Latest news with #ThinkBook
Gizmodo
6 days ago
- Gizmodo
Screw Foldables: Lenovo's Rollable ThinkBook Proves There Are Better Uses for Flexible Screens
With a buzz and a whirl, my laptop begins to unfurl. In less than six seconds after the press of a button, my petit 14-inch ThinkBook stands erect over my desk with a taller 16.7-inch display. There is literally nothing else like Lenovo's ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, and that's partially why it costs a whopping $3,300. And you know what? There are few things cooler in laptop world than watching your screen expand from its original size. When you're dropping a hefty chunk of change on a laptop of this size, its benefits need to outweigh any tradeoffs. As cool the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable is, when you actually use it, you'll find the joy of having a towering screen is actually one of its more annoying flaws. Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable It's an enormously expensive laptop with a limited gimmick. But, hey, it's the most-usable way to bring a larger screen on the go. Pros Cons Normally, these kinds of 'concept' devices never leave the lab. When they do, companies bring them out for journalists and influencers to fool around with before being whisked off to gadget Elysium. Lenovo deserves credit for being ballsy enough to bring the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable to market. After all, how will we know if something may become a game changer unless we regular folk have a chance to play with it in our plebeian hands? I'd love to encourage innovation, but a rollable device that costs more than two laptops combined needs to meet or beat what's expected from both a 14- or a 16-inch laptop, no matter which way up the screen is facing. At nearly three times the cost of other lightweight laptops, the Rollable ends up feeling weirder and occasionally more limited than a traditional device despite its neat party trick. Despite its unique mechanism, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable houses a similar kind of screen you find on many foldable phones. These flexible displays are way thinner than the ones on other laptops, which means they can twist, bend, or—in this case—spool out several inches from the laptop's main body. There have been multiple attempts at folding laptops, including Lenovo-made devices like the ThinkPad X1 Fold 16. The Rollable feels much more like a traditional laptop—and that's to its benefit. It still functions like a laptop no matter if you're using the 14- or near-17-inch mode. Either way, the OLED panel comes with all the benefits of organic light-emitting diode screens with self-emitting light, including a high color accuracy and deep, inky blacks. The laptop even packs Dolby Vision HDR for better contrast when you're streaming your favorite shows on Netflix or Disney+. Just know the taller screen won't let you watch content much larger than usual in its normal 9:16 aspect ratio. At the office, I prefer to work on widescreen monitors over a longer, portrait-style display. Then again, there are plenty of coders or writers who like to scroll less. There's nothing better than getting to read through an article without needing to jump to the trackpad. It also allows for multiple windows stacked on top of each other. Windows 11 already has a tiling system that makes it easy to put your apps where you want them. For some reason, Lenovo provides yet another tiling app through the device-specific software called ThinkBook Workspace. The app opens automatically when you unfurl the screen. If you use that app's specific tiling feature, it places a black bar between each app, and if you want that screen real estate back, you have to close the app. The ThinkBook Workspace includes a sometimes-handy 'Smart Copy' mode to access all your copy and pastes from your recent clipboard. It takes a little too long to load, considering most browser extensions with the same capabilities are near instantaneous. Workspace is necessary for the Rollable due to some apps not supporting the abnormal aspect ratio. But as I found out, it also gets increasingly annoying the more you interact with it—like a rat-catching feline who tends to leave a furball on your bedspread every night. Even if you would rather do without, Workspace is not something you can easily remove through settings or the Control Panel. I gave up, and just let it be. At first, it felt very strange to go a full workday staring at a laptop screen without any bottom bezel. When rolled out, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable sports wide bezels on top and thinner ones on the bottom. Laptop purists who demand the same size bezels all around may balk at how it looks, but it's the screen that counts most, and what's here looks very, very nice. That's not to say there aren't many strange considerations about the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable you need to take into account. The screen doesn't tilt any further back than around 110 degrees, which—depending on the angle of your body and your sitting position—may not offer the best screen experience. The laptop won't roll out unless it's at least around 90 degrees open. If the screen is rolling and you start to fold the laptop lid, the mechanism will stop and the laptop will scream at you until you tilt it back to the correct position. You can't choose to stop the rolling mechanism while it's going. So while the laptop is technically more versatile than your typical thin and light, you won't be able to use it like you could any laptop with a screen that stays put. The big problem with other foldable laptops is that the need for the hinge and slim body limits the space these devices usually have for larger batteries. Without enough space, laptop makers can't include more powerful processors, RAM, and all the other specs that would push the performance you need on a portable big-screen device. I experienced this lack of performance firsthand on devices like the $5,000 HP Spectre Fold and Lenovo's own $2,500 ThinkPad X1 Fold 16. The end result is a device you