We have some thoughts about folding laptops...

[ivycomb]

Foldable devices are here, or more specifically, foldable displays. Laptops and notebooks fold to make things more portable, but what if we folded the display itself?

 

 

[8tg]

Time and time again it’s shown with those awful folding phones that the screen plastic layers just fail eventually.

 

It feels like nothing more than a gimmick that means your screen will have a dead zone in a few months.

On the laptop front the prime example of these being a more “because we can” type product rather than anything actually useful is the Thinkpad X1 Fold. Which has the amazing attributes such as:

-being almost 3000$

-only having an upgradable SSD and getting to it involves permanent damage to the machine

-being one of the only devices to have a 5 core 5 thread processor for some reason?

-not just having limited upgrade potential but not even having any options besides different ram quantities, SSD’s or LTE connectivity

-folding screen area fails within a few months and if you didn’t buy a warranty you’re screwed

 

theyre cool but it isn’t worth it unless you just like collecting tech. These products exist to be bought by extremely high end, very wealthy collectors who will put them on a shelf 

[kelvinhall05]

14 minutes ago, 8tg said:

folding screen area fails within a few months and if you didn’t buy a warranty you’re screwed

I think that being a laptop really helps in this regard because they can give the screen a much larger folding radius without it looking stupid, so the potential for a crease is greatly minimized. But who knows what's gonna happen tbh.

 

I don't think it's gonna stay perfect but I don't think it'll be as bad as a folding phone.

[Bramimond]

The only reason this is cool is because of the bigger screen you get in a portable format, but personally I think this line of products is a dead end as soon as AR glasses become a thing people can buy, since then you get big "screens" in an almost unnoticeable form factor.

 

And I'd pay a few thousand bucks just for the convenience of being able to read while taking a walk without having to fumble with a device in your hands that you have to pay attention to.

[Streetguru]

Riley you foolish fool, you can use the pen while charging that way. Unlike the apple mouse.

They just need a Ryzen APU version

[Nystemy]

Personally think it seems a bit too much of a gimmick with too many compromises to hit a budget. In short, it is another Acer Iconia. _{(The dual screen laptop from 2010 with far too mediocre specs to properly work, especially for the price point it sold at. It managed to fail so spectacularly that other companies didn't even tried doing anything similar for the next 8 or so years after it. Despite windows 8 with good touch support being around since 2012...)}

 

Also, in regards to pressure levels on drawing pencils, if they have 1024 or 8192 levels doesn't matter much in practice, even to people who do actually draw professionally. _{(Not to mention how a lot of applications don't support more than the old fashioned 1024 pressure levels, and a ton of applications don't even care about pressure either, and some programs even scale it down to 256 levels internally... Not to mention that a good drawing pen should also have tilt and rotation sensing too.)}

 

Then it is also a good question about the long term reliability of the product.

Though, the laptop form factor should offer up a larger bend radius than what we have seen in phones, so that should reduce some of the worst issues.