I didn’t break this but I REALLY want to

yeah I just folded this clean in half I got you this thing's designed to fold in half the Zenbook 17 fold is the largest foldable device that we've seen hit the market yet it's equipped with an enormous vibrant OLED display that puts nearly every other laptop to shame and offers unparalleled flexibility traditional clam shell of course would you like a physical or touch screen keyboard kickstand naturally book well that's a new one it looks like an amazing little package but perhaps like my demonstration of strength there is more here than meets the eye it's okay though because I'd never deceive you about our sponsor War Thunder War Thunder is an online military vehicle combat game that's free to play and a lot of fun try for free down below today and get some special bonus items just for signing up go get em [Music] the usability of any foldable device hinges pun intended on the mechanism for opening and closing the main display and there's a lot that Asus got right here the rear panel is partially covered in a large faux leather binding that protects the hinge assembly and on the top portion we've got a really trippy holographic effect etched on dark blue glass the hinge itself is surprisingly smooth and well it is stiffer than you might expect I think it's fair to say that it still qualifies as a one finger lift Asus rates the hinge for about thirty thousand folds and while the 12.5 inch size might not impress you in its clamshell mode the story changes dramatically when you pop off the removable keyboard more on that later and open it up into tablet mode with a reassuring funk now that's impressive the foled or flexible OLED panel comes courtesy of BOE and is both Pantone validated and capable of a whopping 500 nit Peak brightness it runs at 2560 by 1920 which is suitable for even up close viewing and did I even mention Dolby Vision certification yet with the included kickstand this thing is basically a home theater grade HDR display that you can take with you on the airplane I've never seen anything like it and they claim it should sound just as good thanks to a quad speaker arrangement with Dolby Atmos support tuned by Harman Kardon without rear speakers you shouldn't expect any kind of meaningful surround out of Atmos content but the audio is surprisingly clear throughout the entire range with a very wide Sound Stage it gets easily loud enough for viewing with a friend and while the bass is a little lacking compared to the latest from Dell or apple I'd give it a solid a minus [Music] probably the best thing is we haven't talked about so far or even really noticed the crease every foldable is going to have a bit of waviness near the fold but on the Zenbook 17 fold it's only really noticeable when the light catches it and from straight on it's hard to notice even that if this was a portable monitor instead of a computer I'd be impressed as hell and throw it straight into my backpack the super durable Tech friendly one I got from ltdstore.com now with limited lifetime warranty it's pretty good trust me bro unfortunately it's not an external Monitor and that's where the sheen starts to come off a little to start with the CPU and GPU are a little underpowered for the price the core i7 1250u has a base speed of 1.1 gigahertz and the efficiency cores outnumber the performance course four times over it's not unusable and it can boost to 4.7 gigahertz but the general experience in PC mode isn't as smooth as I'd like you're not going to be gaming on this thing and playing back 4K HDR content on YouTube nearly pegs the integrated XE graphics the good news is it doesn't get very hot under load nor does the fan get very loud having achieved that however I can't tell you since Asus specifically forbade me from disassembling this one frankly I don't think I would have tried anyway it looks extremely intimidating to take apart but it apparently does come apart and it's possible to upgrade the SSD this internal imagery also reveals the 75 watt hour battery in there that contributes to 11 hours of battery life at 50 brightness it's not quite MacBook territory but despite the fact that I literally sneezed while writing this line it's nothing to sneeze at by the way given the glossy finish of the display and the schmoo accumulating nature of its rubberized bezel here I'd recommend the down the front of the shirt technique anytime you need to sneeze in front of your Zenbook 17-fold keeping it clean has been a real chore not that I think many of you will end up owning one of these I'm not even saying that you can't afford it's thirty five hundred dollar U.S starting price it's just that it's time for me to start talking about the problems starting with the keyboard and trackpad the included compact Bluetooth keyboard can conveniently be stashed inside of the fold when it's well folded and it has two Bluetooth profiles so you can use it on multiple devices should that strike your fancy the keys themselves are pretty solid and have way more travel than you'd expect considering the keyboard's extremely thin profile it's also got a very slick glass track pad underneath that's big enough but it has one of the worst click hinges I've seen in a long time it's supposed to click along the bottom here but it's so flopsy that you can actually click it at the top point if you push hard enough or even from the underside and if you're supporting the device one-handed it's so poorly supported that it will sometimes fail to return to a neutral position and it gets worse while it's solid on a desk when you use it on the zenbooks folded screen its feet sit on the slightly raised rubberized bezels making for some worrying deck Flex even while trying to type normally it also has the tendency to move around slightly too and generally feels not much better than if you'd propped a keyboard on top of a tablet screen making matters worse it's a dumb Bluetooth keyboard meaning that while the Zenbook can detect its presence the keyboard itself doesn't actually come out of sleep when you open the lid you need to hit a key and wait for it to connect and then wait for it to actually start working and if you leave it for a second or two without touching anything the touchpad will skip when you touch it it's just it's real pain and there's no wired option either that port on the side is for charging only and yes it must be charged separately too the very worst thing about it is the input lag never mind for gaming it's so bad that it impacts even accurately moving the cursor around the screen to click on icons like the tablet size keyboard Tablet really defines the Zenbook folds IO too there are physical buttons for volume up and down and a power button as well along the top right corner the headset Jack is at the right or the top depending on the orientation and while it lacks a dedicated charging Jack meaning you'll need to use your Thunderbolt 4 ports to charge it does have two of those so I kind of consider this a non-issue and use with a thunderbolt dock with power delivery also unlike apple Jesus had enough sense to include a type c to a dongle in the box so at least you