don't actually want to use despite being more portable. The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable doesn't have that problem. It's packing an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU and the integrated Intel Arc 140V graphics. It contains all the expected specs, such as a 1TB SSD, 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a 66Wh battery. The Core Ultra Series 2 chips made their debut last year, and they're still a relatively strong option on small, portable machines. I found the Intel Core Ultra 258V behaved as well as can be expected when the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable was plugged in on performance mode. There's no real performance loss between using the device in a 14-inch or 16-inch mode, at least when it's sucking down power from an outlet. The Intel Core Ultra 258V keeps pace at or just below chips like AMD's AI 7 350 in CPU-heavy tasks with the device firing on all cylinders. For graphics tasks, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable still won't be your laptop of choice even with Intel's built-in Arc 140V GPU. If it's benchmarks you want, the M4 chip found on Apple's MacBooks still wins out. It's when using the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable off battery power that the larger screen added more than a few hiccups. I had positioned two Chrome browsers on top of each other with around a dozen tabs each, and the PC would occasionally glitch, blurring text on the southern part of the screen. Other times, one of the Chrome windows blacked out randomly. The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable also leads to strange circumstances with some apps. This isn't a laptop meant for gaming, but I decided to load a few on it for kicks. Lightweight games like Hades defaulted to 2,000 x 2,352 resolution and sat in the middle of the 16.7-inch screen. Tactical Breach Wizards maintained the same resolution but extended the display from end-to-end. I don't know how many games support this extra-long aspect ratio, but I've never experienced anything quite like it on a laptop. The latest Intel chips are more efficient than previous-gen ones, though that doesn't mean laptops like the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable are truly all-day devices. Even without running the motors to winch open the screen, I only ever got around 5.5 hours of battery life, at most. Naturally, with the screen unfurled to its full height, the battery will necessarily drain faster than using the 14-inch screen. If I were limiting use and running on battery-saving mode, I could push the device to last a full day's work. But why would I, considering this is a device made for multitasking beyond anything else? Thin and light laptops have been trending thinner and lighter, but when clammed up, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable feels like a device from another time. It slides effortlessly into a backpack's laptop sleeve and you can carry it around with one hand, though not as easily as you may want to thanks to its 3.72 pounds and bulky chassis. What that extra heft implies is that the device is supremely sturdy. There's no keyboard flex to speak of. My palms felt like they were rising on a bed made of inch-thick aluminum. That build quality also translates to other parts of the device, though I can't speak for how long the display's motors or flexible screen will last long term with constant scrolling, daily. It survived more than a week's worth of back and forth to the office, but I can't say what will happen in several months' time. If you're spending over $3,000 on a laptop, you want it to be top of the line in every other way than just the screen. It's a good thing the keyboard offers a smooth and responsive typing experience. The haptic trackpad has a similar high-quality responsiveness, where every click has the same satisfying feeling of popping bubble wrap. The design seems copied straight from Lenovo's Chromebook Plus 14 that I reviewed last month—and yes, that's a good thing. It's the kind of low-profile keyboard and trackpad I could tap all day long. For its size, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable is packing hefty speakers. The twin Harman Kardon speakers blast sound out both the left and right sides of the laptop. It's not enough to fill a room or shudder your bowels with extreme bass, but they can get relatively loud. The audio on the average Netflix movie sounds clear enough that I wasn't immediately reaching for a pair of quality earbuds or headphones. Even with an extended display, I still felt the need to connect an external monitor whether I was working in the office or at home. In this kind of setup, the 16.7-inch screen is a godsend for a writer like me. At the same time, the Rollable is only packing a pair of Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports on the left side of the device. You'll end up needing a port dock close at hand. Considering its thick size, you would expect to find an HDMI port or more I/O, but the Rollable's thicker body is made to house the rolling screen apparatus. Companies keep trying to find ways to make laptop screens bigger without expanding the size of the laptop itself. We've seen and tested our fair share of multi-display bolt-ons, like the Xebec Snap, the Aura Triple Laptop Display, or Lenovo's separate clip-on concept monitor. When you lay out the long line of failures, Lenovo's ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable is the best attempt at extended screens yet. If it weren't for the annoying software and compatibility issues, I would be left with a black hole where the money in my wallet used to be. The only thing that could fill that hole would be the tenuous sense of optimism that the screen or rolling mechanism would continue working for months or years down the road. I could only keep that upbeat attitude going for so long. The thought of my $3,300 laptop breaking is enough to have me roll up on my back with my legs and arms as erect as the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, like a cockroach about to croak.
