SCORE
PRICE £2,750 (£3,300 inc VAT) from asus.com/uk (available in Q4 2002)
Before I go any deeper into this review, I must make it absolutely clear that I applaud Asus for releasing the Zenbook 17 Fold. Asus isn’t alone in believing there to be a future in folding laptops, with Lenovo also showcasing the X1 Fold (see overleaf), but the Zenbook has one major factor in its favour: that we know it will actually go on sale in the UK by December at the latest, albeit for a startling £3,300. Lenovo has so far only provided a price and availability for the X1 Fold in the USA.
So, what exactly is the Zenbook 17 Fold? You could say it’s a 17in tablet that folds in the middle, which is true. Or you could describe it as a bendable laptop with a detachable keyboard. Or an all-in-one computer with a bendable display. At a real push, you might decide that it’s a bendable e-reader that just happens to run Windows (I’ll come on to why that really isn’t the case).
Cynics, on the other hand, might argue that it’s simply a technology looking for a problem to solve, and that the end result is something not wholly successful in any of those categories. There’s an element of truth in that, for sure, but let me go through the scenarios one by one to explain why
