Seems like a cool idea, but those screens aren’t really ready for this type of prime time.
Foldable phone screens have been around for 5 years, flexible screens longer than that. The tech has been around and ready there’s just not heavy adoption yet.
I have a better idea: a laptop screen that is legible on a sunny day
I want a laptop with a trackpoint, keyboard with good (like Model M) key travel and resistance (and water resilience too), color e-ink display (preferably 5:4 or 4:3 screen ratio) with good refresh rate, everything removable, 5G modem, GPIO, additional SSD slot, good set and amount of interfaces (not an Apple fan), and - important - chassis and hinges not made of shit.
Just in case somebody from Lenovo is lurking here.
Why?
Bigger screen without bigger form factor?
Why not?
It could have been so simple: the display on a roll with a spring and a sensor to keep track and rescale the resolution accordingly. You pull at the top to extend the display to x2 and more and be done. Maybe add a scissor at the back to keep the foil without wrinkles. It would have been old-Lenovo-style sturdy instead of the plaything with a motor that breaks after 2 years.
Bring back the trackpoint you bastards !
They didn’t take the TrackPoint away, did they?!
Edit: They really did… Way to kill a brand guys. I blame every goddamn tech journalist who wanted it gone, fuck you so much.
I blame every goddamn tech journalist who wanted it gone
Weird if heir PMs and such really believed people who are clearly companies’ PR and not representation of anything real, instead of focus groups.
It really seems like every other review of a ThinkPad is written by someone who’s constantly whining about the dimensions of the device (too thick, to bulky) and/or the design, with most of them ending up begging Lenovo to remove the useless nub thing on the keyboard because no one uses it anyways and while they’re at it a larger touchpad and better speakers and bla bla…
Basically, most reviewers expect everything to be a MacBook clone and can’t cope with the fact that business users don’t necessarily care about design.
The reasons old ThinkPads were are better than MacBooks (except for being old) are about design too.
For me ThinkPads are beautiful and convenient, while MacBooks are ugly and inconvenient.
Most people simply don’t have an opinion of their own, they get theirs from “social media influencers” (something that once meant the leaders of that clueless crowd, usually bribed by companies, and now means in fact not separate humans, but teams, employed by companies).
And that’s where Apple shined, it really managed to promise apes a lift in status by backing them. Almost a Fender Stratocaster level feeling. Not just that, if you do some digital archaeology, you’ll find that around year 1999 many people seriously considered Apple to be some kind of counterculture, underground etc thing. That doesn’t work anymore, because Steve Jobs lost the battle against his own ignorance and died, but frankly I think it stopped working after iPhone. Wrong kind of propaganda and wrong kind of audience to be compatible with the old image.
Still that image was rather strong. One can still sometimes find traces of it. Hotline and KDX software, and that idea of convenience of GUI programs.
It’s the thinkpad x9 for anyone that wondered the model.
Pass
Can you make it more ugly and prone to mechanical failure for no gain.
Yeah I can, add a hinge and swivel so it can go widescreen too
slaps screen
you can fit so much “AI” in this bad boy
More like:
Slaps Screen:
Screen flashes in colors only a Mantis Shrimp can see before folding in half and going black…
And more expensive while you’re at it, thanks.
Best we can do is never actually release it.
Put your pre-order in now!
I wouldn’t say no gain. I would love that real estate on my bedside stand I use with physical disability. I would not want the sub 17" form factor and keyboard though. I struggle to do anything super technical without a second screen which is a pain in the ass. I can’t sit at a desktop and the ergonomics of a laptop are unbeatable in my situation.
It looks like when it’s extended it adds a second screen. But it’s vertical, one on top of the other. I feel like doing it horizontally would be more natural to use. Baby steps, I guess.
I have a monitor on a custom made arm that sits above my laptop when I need a second screen.
It works well in a tight space like in a board meeting at a conference table or plane seat. Vertical doesn’t make a real difference in my experience. You just need two spaces that do not move so that you can quickly reference multiple documents and keep your place between them.
Good point. I was thinking of best use case, but really whatever works will do.
The fuck would you even do with a taller screen?
Just treat like side by side screens, so browser and code.
If you are a developer, writing code, the taller screen helps.
My three monitor set up is two landscape monitors on the sides of one glorious portrait monitor for my code.
Two or more windows on top of each other. Have you never even put a monitor on its side to get more vertical space?
As a Dev that needs some communication with a team, documentation and potentially a video for entertainment whilst working. Monitors that are taller are great. The LG dual up is my holy grail right now.
Just a huge portrait screen to to doom scroll through Facebook reels and instagram stories probably
Taller porn…
Oh there’ll be gain. But not for the user.
Bring back the unfolding keyboard (and the gummy trackpoint). 😂
Can they make laptops with hinges that don’t break?
I’ve had two Thinkpads ~15 years and neither had hinges break. The first died due to water damage (the water protection can only do so much), and the second has been with me for almost 7 years now. Both were carried around in backpacks, dropped a few times (current one has a chip from falling off the counter onto a hard floor too many times), and the current one has been abused by young children (slamming the lid, standing on it, etc).
If you’re buying a Lenovo laptop that’s not a Thinkpad, I don’t know what to tell you, that’s on you.
To be fair, Lenovo also made the ThinkPad. You could throw those down a flight of stairs and they wouldn’t break
Source: I once dropped a thinkpad down a flight of stairs.
Meh I reckon 75% of that was IBM. I also had an ideapad that would survive literally nothing
They can, my x230’s hinges are still good
Lenovo is really good at turning the coolest technology into absolutely useless laptops.
They’re completely out of ideas.
I’d be happy with a gaming laptop that doesn’t have hinges that break.
Lenovo might turn your hinge into a screen but giving you a hinge that works is to complicated.
Short rolling demo from the article https://youtube.com/watch?v=ibpaLkvBXQY
How does that work on the software side? I guess you can only slide it out fully, will that part be black while it comes up and then your display automatically changes resolution?
Adaptive screen resolution? Maybe like how phones can auto rotate the image? But less annoying hopefully. Sounds like a future feature if this type of thing takes off.
Edit: Whatching the demo in the article, it looks like they’re adding a screen when it’s extended. Like having another monitor.
There’s a video in the article showing it working
imagine making a laptop case for that
Like a phone case that fits onto it or just a carry bag?
It’s just a 14" laptop.
I have a 15.6" laptop, but I had to reinstall the foreskin, so I’m down to 14" now… ☹️
