CES is as predictable as the tides. New, marginally better graphics cards are announced along with several bad announcements about AI. Improvements in TV technology are promised but nothing earth-shattering happens. This year TVs are transparent, which is conceptually interesting for industrial applications or a nightclub in a John Wick movie but look like they would suck to watch. Most of this stuff is meaningless and forgettable, but every year I get to play my favorite game: who is making a weird-ass productivity display this year.
Well, this year it’s ASUS, with a folding OLED for productivity dubbed the Asus ZenScreen Fold. It’s got a max resolution of 2560 x 1920 at 120hz, is 17.3 inches and folds in half to fit into your backpack. It’s like those folding cell phones that some of your Android friends seem to like, although I have always thought those were novelties, while this has an actual utility: namely shoving a full monitor into your backpack in a neat, compact package.
I am going to be honest: I would probably fuck with this thing. Portable monitors have gotten really good in the last few years, you can get a 4k120 monitor off of Aliexpress or Taobao for not a lot of money and they’re great for productivity. My good friend used to carry his around along with a small form factor PC workstation so he could set up a full render machine on the go, and it always performed well. I have an iPad mini that I use for this purpose with my Macbook Air when I need to get work done. I can completely see myself pulling this freakish thing out of my backpack, and instantly transforming into the worst person in the coffee shop by a clear margin. ASUS also announced this freaky laptop called the Zenbook Duo with two screens that seems to riff on the fascinating but very flawed Yogi Book 9i. I am not buying either of those things, but I respect their commitment to doing that kind of crap.
More broadly, this is in keeping with a bigger trend: namely that at least once a year a company throws a bone to the Productivity Freaks, of which I am one. These are people set up to maximize and expand their setup in new and increasingly grotesque ways. Products like LG’s 16:10 ratio DualUp monitor are exclusively for this niche category, but more organically this applies to anyone who has several monitors on VESA arms because they watched Serial Experiments Lain at a formative age. People who are way too into Cyberdecks, people who understand what ergonomics are practically. Think of the worst and/or best person in IT at your job–that’s one of them. Hell, maybe you are that person. It’s an impulse that comes from the same primal place as grotesque overclocked PC builds, but it manifests in something both more profane and professional.
Anyway, I don’t know if this thing is going to be good or not. It’ll probably be fine? It’s not the best in terms of resolution, but it’s HDR, which is nice. They haven’t announced what it costs but my guess is “overpriced for what it is but I might buy it on sale.” So though I don’t like giving companies credit, I gotta applaud ASUS for putting out an entirely new shape of monitor. We need more intricate and specific shapes. A sphere perhaps? A rhombus? Maybe a productivity diamond next time that folds into a triangle or something. Surprise me!
Anyway, congrats to the Asus ZenScreen Fold, you’re the winner of Aftermath’s first annual Weirdly Shaped CES Monitor Award. There are no other CES awards we give so far, because none of us are there or really care in any meaningful way. Give yourself a round of applause!
