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This summer Lenovo plans to launch the world's first laptop with a rollable OLED display that extends upward to give you 50 percent more screen space when you need it. But the company may have another laptop on the way that lets you double your screen space when you want the power of an extra display.
According to Evan Blass, it's Lenovo plans to unveil a notebook at MWC next month called the Lenovo ThinkBook Flip AI PC. It's basically a laptop with a foldable OLED display that's twice as tall as a typical notebook screen. But since it folds at the middle you can flip the top half so that it's behind the primary display area when you want to save space and/or let someone on the other side of the laptop see a portion of the screen.
In some ways the ThinkBook Flip AI PC is similar to the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i or Asus Zenbook Duo. Those are also "laptops" that give you the equivalent of two full-sized notebook displays. But there are a few key differences.
One is that instead of a single large display that folds in the middle, each of those devices features two separate displays connected by a hinge. The other is that they're both effectively clamshell devices with a single hinge – their keyboards are wireless accessories that can be placed atop one screen or positioned in front of the computer.
The ThinkBook Flip AI PC, meanwhile, has a built-in keyboard and two hinges. When the laptop is "closed," the topmost section of the display faces upward like a tablet. When you lift the screen away from the keyboard, half the screen will face the keyboard and the other half will face away. And when you unfold the top portion of the display, it will extend upward giving you additional screen space.
Honestly, the thing that I'm most excited about here is the built-in keyboard, which indicates that the ThinkBook Flip AI PC is first and foremost a notebook computer with more screen space than most – it's not a tablet with a keyboard that needs to be positioned or connected wirelessly before you can use it.
The thing I'm least excited about is the foldable OLED display panel, which is probably going to make this PC very expensive. I wish Lenovo would have used a dual-screen design instead, which would probably help Lenovo keep the price a little lower.
So far the only company I'm aware of to release a dual-screen laptop with an integrated keyboard and a vertical design (with the screens stacked atop one another) is GPD. And when I reviewed the GPD Duo dual-screen laptop earlier this year, I noted that it seriously changed my perception of what you could do with a portable computer: while the computer looks kind of ridiculous, the extra screen space made me just as productive on the go as I was at home.
But it's hard to recommend the GPD Duo for a few reasons. There were some software bugs at launch. Some of them have been resolved, (Windows and Linux fingerprint drivers were released just this week), but others remain. GPD is a small Chinese company that produces some truly innovative hardware, but which doesn't have a great track record with customer service or long-term support for its products. And perhaps most importantly, few enough GPD Duo units were sold in the first few months that the company has already discontinued production. Once stores sell out of existing inventory, your only chance to get one may be to purchase a used model.
So I'm actually very excited to see a big name PC maker preparing to launch something conceptually similar to the GPD Duo. It probably won't have all the bells and whistles of GPD's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. I wouldn't expect 2.5 GbE LAN or OcuLink ports from Lenovo's ThinkBook Flip AI PC, for example. But even though this will likely be a niche device manufactured in limited quantities, I expect better support from Lenovo than GPD.
There's still a lot we don't know yet though. Blass didn't share any details about the processor, battery life, or other specs. We don't know if this is a real thing you'll be able to buy this year or a concept device that may come to market later. And perhaps most importantly, if the ThinkBook Flip is real, we still have no idea how much it'll cost (although smart money is on "a lot.")
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