The Verge
03-08-2025
- The Verge
Lenovo's rollable laptop is the coolest computer I've used all year
Part of me still can't believe it, but Lenovo did the thing: it took a bonkers concept for a laptop with a rollable screen and built the tech into something you can actually own and use like a normal computer. Except, as conventional as the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 can be, it's far from a normal computer. It's a $3,300 laptop with a screen that expands from 14 inches to 16.7 inches at the push of a button. Oh, and it's actually good. Not just good, but very good. I still can't believe it. The expanding screen is genuinely useful, and it makes the ThinkBook by far one of the coolest and most futuristic-looking laptops I've ever used. But, as with most new technologies, being at the bleeding edge is costly. And as you might expect for a laptop that physically gets taller, there are some growing pains, too. 7 Verge Score When you first open the ThinkBook Plus, you'll see a square-ish 14 inch OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 2000x1600 resolution. But press a button, and the screen unrolls to a taller 16.7-inches and 2000 x 2350 resolution. (I affectionately call it 'the tallboy.') With the screen extended, it's like working with two stacked 12.4-inch 16:9 displays. It's some of the best single-monitor multitasking I've experienced. The extra vertical space is great for going full-screen in a document, code editor, or spreadsheet, or for split-screening apps without cutting off the sides of the windows. You can get the benefits of a vertical display anywhere, not just in a multi-monitor desk setup. And the ThinkBook itself makes a great vertical sidecar to a big monitor. Tallboy mode even makes video calls more pleasant, since it brings the webcam much closer to eye level. Having the top of the screen higher has also helped relieve a bit of neck pain from staring down at laptops all day. I get improved ergonomics whether I'm working at my desk, a table, or in goblin mode on my floor. I've been using the new ThinkBook Plus full-time for about a week, and I've kept it in 16.7-inch mode almost the entire time, because that's the whole point of this thing. I never get sick of looking at this giant OLED with its punchy colors and strong contrast. It's plastic instead of glass for the sake of flexibility, and it lacks touch support (though that also means less chance of scratching its softer surface with a fingernail or accidentally knocking it over with a tap). But I don't mind any of that, because having so much screen real estate in a laptop this compact and portable was unreal up until now. As with a foldable phone, you can see some creases and ripples in the screen's lower third — the part that rolls up — especially at oblique angles. If I look closely while working on a bright-white document, I can sometimes make out a faint shadowy strip, but I rarely see it, even when staring at that spot. The motorized screen takes about eight seconds to extend or retract, and it's no louder than the fans on an average gaming laptop. People right near you in a quiet space will hear it, but even ambient sounds like a TV in the background easily mask the motor. Lenovo had to go to some lengths to accommodate this screen while keeping the ThinkBook looking and feeling like a normal-ish laptop. Its chassis is aluminum instead of the carbon fiber, magnesium, and plastic found in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon — one of Lenovo's go-to models of productivity / business laptops. That makes the ThinkBook pretty heavy for its size: at 3.72 pounds, it's a whole pound and a half heavier than the X1 Carbon and a pound heavier than a 13-inch MacBook Air. The extra weight is likely necessary to keep the laptop from falling over backward when the screen is extended. The hinge is also very stiff. It takes two hands to pry open the laptop from its closed position, and the hinge doesn't tilt back nearly as far as other laptops to prevent toppling. The limited range of motion is less of a big deal in tall mode, but more noticeable in 14-inch mode. However, I usually put it in 14-inch mode only when it's time to close it up and move it around, so it hasn't bothered me much yet. Despite the laptop's general sturdiness, the screen itself can be a little wobbly, with audible creaks and slight knocking sounds when you're adjusting it. The lid consists of an inner frame and outer frame; the outer