Computer makers are taking a page from smartphone developers by releasing foldable laptops.
Few laptops genuinely turn heads in our tech-saturated age, but I could see people in my local café trying to figure out what on Earth I was using.
Clearly a fair amount of the appeal of the Thinkpad X1 Fold is pose value: as I clipped and unclipped the pen and unfolded the huge bendy screen, I felt like I was in a science fiction movie.
With a huge screen standing up vertically from the keyboard, folded in the middle, Lenovo’s Thinkpad X1 Fold is definitely not ‘just another laptop’ – and it’s just one of a wave of bendy-screen laptops going on sale in coming months.
The Thinkpad X1 Fold can be used in many different ways (Lenovo)
The tablet format is almost square, and the screen looks great (Pix Rob Waugh)
The Thinkpad X1 Fold is an upgraded version of Lenovo’s folding PC (the world’s first), and is now armed with a huge 16.3-inch OLED screen.
Like the latest wave of folding phones, the screen now feels solid and durable, and folds over with barely a wrinkle to be seen.
Versatility is the idea you can flip it from being a bendy vertical screen to a wide screen laptop, to a clamshell laptop with a ‘virtual’ keyboard on screen to a very large tablet, all with the help of a sturdy stand which attaches magnetically to the back.
For some reason, you can even clip the separate QWERTY keyboard over the bottom half of the screen and turn it into a normal laptop.
There’s also a pen which clicks magnetically onto the top, which allows you to draw on screen.
Lenovo unveiled an early version of this device at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2020, but the revamped version has a huge and gorgeous OLED screen (which is almost square, in 16:3 aspect ratio).
Rivals such as HP and LG have announced their own versions, and Asus already has one on the market.
So – as ever with any tech innovation – the big question is: ‘Why?’
The big sell here is clearly the screen, which is massive and lovely (it’s great with films, although the unusual shape means you have black bars at the top and bottom).
You can use it in a book format (Lenovo)
It’s surprisingly comfortable to type on screen (Pix Rob Waugh)
There’s a magnetic pen which you can use to take notes and draw on screen (Pix Rob Waugh)
The folding aspect means that you can get a whole lot of screen into a bag pretty easily: folded up, this is absolutely tiny.
It’s actually very comfortable to use vertically (the idea being you can use it for coding or editing long documents), and it actually feels quite natural to have a slight kink in the middle.
It’s surprisingly comfortable to use with the on-screen keyboard, and I could see it being useful for multi-tasking travellers even without the optional QWERTY add-on.
Like the top end of the folding phone market, the screen folds totally flat here, with no space in the middle (it sounds like a tiny detail, but having no ‘gap’ makes it fold flatter, feel more durable and attract less dust).
In contrast to early folding phones, this feels pretty indestructible, and has military-grade durability specifications: I had no fears about putting it in a shoulder bag (with the screen folded over, obviously, I’m not a psychopath).
The bendy screen opens up a lot of possibilities (Nenovo)
It’s fast and responsive, regardless of whether you are scribbling on screen (Pix Rob Waugh)
It’s fast and responsive, regardless of whether you are scribbling on screen, typing or using the touchscreen with your fingers.
The keyboard pairs via Bluetooth, and is a very decent keyboard complete with mouse pad and navigation nub in the middle.
Battery life is great, lasting a day of moderate use easily, with a fast-charge mode for quick top-ups.
There is, of course, one fairly major ‘but’: the price.
Starting at $2,499.00 and rising to more than $4,000, many models are more than all three laptops my family uses put together.
There’s always a price to pay for being an early adopter, of course (just as there is with the current generation of folding phones), so for now this is a no-holds-barred deluxe device for people who want to enjoy the latest tech first.
But this a device that definitely has potential as well as pose value – so expect to see more of these folding machines in coming years…
