Gadgetory

- Hey, it's Chaim with The Verge and at this point, you've probably heard of the folding phone trend, but this isn't a folding phone. It's a folding PC. (upbeat music) This is a prototype folding PC from Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 line of laptops, and it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a full Windows laptop that you can also fold up. Now what we're using here is a really early prototype, and a lot of the specs haven't really been announced yet, but here's what we do know. It's a 13.3-inch, 4:3 folding display, similar in size to a Huawei MateBook X Pro when it's unfolded, and it's about the size of a hardcover book when it is folded up. The hardware here is by no means final. Lenovo has plans to add an IR camera for Windows Hello and video calls somewhere on the top over here, that's just not on this prototype yet. And things like port placement might get moved around in the final design, too. The idea, though, is the ports will be arranged so that there's always one handy no matter where you're using the device. Whether that's standing up on your desk, lying flat like a tablet, or on your lap. There's also going to be a SIM card slot on the final version somewhere for cellular connectivity, but again, that's just not here yet. Lenovo is promising, though, that the folding ThinkPad is going to be a true laptop-class device. It's not meant to be like a tablet or a companion device that you take on the go when you're away from your laptop, like Lenovo's Yoga Book or Microsoft Surface Go. To that end, Lenovo will be including a miniature keyboard in the box with the folding laptop, so that you won't have to rely on a weird software keyboard or pay extra for an accessory. It'll also come with a Wacom stylus, too. Unfortunately, there's just not a lot we can show off here. There is a functional version of Windows running on this hardware, but the deeper software integration from the foldable display just isn't ready yet. There are a few mock-ups that we can show, though, of what it might be like to use a device like this. So you can browse the web either using the entire display as a touchscreen tablet, or by using the attached keyboard and trackpad like you would with a laptop. You can pull up documents, so you can use it for reading or consulting like it's a kind of digital book. You can split the screen in half, using one half to take notes with the stylus or a digital keyboard, while keeping your source material on the top half. The whole device is pretty cleverly weighted, too. It weighs less than two pounds, but most of that weight is with the battery on one half of the device, so it stays upright on your lap without tipping over. The hinge is pretty strong, too, so it's easy to adjust to whatever angle you'd like. The stylus is attached to the front of the device and is part of the folding mechanism. The front of the outside of the device will actually slide upward when you unfold it, which moves the stylus to the side over here so that it's accessible to grab. Using the device is nice, too. It's a really good size. It weighs about as much as a hardcover copy of one of the larger Harry Potter books for comparison, and the ability to hold it partially folded like a book makes it really comfortable to hold in one hand compared to, say, a rigid tablet, despite the fact that this has a larger display. There's still a lot we don't know about the folding ThinkPad laptop. There's no word yet on battery life, although Lenovo says that it is targeting a full day. And the company has been similarly mum about internal specs, like the processor or RAM, although it will have an Intel chip of some kind. The screen isn't quite finalized yet either. As you can see, the prototype here has really poor viewing angles with these blue-shifted colors when you're tilting the device, which is especially problematic given that if you're using it partially folded, one of those screens is going to be at an angle a lot. To Lenovo's credit, though, the crease is really hard to see and feel, even on this prototype hardware, which is good to see. Although, there's obviously big questions still about the durability of foldable displays, especially in the wake of Samsung's Galaxy Fold. Lenovo does say that it's adding a reinforced protective layer on top of the polymer OLED panel for improved durability, but we're going to have to wait and see how that holds up in the real world before we make any judgements. So yeah, there's still a lot we don't know. We still don't know availability outside of that vague "first half of 2020" window. We don't know price. We don't know what the specs on this thing are, but it's a PC and it folds, which is really cool.