frame moves along a track on the edges of the inner frame to expand the lid's footprint and roll the screen upward. The irksome sounds come from where the two lid frames meet in the middle. Because part of the screen is garaged under the keyboard deck, there's no space next to the keyboard for the speakers, so instead they're at the front of the chassis, angled down. They're mediocre for a $3,300 laptop, and the sound is often obscured by your wrists. The other audible quirk is the ThinkBook's 'you're doing it wrong' alarm: If you start closing the lid with the screen extended, or you move the screen while it's rolling, the laptop emits a high-pitched tone. It's the most 90s-motherboard-ass thing I've heard in a long time, but I find its needling sound oddly charming. The rest of the laptop is solid, as you'd hope for a $3,300 machine. It has a haptic trackpad (hallelujah). Despite being slightly small, it beats the heck out of all the Lenovo mechanical trackpads I've tried, rivaling Apple's in precision and feel. It's a great counterpart to the keyboard, which is excellent as usual for Lenovo, with a great tactile feel and good key travel. The built-in mic sounds good, and that high-climbing webcam renders a fairly sharp image. It handles mixed or difficult lighting well, while capturing you at a more pleasing angle. (Look, it's okay not to want your webcam to accentuate double chins or give people a view up your nostrils.) It's a shame it only has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, but bigger port crimes have been committed elsewhere, and at least there's a headphone jack. Lenovo ships the ThinkBook Plus with its own Workspace app to help with multitasking on the oddly proportioned display. It offers quick access to pinnable widgets, apps, and even enabling a virtual display for a picture-in-picture experience — if you're so inclined . You can choose to have Workspace auto-launch when you expand the screen, and there's even a dedicated key for it. But I found it more troublesome than helpful, and I encountered bugs when using Workspace with multiple virtual desktops, ranging from glitching my wallpaper to preventing me from four-finger swiping between desktops. Instead, I've just been using Windows 11's native window management, and I've been pleasantly surprised by how well it works on this shapeshifting screen. I encountered a one-off bug where the taskbar randomly disappeared, but it was solved by a full restart. Performance-wise, the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V in the ThinkBook lines up with other laptops we've tested with the same chip. It's fast for everyday tasks and productivity apps, and it's about as power efficient as other models with much smaller, non-OLED screens. I could easily last nine hours or longer on a charge with the default sleep / power settings, getting me through a full day of work in mixed usage (Google Docs, Slack, Signal chat, lots of Chrome tabs, and even a 30-minute video call and equally long audio call). And that whole time I rarely heard its fan spin up or felt it heat up. On another day, I stretched it to nearly eight full hours with the screen kept on nearly the whole time in tall mode. Fun fact: draining the battery to below five percent activates a countdown timer for the screen to automatically roll down and stay down until it turns off or you plug in. So you shouldn't get stuck with the screen extended and no way to pack it up. Not bad, Lenovo. Not bad. $3,300 can get you a lot of other excellent laptops (three great $1,000 laptops, even), but none of them have this extending display. It's one of only a few ways to get more screen in a conventionally sized laptop. You can get a dual-screen laptop like the Yoga Book 9i or Asus Zenbook Duo, or a folding-screen laptop like the ThinkPad X1 Fold , or opt for some kind of portable monitor. But as much as I dig those, a dual-screen or folding-screen setup is so cumbersome by comparison. You're not just strolling into a coffee shop and hitting a button to get more screen, you're setting up camp with your Franken-multi-monitor-laptop and its peripherals. The ThinkBook Plus has seemed pretty durable in my time with it. I even had it rattling around in a backpack on a 500-mile road trip, and it was fine. Lenovo claims the screen is rated for 30,000 hinge openings / closings and 20,000 rolls up and down, but you just don't have those concerns with regular laptops. As much as I love using this rollable