Lenovo’s laptop with rollable screen possibly spotted – and I’m not sure whether it’s a great idea, or a disaster waiting to happen -

We’ve glimpsed possible pics of Lenovo’s new rollable laptop
The purported ThinkBook Plus is set to be shown off at CES 2025
The notebook looks similar to an earlier concept seen at MWC 2023

Lenovo seemingly has a laptop in the pipeline for CES 2025 with a unique twist in that the device has a screen which unrolls itself to make for a much taller portrait-style display.

This innovation from Lenovo was prototyped by the company last year, and now appears to have come to fruition (add in a healthy dollop of skepticism at this point, as there’s no official word from Lenovo on this).

Well-known leaker Evan Blass shared pics of the laptop on X, noting that it’s a sixth-generation ThinkBook Plus and that it’s the first laptop with a ‘rollable’ screen, or the first to be commercially available anyway.

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus rollable screen laptop leaked images — (Image credit: Evan Blass)

Lenovo is purportedly set to show off the ThinkBook at CES 2025, and it appears to be similar to a previous prototype device that was demoed at MWC 2023, as The Verge reports (check out the video below).

Essentially, you’d press a button on the side of the laptop chassis and the screen rolls up, out of the base, on some kind of sliding rail mechanism (and back down again when you’re done with using the embiggened display).

Lenovo made a rolling laptop – YouTube
Lenovo made a rolling laptop - YouTube

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It’s only roll n’ roll (but I like it – or do I?)

If this laptop is real, fair play to Lenovo in being the first laptop vendor to innovate in producing an actual laptop that’s going to be on shelves (presumably in 2025) with a rollable display. Assuming these pictures are legit, of course, though Blass is one of the more reliable rumor peddlers out there.

The rollable screen isn’t a new concept and we’ve seen a few prototype devices along these lines. Furthermore, Samsung’s first rollable phone might debut next year, so 2025 could be the year that rollables really start, er, rolling out.

The idea of this possible rollable ThinkBook Plus is that you can use the laptop normally, but when you need more screen real estate, you can have it. That extra-tall display could be very handy for poring over long documents or treating it like two screens atop each other – having one app above another.

You could, say, be writing a piece in a document in the lower half of the screen, and looking at a web page explaining something relevant to the topic you’re writing on, in a browser on top. Or playing a game in a window (Windows 11 can do that properly, with no lag) while glancing at a walkthrough on YouTube simultaneously. It’ll also be great for RPGs (by which I mean ‘roll-playing’ games – sorry).

The potential catch, for me, is that the mechanics of such a rollable screen add a lot of possible pitfalls into the mix. Normally, a laptop has a screen with a hinge and that’s that. Here, there’s obviously a much more complex setup of moving parts, and therefore more to go wrong (probably a lot more).

The other worry is the wear and tear on the screen itself as it’s constantly unrolled, then rolled up, over and over. These physical design aspects and potential weak points leading to greater chances of something going awry do worry me, especially in the first generation of a piece of hardware.

Still, without innovation, we wouldn’t get anywhere, so I should probably shut up and keep my doubt-casting to a minimum. Perhaps a sturdy warranty from Lenovo could help allay some fears, too. I’m intrigued by the possibility of this device, certainly, and hope to see it fully demonstrated at CES very soon, and then perhaps vying for a spot in our best laptops roundup later next year.

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