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Asus will release a 17“ foldable OLED laptop
- ismayilzadan 5y agoHow long till Linux or Gnome supports these types of laptops? To me this is an incredible concept since I can use it both as another monitor as well as a portable device for a few days of a year during my holiday. If only after it has full Linux support.
- carlsborg 5y agoDepends on the resolution. I have a regular ASUS OLED and it runs linux just fine, at least the display part.
- ismayilzadan 5y agoI can imagine this would work fine too in a full display mode (if that is hardware default), but then when you try to switch to a laptop mode somehow half of the screen needs to turn off and the other half needs to rotate 90 degrees. It sounds like a lot of work.
- moralestapia 5y ago>both as another monitor as well as a portable device I never thought of that and now I want it really bad. I kind of do this everyday, but with a macbook and manually.
- ismayilzadan 5y agoYea, there are many people just using their laptops as a monitor on stand next to their existing monitors. Then they just use whatever separate keyboard they like. So this would essentially remove the bottom part from laptop for extra screen estate.
- dhosek 5y agoThe MacBook-iPad integration for external display use is really quite nice. I don't use it that much right now because I've got a nice extra wide screen monitor next to my laptop stand for when I'm at home and I'm always at home, but I used to, when I would be working at the library in the olden days and it was nice to have an extra screen from time to time.
- SahAssar 5y agoFrom what I read the windows support for the X1 fold is still pretty bad and usually for specialty consumer devices linux support lags behind quite a bit. I was considering buying a X1 fold, but reviews saying windows support was bad (probably since windows X never launched) and no linux support even on the horizon made me hold off.
- grishka 5y ago> How long till Linux or Gnome supports these types of laptops? Approximately one eternity. Desktop Linux still doesn't support: - Using different DPI on a different screen in a multi-monitor setup (common case is when you connect a low-dpi monitor to a high-dpi laptop) - Color depth of more than 8 bits per channel - Color management in general, needed for wide-gamut displays - Any kind of HDR functionality And hardware that has these features that Linux can't make use of due to a series of unfortunate architectural decisions has existed for a long time.
- Lio 5y ago> Using different DPI on a different screen in a multi-monitor setup (common case is when you connect a low-dpi monitor to a high-dpi laptop) Linux definitely does support this. I use this exact feature with Gnome and Wayland daily to combine a 4K XPS13 with a 27” 1440p monitor.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoI wasn't able to get it to work as recently as two years ago. Would you share a link to your recipe?
- vetinari 5y agoJust use wayland, done.
- Too 5y agoWould have loved to agree, but unfortunately using nvidia.
- LukeShu 5y agoI did a write-up of the low-levels of how it works on Xorg: https://reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/c8hgt8/my_laptop_has_a_high_dpi_and_im_currently_looking/esn0x71/ https://reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/c8hgt8/my_laptop_has... Missing from that: - Gnome actually does the scaling in the compositor, not in the X server itself. - Most desktop environments should be doing all that for you. At the time I wrote that (over 2 years ago), in Gnome you had to go in to an advanced settings menu and enable "experimental fractional scaling"; I'm not sure if that's still true today. - Some things pick up the DPI from the XSETTINGS protocol, not from the XRDB. Specifically, parts of Java's AWT/Swing do this. But other parts use the XRDB. And they conflict with eachother. When I last looked at Swing (April-ish 2020) it was impossible to get it to do the right thing on X11 (I was working on a patch, but then I had some life disruptions and never came back to it).
- xwdv 5y agoMaybe in the year 2050.
- chrismorgan 5y ago> Endless possibilities. (Okay, four, but still.) I like it. People bandy terms like “infinite” about too freely.
- rektide 5y agoBased on the specs I'm expecting this to be out of my budget, but I really really want to replace my everyday-carry 12" tablet with this. It'd be so awesome to have a much bigger screen, of such brilliant specifications. I have to hand it to Apple, they have been pushing the bounds of what we expect from consumer/pro-sumer displays. I expect this will be out of range, but decent screen specs are starting to become more available across more price points, and that's great. With really good computing hardware being the norm, competing to offer a good display on your laptop is a great feature. More and more companies, like Asus here, are being forced to respond, are having to up their game. Tricks like this here that Asus is pulling- of making more screen real estate available in a more compact form- that's really really a nice trick. It's almost certainly- alas- going to come at that exotic price point, not be the across-the-board competition I just spoke of. But I'm still excited to see it.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y agoBased on the price of Samsung foldable phones, the screen alone puts this thing outside my budget. From a productivity standpoint, I’d prefer 2 normal screens like the MS Duo. This is really early adopter stuff.
- sparrish 5y agoThis is an Asus product, not an Apple product.
- rektide 5y agoYes I know. In my view, the Liquid Retina XDR displays have raised the bar though. They have created a mass-awareness & a pressure in the rest of the market, that has driven others to compete & innovate. I know Apple isn't the first either, but previous high-quality display notebooks existed in a niche, whereas the Macbook Pro is kind of the a stock-standard industry-default computing choice that so-happens to set the display bar very very high.
- rhino369 5y agoCool tech. How come burn in isn't an issue for OLEDs on laptops? Seems to be an issue for TV.
- zitterbewegung 5y agoWho says it isn't? A big part would be that the screens are smaller but eventually you will get burn in. Being an early adopter has its price. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWrFEU_605g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWrFEU_605g
- SketchySeaBeast 5y agoNo reason to assume it isn't. I think the hope is that you'll replace this before it becomes apparent.