laptop, I'll always be a little wary about longevity and what a screen repair may cost if the worst ever happens (Lenovo did not answer my questions about repair costs by the time of publication). The ThinkBook Plus rollable is a genuinely cool idea, and a great laptop. I hope the display tech continues to evolve and we see more wild ideas like this become a reality. Or, if Lenovo delivers on its other recent concept laptop idea, the ThinkBook Flip, maybe we can get a similar tall-monitor experience without the added heft and cost of motors. This could be the start of a rolling-screen revolution. Or it could just be a niche product for deep-pocketed folks who want to feel like they're living in the future. Sadly, one of these realities is much more likely for now, until the tech gets cheap enough to trickle down to mainstream laptops. But damn am I happy this thing is out in the real world, even if spotting one at a random cafe will feel like a unicorn sighting. Lenovo is one of the only laptop manufacturers that turns its weird concepts into actual products, and I hope it keeps pushing — getting cheaper, quirkier, or ideally both. Price: $3,299 Display: 14-inch (2000 x 1600, 5:4 aspect ratio) to 16.7-inch (2000 x 2350, 8:9 aspect ratio) 120Hz flexible OLED (no touch support) CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 258V RAM: 32GB LPDDR5X Storage: 1TB M.2 2242 SSD Webcam: 5-megapixel fixed focus, with privacy shutter Biometrics: IR camera for Windows Hello face unlock, fingerprint reader in power button Connectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 40Gbps with DisplayPort 2.1 and PD 3.1, 3.5mm combo audio jack Weight: 3.72 pounds Dimensions: 11.95 x 9.08 x 0.78 inches Battery: 66Wh Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Antonio G. Di Benedetto Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gadgets Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Laptop Reviews Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. 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Gizmodo
31-07-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Lenovo 16″ ThinkBook Is 71% Off, A 4.8-Star Laptop That Feels Way Too Cheap (Ryzen 5, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD)
Big projects, all day emails, and a little streaming at night are easier when your laptop gives you room to breathe. The Lenovo ThinkBook 16 G6 16″ FHD+ Laptop Computer leans into that idea. You get a large canvas for side by side windows, a comfortable keyboard that invites long typing sessions, and a clean design that looks at home in a meeting or on a kitchen table. If your current machine feels cramped and slow, this one steps in like a quiet upgrade that simply lets you get more done. Head over to Amazon to get the Lenovo ThinkBook 16 G6 16″ FHD+ Laptop Computer for just $700, down from its usual price of $2,400. That's a discount of $1,700 and 71% off. See at Amazon The 16 inch display is the star. It uses a taller 16:10 shape, which means more lines of a document or spreadsheet show at once before you scroll. Full HD Plus resolution keeps text sharp and colors pleasant, and an anti glare finish helps tame bright lights in cafés or classrooms. The chassis is slim for the screen size, so it slides into a backpack without hogging space for notebooks and a charger. Comfort adds up quickly. The full size keyboard includes a number pad for budgets and quick data entry. Keys have a steady, quiet feel, and the large touchpad tracks well for smooth scrolling. Up top sits a clear webcam with a physical shutter you can slide closed after a call. A fingerprint reader in the power button lets you wake and sign in with one press, which saves time when you bounce between tasks. Day to day speed feels snappy. Modern components and generous memory keep dozens of tabs, documents, and a video call moving at once without the lag that slows older machines. A fast solid state drive means short boot times and quick app launches, and it holds big folders for school or work. Built in speakers give meetings and music a clean sound, and the fan stays quiet during typical workloads. Ports cover real life needs. You get USB C for charging and fast transfers, USB A for older accessories, HDMI for a second screen, and a card reader for photos and quick backups. Wi Fi 6E helps maintain a strong connection on crowded networks, and Bluetooth pairs instantly with wireless earbuds or a mouse. The sturdy hinge opens flat for group viewing, useful during study sessions or quick brainstorms at the office. Battery life comfortably stretches through classes or a workday, and a short top up at lunch brings the level back to a calm place. For anyone who wants a larger screen, simple security, and reliable speed, this ThinkBook feels like a smart fit. The Lenovo ThinkBook 16 G6 16″ FHD+ Laptop Computer is still available for $700 at Amazon, well below the regular $2,400 price. See at Amazon
