Asus Zenbook 17 Fold review: foldable OLED display with a comfortable keyboard and professional look, but $3,500 is expensive and there are software glitches
It's a 17-inch foldable that actually works — Ever since Samsung Display showed off a 17-inch foldable OLED screen last May …
Context & Ripple Effects
Asus moved from its January Zenbook 17 Fold announcement to a shipping product with a defined $3,500 price. It entered a category Lenovo had already tested with the $2,499 ThinkPad X1 Fold, but at a larger 17-inch scale.
First-order effects
- Asus must sell the Zenbook 17 Fold on its display, keyboard, and professional design while software glitches and its $3,500 price narrow the immediate audience to buyers willing to tolerate early-product trade-offs.
- Potential buyers gain a workable large-screen folding PC option, but face a premium that makes conventional laptops a more straightforward comparison.
Second-order effects
- Lenovo and other foldable-PC vendors face a clearer usability threshold: hardware flexibility alone is insufficient when input and software issues remain visible in reviews.
- The high price establishes an early-category benchmark that later premium designs such as HP's Spectre Fold would have to justify with greater portability or more polished modes.
Third-order effects
- If successive devices continue to pair novel flexible displays with input or software compromises, foldable PCs will remain a premium experimental segment rather than displace conventional laptops.
- The category’s durable differentiator is likely to shift from screen size and folding mechanics toward reliable software behavior across its tablet and laptop configurations.
The trend: Foldable PCs are advancing toward larger, multi-mode OLED designs, while software and input reliability determine whether their premium pricing can broaden adoption.