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LG is the latest company to throw its hat in the foldable laptop/tablet hybrid ring. The company’s new LG Gram 17 Fold has a 17 inch, 2560 x 1920 pixel display that can be folded down the center, allowing you to use the computer like a notebook with two 12.3 inch, 1920 x 1280 pixel displays (one on top, and a second on the bottom.
Like similar computers from Lenovo, Asus, and HP, the LG Gram Fold also comes with a detachable keyboard for folks who prefer physical keys. The LG Gram Fold also has one other thing in common with those other hybrid PCs: It’s expensive. It goes on sale in South Korea next month for roughly $3,725.
There’s no word on if or when the LG Gram Fold will be available outside of South Korea, but the company did issue a global press release noting that the 17 inch foldable OLED display panel it showed off earlier this year has now entered mass production. That suggests even if LG’s foldable laptop isn’t sold worldwide anytime soon, laptops with the company’s new display might be.
As for the LG Gram Fold, it really does look a lot like other devices in this space, but it stands out in a few ways. At 1.25 kg (about 2.76 pounds), it’s one of the lightest foldables with a 17 inch display to date.
At 378.2 x 280 x 9.4mm (14.9″ x 11″ x 0.4″) when unfolded though, it’s not quite the thinnest. That honor would go to the HP Spectre Foldable, which is just 8.5mm thick when unfolded.
The LG Gram Fold is also the 17 inch foldable announced to sport a 13th-gen Intel processor based on Raptor Lake architecture. It’s powered by an Intel Core i5-1335U chip, which is a 15-watt, 10-core, 12-thread processor with 2 Performance cores, 8 Efficiency cores, and Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics.
While that’s hardly the most powerful chip in Intel’s Raptor Lake lineup, it should deliver better performance than the low-power chips used in other foldables we’ve seen. And given what we’ve seen from other devices with this form factor, it’s likely that a low-power processor is a better fit for foldables, given that the big OLED display would be likely be pretty power hungry and that a higher-performance chip would likely sap the computer’s 72 Wh battery in no time.
Other features include 16GB of LPDDR5 6000 MHz memory and a 512GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD. The memory is soldered to the mainboard and is not user upgradeable, but the SSD occupies an M.2 slot, so it should theoretically be replaceable (if you want to risk opening up a foldable PC. The computer has a 1080p IR camera with support for face recognition and comes with a 65-watt power adapter.
There are a limited set of ports, including one Thunderbolt 4 port and one USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 Type-C port.
The computer has three 1.5 watt speakers with support for Dolby Atmos audio. Why three? Because the system detects screen orientation so it can use two speakers to deliver stereo sound no matter what position the screen is in.
The LG Gram Fold has an Intel AX211 wireless card with support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, and comes with a Bluetooth keyboard and a cover that serves as a stand. An optional digtial pen is sold separately.
The things in general I would consider being the ideal for this form factor —
ambient sensor adjusted dynamic brightness OLEDs with aggressive brightness attenuation similar to Apple handheld devices to optimize energy use and minimize eyestrain
easily removable battery and the ability to operate fully bypassing it to maximize longevity
3) keyboard that can function in both wired and wireless modes, with ability to operate without (removable) battery to further maximize longevity
4) ultra-low power class APU so that we can have a fanless x86 or AMD64 device in this form factor
5) hard switches for all the sensors and perhaps even the battery
Testing if comments work.
Would be neat if these had hdmi in so you could also use it as a monitor or second screen
Agreed
Fugly, and pointless.
I don’t find this form factor pointless at all.
To me this looks like a very logical evolution of notebooks/laptops, lapdocks and even portable folded displays. Aside from flip and foldable phones, to me this seems to be an ideal use for this foldable display technology, at least for now.