For a standard laptop firm, Lenovo by no means fails to make a splash at CES, no matter whether or not the experimental merchandise are literally sensible to make use of.
This 12 months, the corporate has not one however two laptops with rollable OLED screens, one among which is a gaming laptop computer that may broaden its show horizontally, including an additional eight inches of display screen actual property—all with the press of only a single key.
You by no means knew you wanted a display screen that would do this, however it’s precisely the type of oddball tech CES is all about.
Rolling Out
{Photograph}: Luke Larsen
{Photograph}: Luke Larsen
The primary rollable experiment this 12 months is probably the most daring, the Legion Professional Rollable Idea. It’s a 16-inch gaming laptop computer with a display screen that may broaden horizontally to a 21.5-inch “Tactical” mode, or all the way in which as much as a 24-inch “Enviornment” mode. Let’s be actual: a display screen a lot wider than the laptop computer housing it seems wacky. And it requires the laptop computer lid to be comically thick.
However with the recognition of ultrawide exterior displays for gaming, it does make a certain quantity of sense. A 24-inch display screen coming from the footprint of a 16-inch laptop computer is fairly superior particularly for those who’re somebody who desires to take their gaming laptop computer on the go, whether or not whereas touring and even simply from one a part of your own home to a different. Just like the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable OLED laptop computer that got here out final 12 months, the total OLED display screen is hidden till triggered to unroll with a key press. On this case, the laptop computer makes use of two motors that unrolls the display screen in each instructions concurrently, providing you with that ultrawide facet ratio when totally expanded. Past that, it is constructed on the chassis of a Legion Professional 7i, so in principle a laptop computer like this could characteristic high-end elements much like what’s in that mannequin, like RTX 5090 graphics and the most recent Intel processors.
Going Up
Lenovo has additionally introduced the ThinkPad Rollable XD Idea, which iterates on its earlier rollable design that expands the display screen vertically. It nonetheless begins with smaller OLED show (this time a 13.3-inch display screen) and will be expanded as much as 16 inches with one keystroke. That is an much more dramatic transformation than final 12 months’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, which begins at a 14-inch dimension earlier than rising.
Relatively than hiding the additional display screen actual property rolled up below the hinge, this new idea provides you employ of it on the lid. Lenovo calls this a “world-facing” display screen, however it’s not clear precisely what the use case for this extra show space can be. The demo unit had some placeholder widgets however nothing that functioned but.
This isn’t Lenovo’s first exploration of placing screens on the lid, however to this point they’ve been always-on, digital-ink screens that solely sip energy and do not tax the battery an excessive amount of. I do just like the look of this design higher, particularly having the ability to see the display screen wrap across the high. The issue is that it requires the webcam to take a seat over on the facet, type of like on an iPad. Positively not an excellent spot for video calls.
Each of those rolling-screen computer systems are mere ideas at this level, however Lenovo has a monitor document of really releasing a few of these flashy tech ideas.
Lenovo can also be saying the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist. This was an idea we first noticed a couple of years in the past, which makes use of a motorized hinge to twist the display screen round in both path. This allows the gadget to observe you round a room throughout a video name and even rework into pill mode simply by utilizing a voice command. It nonetheless appears like a little bit of a piece in progress, however it exhibits that these proof-of-concept tasks are extra than simply novelties.
