Lenovo announces ThinkPad X1 Fold, the first foldable screen laptop

ThinkPad X1 Fold is the first commercially available foldable screen laptop, with Lenovo offering the new product for $ 2499.

First on display at the CES 2020 show in January, the new Lenovo laptop is out of the prototype stage and can be ordered at a price comparable to the Galaxy Fold mini-tablet, with buyers choosing even more display space and full power. a Windows 10 laptop.

The ThinkPad X1 Fold is a 13 ”screen that folds in half

Lightly labeled as a laptop, the new Lenovo product can be described a little better as a 13-inch tablet that folds for transport. But the hardware used is decisively a laptop, the manufacturer opting for the Intel Lakefield platform, supported by 8GB of RAM and a comprehensive set of features: 1TB SSD, SIM card slot and 5G modem, two USB-C ports and 50Whr battery, all in a 1.1Kg housing.

Definitely too heavy and bulky to pass like a real tablet, the ThinkPad X1 Fold laptop adds with 8.5-10 hours of autonomy and the power of the new Core i5-L16G7 processor. Organized in a 5-core + HyperThreading configuration, it has a frequency of 1.4GHz in low-power mode and 3GHz with Turbo Boost, offering a good compromise between power and efficiency. But without a doubt, the main attraction is the OLED screen with a resolution of 2048 × 1536 pixels, calibrated according to the DCI-P3 color standard and capable of reaching a maximum brightness of 300 nits.

Intended primarily for touch interaction, the ThinkPad X1 Fold can be used in “tablet” mode with the screen fully extended, or partially folded to take the approximate shape of a laptop, where the lower half of the screen plays a virtual keyboard and touchpad. Of course, Lenovo also provides a physical keyboard, which can be placed over the remaining half of the screen at the bottom, or directly on the desk. Instead, the 13-inch screen can be used both in full-screen mode and by emulating two glued screens, each half displaying a different application.

In practice, the versatility of the new laptop depends very much on the support provided by Microsoft by optimizing the Windows 10 interface, the current version of the OS being still far from the desired ideal.

Like other foldable screen devices, the ThinkPad X1 Fold probably imposes some precautions to protect the OLED screen, left vulnerable without the protection of a rigid barrier. Technology will probably improve over time. For now, the prohibitive purchase cost is only the first of the challenges that enthusiasts of folding screen devices have to accept, the second being the uncertainty of unproven reliability over time, only partially covered by the more relaxed warranty conditions.