60 Hz, so just scrolling around and stuff isn’t as smooth compared to the regular gaming laptops that I usually test, but it is not blurry either.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Ports

Most of the ports are found on the right.

• There is a type-C thunderbolt in four parts, a 3.5mm audio combo jack, an air exhaust vent, and the power input at the top.
• There is a second Type-C thunderbolt four port on top and volume adjustments on the opposite corner.
• Both type-c ports can be used to charge the device, and they offer Display port support so that you can connect two external 4k screens simultaneously.
• It also comes with a type-c to the type-a adapter for any older devices you need to connect.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Performance

• This is the first time I’ve had any machine with intel’s new 12th gen u series processors.
• It has two p cores but 8 E cores, and with a 4.7 GHz single core turbo boost speed, I still found windows and opening apps pretty snappy.
• For graphics, I rely on the integrated intel xe chip with a pretty pitiful 128 megabytes of VRAM and 16 gigs of ipddr5 ram, and also have one terabyte of PCIe 4 SSD storage.
• I think performance is best described as a bit inconsistent. Sometimes it breezes through whatever I am doing with chrome tabs open or PowerPoint, some Netflix playing in the background, and general decent average use case stuff.
• In our short testing time, we played around with running several programs simultaneously and shifting them about using the mode-switching features and did not experience any noticeable performance loss.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Audio

• It has quad- speakers with Dolby atmos, and I thought it sounded pretty good, better than many other laptops I have tested. There is some bass, which sounds even better in desktop mode than in laptop mode.
• In terms of bass, it is not built for bass. It is more for the mids and treble, and if you are looking for that boom boom sound, you are not going to get that hook up some speakers; you are good to go, but if you are looking just for good clarity audio all that kind of stuff these speakers are absolutely fantastic for that.
• it is driven by an intelligent amplifier that maximizes volume- up to 3.5x loud than a standard amplifier – while minimizing distortion, ensuring crystal-clear sound for entertainment or communication.
• Smart amp- 350 louder sound, zero distortion, the volume-enhancing, distortion-suppressing dual-channel smart amplifier is equipped with a powerful DSP chip that can drive the twin speakers at the maximum volume possible while preventing long-term damage to the sensitive speaker voice coils.
• Creating or listening to audio in your videos, movies, music, or games has never sounded better!
• There are four mics here; the microphones of this zenbook are way better, and this zenbook has noise cancellation and background noise cancellation feature enabled.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Keyboard and Touchpad

• The keyboard felt nice to type with. It’s got 1.4mm of key travel, and the keys have a nice clicky feel.
• Unfortunately, there is no key backlighting, as that would have made it thicker, but if you need that, you could use the touchscreen instead. Though, as mentioned, it does not feel anywhere near as lovely.
• The magnets are only down the front of the keyboard, so it is easier to take off by lifting towards the back.
• The tiny touchpad is exceptionally smooth to the touch. It only clicks down a little but feels pleasant to use.
• There’s a little flex to the middle of the keyboard if you push down hard, as it is just sitting above the screen, but I thought it felt wonderful when typing normally

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Camera

• Configure it to automatically lock or sleep when you step away from the laptop, and it is got IR for windows Hello face unlock.
• There are two cameras on the front. The left one is 5 megapixels in photos and records video at 1080p, while the right camera does 720p and is used for those adaptive lock and security features.
• The primary camera looks pretty good, but you will have this sort of aspect ratio when you have it in laptop mode.
• But then, if you rotate it into desktop mode, the camera ends on the left-hand side.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Heat

• Asus software has three performance profiles, whisper mode, standard mode, and performance mode.
• Higher ways equal more performance, but even maxing it out in performance mode, it was not loud.
• It was quiet when just using the device normally or browsing content. I never heard the fan unless I was doing some stress test.
• That is not surprising as it only has one little fan inside, and it does not need to work too hard as the i7-1250u maxes out at 29 watts.
• Even with that CPU maxed out for half an hour in an all-core CPU stress test, the temperature never rose above 54 degrees Celsius.
• This machine isn’t capable of getting hot due to the U series processor.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Size, Weight and Charging

• It is a little thick when folded closed; the rear thickness is 1.35/ 3.44cm, and the front thickness is 0.69/ 1.74cm. With this depth of 7.44/ 18.9cm and width is 11.32/ 28.76cm, but portable at a similar size to a sheep of a4 paper.
• At least in width 14.9/ 37.85cm and depth 11.32/ 28.76cm, though it is quite a bit thinner in tablet mode.
• It felt a little heavy feeling, which was one of the first things I noticed when taking it out of the box; the weight of the tablet is 3.4lb with the keyboard, and it will be 4.08lb with both the table keyboard and power cables it will 4.84LB and with all stuff with the case is almost 5.49lb.
• The 65-watt type-c charger is relatively small and portable, though, and it is used to charge both the fold and the keyboard.
• I think it would have been preferable if the keyboard was powered while it was connected to the device, but at least you don’t need to carry around a separate charger for it or anything; maybe we will see that thing in the next generation.

Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED review: Battery life

• The fold has a 75wh battery, which takes up one side of the laptop. Despite this, I never thought one side felt any heavier than the other.
• The Asus software limits the battery charge level to 80 % to help improve battery lifespan. My usual video playback test lasted 10 hours in laptop mode, which is an excellent result for an intel-based machine compared to the higher-powered H series gaming laptops.
• Laptop mode has half the screen disabled, so less run time is expected if you are using the 17-inch screen.