Skepticism about flexible foldable screen laptops

Zenbook 17 Fold OLED. Photo: Engadget

At CES 2022 in Las Vegas in early January, Intel spent much of its keynote describing its Evo platform, which supports foldable laptops. The chipmaker described it as a "new form factor to accommodate new use cases and experiences."

Meanwhile, Asus and Lenovo also introduced "large-sized variants" of folding smartphones, with the ThinkPad X1 Fold or Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, but did not attract much attention from the technology world.

Unlike Samsung's Z Fold3 foldable phone or LG's rollable TV, Asus and Lenovo's foldable laptops still look like traditional laptops, which means they don't reduce the size of the product. "That barely noticeable change makes us feel less impressive," Techradar commented.

In more than three decades of development, laptops have changed little in terms of their overall form factor. "While they may seem boring, I think that's because the design, physical keyboard, and screen layout have been streamlined from the beginning. They're comfortable to work on and easy to carry around," says tech expert Matt Hanson.

Today’s foldable laptops simply replace the physical keyboard with an elongated screen. Users get a device with a display twice as large as usual, but at the expense of a physical typing experience and difficulty in use.

With the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, Asus tries to overcome this disadvantage by including a detachable keyboard. When you want to use it like a traditional laptop, this keyboard is placed on top of half of the screen.

In addition to being difficult to use, this type of laptop also has questionable screen quality. Frequent opening and closing with a large screen raises concerns about durability. On Asus or Lenovo products, the horizontal crease cutting across the screen is quite obvious, affecting the user experience. "The biggest advantage is that we have a large screen, but the price to pay is not small," Hanson commented.

"Laptops with foldable screens seem like a solution to a problem that no one has identified. They don't seem to offer any major improvements over standard laptops," Techradar commented.

According to VnExpress