Intel: Foldable PCs Are Coming, and Our Evo Platform Is Ready for Them

Intel’s seal of approval for laptops—the Evo platform—is expanding to a new class of (unproven) products: notebooks with foldable displays.

“We’re adding a specification for foldable-display-based systems,” said Intel’s VP for Mobile Innovation, Josh Newman, during a briefing with journalists last month in advance of CES 2022. 

The company plans on revealing more details at this week's CES conference in its virtual keynote. But during the briefing, Newman showed a presentation slide that teased the Evo badge will be coming to large laptops that contain a touch screen that covers the entire front side of the device.  

Two years ago, at CES 2020, Intel demonstrated its own concept for a laptop with a foldable display, which it dubbed “Horseshoe Bend.” Its main selling point was how it could unfold into a 17-inch touch-screen tablet, or flex into a laptop-like “L” shape. But at the time, it was a mere proof of concept.

Meanwhile, Lenovo released its own foldable notebook/tablet, the ThinkPad X1 Fold, but it earned a mediocre review from us due to its high cost and sluggish performance. 

Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Fold
(Photo: Zlata Ivleva)

Intel is now signaling the technology behind the foldable tech is more mature and ready to enter more products. “As we’ve been working with our partners, and our display vendors, we’re getting a lot closer. And you might expect to see some OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] talk about this,” Newman said. 

Hail, Athena (and ‘Alder Lake')

During the briefing, Newman also discussed upcoming changes to the Evo platform, which officially launched a year ago. The Evo program, previously known as Project Athena, represents Intel’s effort to push PC makers to create laptops that offer fast performance in real-world testing. 

The Intel Evo badge on a certified laptop
(Photo: Intel)

For example, to qualify as an Evo laptop, the machine has to meet a number of performance and feature requirements:

• Sustain at least nine hours of battery life over a 1080p screen

• Wake from sleep in less than one second

• Be able to recharge the battery, to at least four hours of juice, in under 30 minutes

• Have Wi-Fi 6 and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity

Intel is now preparing for the third iteration of the Evo platform, which will require the laptops to adopt the company’s 12th Generation Core “Alder Lake” mobile processors, which were unveiled today.  

The third edition also raises the qualification bar by requiring the product to add support for Wi-Fi 6E and dynamic background-noise suppression. In addition, Intel is pushing PC vendors to add a 1080p web camera, although it’s not a strict requirement. 

The company also plans on testing the products in further real-world scenarios focused on online collaboration. This means the laptop will be certified to run fast when it comes to loading Zoom calls, using screen-sharing, and multi-tasking with various programs. 

“We’re not just doing that on a clean OS start,” Newman said. “We actually have all the typical background applications people have open, and we’re connected to Wi-Fi, of course, to test and assure, and tune these systems.” 

The battery life test will also be tougher to pass. “As we go to the third edition, we’ve made that battery life scenario a little more real-world,” he said. “We’ve added Bluetooth-connected devices to that, which people typically have while they’re working.”

The other notable change is how the Evo platform is going to include larger laptops that run Intel 12th Generation Core H-series processors and the company’s upcoming discrete Arc GPUs. The H-series is best known for powering gaming notebooks, but they tend to guzzle energy and operate over a thick package. 

Newman said these Evo laptops will still feature strong battery life, but also the high performance that power users expect. “So you’ll see more 15-inch and 16-inch designs as we go into the next year,” he added. “We’re really excited about that extension Intel Evo promises to a wider range of design choice points.”