- wvenable 5y agoI have an Asus OLED laptop and burn in is an issue for these as well. You can enable anti-burn in features (like pixel shift) just like an OLED TV.
- formerly_proven 5y agoAlso flickering. Yes, it's a problem for OLED displays. One might assume (like I did) that if you don't have a backlight, you couldn't have that problem in an active-matrix display, but because OLEDs tend to have quite wild shifts in color over their full dynamic range OLEDs are usually driven with some sort of dual-sweep scanout which turns the pixels off completely between frames for dim outputs. As I understand it, the drive regime for these is somewhere between a DMD (clever PWM for brightness control, purely digital) and a normal TFT (purely analog control).
- throwaway4good 5y agoWho produces the display?
- systemvoltage 5y agoNo thanks. Bad idea to replace the keyboard and have to carry a separate thing. There is a reason why the current laptop format is popular. That said, why do I have a sinking feeling that this is going to be widely popular? People will buy this like there is no tomorrow. And then, 10 years later, physical keyboard will be a new reversing trend.
- MBCook 5y ago> There is a reason why the current laptop format is popular Because Apple invented it with the PowerBook 100 series and no one has come up with anything better? That doesn’t mean there isn’t something out there. PC makers have tried. Apple tried. Nothing has stuck as well. This may be the thing that does it. We’ll have to see. That said I kind of doubt this thing works. I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets delayed. If it doesn’t I bet it has serious problems like the first Samsung folding phones did. Whether this is THE new successful design or not, I can’t imagine someone hitting it out of the park with the first try.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago> Because Apple invented it with the PowerBook 100 series and no one has come up with anything better? No, I think it's because laptops have 2 primary things going for them: 1. They're portable 2. They're all-in-one (primarily, there's still the charger) I agree with the GP post, the folding screen seems more like a novelty at this point given it forces you to sacrifice (a) an included keyboard and (b) with the keyboard separate, you are limited to the places you can actually use the laptop (I know I'm probably rare but I actually use my laptop on my lap on the couch). I think that's also why tablets are successful, they're even more portable and they're still all in one. I think a portable computing device that doesn't satisfy those characteristics is going to have an uphill battle.
- MBCook 5y agoWith the PowerBook 100 series reference I was referring to the way the laptop was laid out. Obviously other people made things that look like laptops before. It didn’t take people long to figure out the screen goes on top and the keyboard goes on the bottom. But other than that things weren’t exactly standardize the way they are today. Much of the time the keyboard was near the bottom of the case instead of the top, so there was no wrist rest area. And then you had the problem of the mouse which was just starting to get popular. Some laptops had a little tiny joystick/control pad thingy next to the screen in the bezel. Some, like Compaq, offered a track ball that would mount onto the side of the computer. Or people put a little tiny track ball up next to the screen. One very creative company had a little tiny pop out mouse. But Apple was the first one to put the keyboard near the back, giving you wrist rests upfront, and put the trackball (later trackpad) in the middle of the front. The layout practically every laptop uses today. The only real serious attempt at changing things I’m aware of would be machines where you can either turn the display around to use it like a tablet, or remove the keyboard all together like the Surface.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoIt's cool. I suspect that it might not be a bad idea to wait for the foldable screen tech to mature, though. I think that we will be seeing quite a few mechanical problems with various foldable devices. For myself, it isn't particularly compelling to have a foldable laptop. A foldable phone/tablet would be more my speed.
- onemoresoop 5y agoSame here, no thanks, I don't want to be an early tester who pays premium price. There may be nothing wrong with this but I'd rather pass for now.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mellosouls 5y agoVery cool. It may be worth pointing out to those who love the idea of more screen estate in your laptop bag but are not aware of existing options that you can already do this by packing one or more portable screens. Less street cred than the featured gizmo but available now and likely a heck of a lot cheaper. I currently have a portable screen, keyboard, flat mouse and foldable laptop riser with my laptop in it's bag - though haven't used them altogether in public for fear of being "that guy".
- pottertheotter 5y agoWhat portable screen do you have?
- kjaftaedi 5y agoWhen I was doing this, I would just use a tablet. Android, iPad, Windows, they all have monitor extending software and have for at least a decade now. Saves you the need to by a screen if you've already got a tablet lying around somewhere.
- crtasm 5y agoCan you do this over a wired connection on Android?
- csdvrx 5y ago
- nonesuchluck 5y ago"Laptop?" More like, revenge of the luggable!
- throwJan22 5y agoI'm surprised its so hard to find cheap low powered laptops with big screens and a good keyboard. Usually big screens means GPU and high end components. Esp in this era of cloud computing I only need a browser and a terminal on a 16+ in screen. I'd love a MacBook air with a big screen, why is it so hard?
- MBCook 5y agoAt this point it wouldn’t surprise me if the screen is one of the most expensive parts of a laptop. So I’m not sure there’s much of a market for people who want a really big screen but cheap everything else.
- raihansaputra 5y agoYeah I'd like this too. MBA M1 with the non-notch MBP 16" screen and speakers would be great.
- rchaud 5y agoIn the Windows world, "big" screen meant 15.6" 1366x768 panels, which where always accompanied by equally sad processor and RAM specs.
- fomine3 5y agoI wish OLED burn in problem solved. I can't get into OLED display (except smartphone, because I sign insurance and buy every 2 years) until it solved.
- ant6n 5y agoKeyboard travel on a screen in clamshell mode is probably poor.
- m0llusk 5y agoWhat I would most love from Asus would be a low end laptop released with high quality drivers including source code. That would be awesome and something I could really use.