HP Specter Fold is the world's thinnest 17-inch foldable PC

Over the past few years, companies in the PC sector have been engaged in a slow, but steady race to create foldable laptops that people will actually want to buy. Various companies have entered the field. Lenovo has created a foldable ThinkPad. Asus creates foldable ZenBook. And HP, not to be missed, is giving a foldable effort like the old college one.

The company has announced the HP Specter Fold, a Windows laptop with a 17-inch OLED screen that folds in half. It claims that the Fold is the world's thinnest and smallest foldable PC at 17 inches. The competition isn't particularly stiff here – there are very few of these 17-inch foldables on the market – but it feels like it weighs just under three pounds, which is impressively light for a 17-inch device. ,

Now, if you were actually thinking about buying this thing, please be warned: the starting price is $4,999.99. This is one of the most expensive laptops ever released, and will be quite expensive compared to other laptops in this category. The ThinkPad X1 Fold is priced at $2,499 and the ZenBook Fold is priced at $3,499. For asking so much money, one might expect the Specter Fold to be something pretty spectacular. We'll have to wait a little longer to find out if this is the case.

Although the Specter Fold features HP's familiar Specter branding and design, it feels like a similar package to the foldables that came before. Laid flat, it's a 17-inch tablet. Remove the built-in kickstand to stand on its long edge, and it becomes a 17-inch laptop. Fold said tablet at a 90-degree angle and place a magnetic Bluetooth keyboard on the bottom half, and it becomes a 12.3-inch clamshell. The conceit of these machines is that they offer more versatility than a traditional laptop or Windows tablet, and they can pack a larger screen size into a form factor that's easier to carry around.

So what does the Specter Fold offer that's different from the ThinkPad or ZenBook? AI, apparently. HP claims the Specter Fold is "the world's first foldable PC with built-in AI for security, well-being, and gesture control." This will enable features like "a customized computing experience that's focused on you". There will be screen time reminders and "touch-free content control" (okay, I admit I'm curious about that), as well as presence detection that locks the computer and wakes it up when you leave your workstation. Is. will be able to do. When you come back. None of these, on the surface, are unheard of for a laptop, especially one costing thousands of dollars, so I guess we'll have to see.

In short, the Specter will include Intel's Core i7-1250U, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. The panel is a 3:4 OLED with a 1920 x 2560 resolution. (The Specter line is known for having incredible screens, so I'm looking forward to that.) And don't worry, video callers: HP's GlamCam, which does exactly what it sounds like, is here too.

The ThinkPad original X1 Fold had poor battery life, and its keyboard was so small that it was basically impossible to type on it. Lenovo showed off the second-generation Fold, which was supposed to fix some of its predecessor's problems last time, but it hasn't been released yet. Asus's ZenBook, with its brilliant 17-inch screen, was a more viable product, but it still suffered from various software glitches in my testing process – the dock kept disappearing, the desktop would often automatically flip when the laptop's orientation changed. Was. I was failing, and so was I. Always together on video call.

It would be great if HP was able to run Windows well with a foldable form factor, provide excellent battery life (the company claims you'll get up to 12 hours) and offer a usable magnetic keyboard. . Which does not feel like a tight toy. Still friend. Five grand. That's a lot of money.