don't have to Shell out for one of those should you want to use a mouse or a flash drive though that doesn't mean I'm giving it full marks for usability let's make our way through all of asus's recommended modes PC mode I already touched on it is in my opinion the strongest argument for buying is inbook 17 fold there simply isn't anything else on the market with a screen this size that packs up this small unfortunately laptop mode is not as good following the Zen book and placing the keyboard on it automatically switches the screen to portrait mode and disables the bottom half imitating a 12.5 inch display in this configuration it has no additional functionality compared to a standard Ultrabook and it's nearly twice as thick at the hinge the windows hello webcam is awkwardly in portrait mode like this too you know since the device is kinda in portrait mode and I wouldn't have thought it possible but Asus managed to make the windows 11 taskbar worse by adding a curve to it that makes it hard to activate with the touchscreen if you have large fingers like I do it's usable but if you want a laptop then just buy a laptop but Anthony you say you can easily solve this just take off the keyboard oh yeah I could do that look at how many comments I can read under our YouTube videos this way and it's so fun to scroll but the second I want to reply to anyone the experience is pretty bad the included window management software and I think this is actually part of Windows pops up to help you better utilize the bottom display but you'll find yourself really wanting to use fancy zones to split the top and bottom into separate virtual displays since dragging Windows between them is pretty cumbersome without a trackpad using the Bluetooth keyboard separately and what Asus calls extend mode could make sense in some situations but it's hardly the killer app this device desperately needs tablet mode on the other hand have you ever wanted a massive tablet well you're in luck I legitimately could see some people buying the Zenbook 17 fold for this reason especially someone older or with a visual impairment that makes large print a necessity for reading it does have some drawbacks though the 1.4 kilogram weight means that you're gonna want to rest it on your lap or the seat back in front of you or feeling that Asus suggests holding it partially folded in what they call book mode and this just about made my eyes roll out of their sockets but it is legitimately easier to hold like this like any foldable though the Zen book is only about 40 percent about the hardware the rest is software and out of the box we got off to a bad start with McAfee Live Safe just yelling at me that I was unprotected I chose to accept the risk only to be bugged again and again and again this on a laptop that starts at 34.99 us the same price as the M1 Max 16 inch MacBook Pro which has a much faster CPU and GPU more IO a better track pad and double the memory now why aside from the price am I comparing it to a Macbook because Asus has a service they call glidex that allows you to extend or mirror your screen to an external device either wired or on the same Wi-Fi network just like sidecar from Apple the problem it's a subscription service for a feature that requires no server it's literally your PC and your phone or tablet there is a free version but this can only be used via Wi-Fi only does 720p at 30 FPS and is AD supported you get a year of pro with your Zenbook purchase that's a 36 value for a feature that's literally just a DRM lock this is a really cynical cash grab by Asus and they should feel bad for it if you thought that was a digression go check out this exclusive overallplane.com where Linus goes completely off into tangentville oh if none of that matters to you at all then on the PC side you can buy an XPS 13 with the same laptop form factor for 19.99 and it also has a faster P series CPU with three times the P cores and twice the memory compared to either the XPS 13 plus or even a base model M1 MacBook Pro this thing might be in the ballpark per thread but doesn't cut it in multi-threaded that means that this laptop is almost purely a Content consumption device that might be good for 2D artists if like the Lenovo X1 fold it had an optional stylus but sadly it does not and if you needed to do any kind of heavier work MacBooks aside the most expensive XPS 15 pre-config is still 600 less expensive has a dedicated GPU a full fat core I9 12900 HK far far more IO and yes double the memory too which is even upgradable we'll have these laptops linked down below but in the end what you are paying for with the Zenbook 17 fold is the privilege of being one of the first to buy a premium foldable laptop and the privilege of helping answer the question of why it needs to exist now I'm sorry if this is getting a little ranty it's been a little ranty already I know but that really is a legitimate question even Asus didn't really want credit for the idea for this thing rolling the that poop ball down the hill onto Intel and given this was conceived before Intel's current CEO Pat gelsinger took the reins when they had no clear answer to ryzen and were bleeding market share I honestly doubt Intel knows either I think it's possible that they were just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks all of which is to say the Zenbook 17 fold is a very Niche product one that will appeal to a small number of people an even smaller number of which will actually be able to afford it the cold hard truth is I don't see Asus selling very many of these on the box is asus's long time motto in search of incredible they'll have to keep searching but your search has ended for our sponsor War Thunder it's a free-to-play online military vehicle combat game it's available in Windows Mac Linux PS4 PS5 Xbox One and Xbox series X with crossplay with over 2 000 Vehicles including tanks airplanes helicopters and ships there's surely something exciting for everyone to Pilot every vehicle is modeled down to individual components offering an immersive PVP combat experience whether you want something fast-paced and action focused or a tactical and realistic experience War Thunder offers intense PVP battles for all immersion levels and play Styles rather than a traditional hit point system War Thunder focuses on Dynamic and detailed vehicle damage the damage x-ray system shows exactly what happens when you're hit this approach adds a layer of depth you don't get from many free-to-play games click on the link below and start playing War Thunder for free with a large Bonus Pack including premium Vehicles boosters and more today right now go get it thanks for watching guys I don't like to go negative like this but it just really pushed my buttons for an example of when Intel did predict the future of computers go check out our recent video on their Journey inside the computer kit from 1996. it's way more interesting than the view Camp would ever suggest

Channel: Linus Tech Tips

Views: 1,405,684

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Id: NypT2CZdeiI

Length: 15min 34sec (934 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 01 2022