Gizmodo
28-07-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Amazon Clears Out This Intel i5 Lenovo ThinkBook for 70% Off, a 4.9-Star Laptop Steal (32GB RAM, 1TB SSD)
Clearance deals are usually associated with older, out of date items, especially when you're talking tech. So when you see a 70% off clearance deal on a state of the art laptop like the Lenovo 16-Inch ThinkBook that's fully loaded with maxed-out RAM and internal storage and even has Windows 11 Professional already loaded and ready to go, it's an attention grabber. On the off chance your attention is not sufficiently grabbed yet, this Lenovo ThinkBook with Windows 11 Pro preloaded normally sells for $2,699, and this crazy Amazon deal sends that price plummeting to just $799. It's also timed perfectly for back to school if you have a high schooler or college student who's due back to class in just a few weeks. See at Amazon Sitting at the heart of this 16-inch Lenovo ThinkBook is a 13th Gen Intel Core i5 processor that makes any level of productivity, multitasking, or online work and play move with silky smooth speed. It has 8 cores and a brisk regular speed of 2.1 GHz, but is also able to punch it up to a blistering 4.6 GHz when you need more power. Backed by 32GB of RAM (which is able to be expanded to 64GB), the processing power packed into this Lenovo ThinkBook ensures all of your apps will load, open, and run quickly. The display on this Lenovo ThinkBook is also a serious eye-catcher, and also an eye protector. The 1920 x 1200 FHD screen can shine with up to 300 nits of brightness, but it also has an anti-glare treatment and TÜV Eyesafe to cut down on the blue light that can wear out your eyes. When it's time to switch from work to play, the Intel UHD Graphics card supports DirectX and OpenGL for maximum streaming and gaming capabilities. Assuming you or your student will need to be able to make video calls or take part in remote work or conferencing, the 720p HD camera built into the Lenovo ThinkBook has that amply covered, along with the stereo speakers that deliver Dolby Audio sound, and the two-microphone array. The connection will always be fast and lag-free thanks to the built-in WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. A huge array of ports, including two USB 3.2 Gen 1, USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 and Thunderbolt ports that both support data transfer and DisplayPort 1.4, an HDMI 2.1 that can support a 4K external monitor, and an SD card and Ethernet port, virtually future-proof this 16-inch Lenovo ThinkPad. The price has never been more right than it is right now at Amazon — just $799 after a massive clearance discount of 70% that saves you nearly $2,000. See at Amazon
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tech leader unveils groundbreaking laptop concept that runs on sunlight and folds flat like a book: 'Worth keeping an eye on'
Lenovo has been known to push the boundaries of laptop design, and its latest concept devices continue to deliver fresh innovations that include solar power. At Mobile World Congress 2025, the laptop maker revealed both the Lenovo ThinkBook Flip AI PC and Yoga Solar PC concepts, which could inform the next generation of consumer laptops. CNBC said that given the company's track record of bringing these innovative designs to market, "it's worth keeping an eye on what the Chinese technology giant is up to." The ThinkBook "codename Flip" AI PC, as the company called it, showed off an outward folding OLED display that can provide 18 inches of visual workspace or be folded over for a tablet-style interface. Workflows powered by artificial intelligence, split-screen multitasking, and smart workspace adaptation are being tested in this unique design. Sustainable power is also on the mind of Lenovo engineers, who worked up the Yoga Solar PC proof of concept to help capture the power of the sun to extend the device's runtime. This model includes a photovoltaic cell with 24% energy conversion efficiency, which is one of the best ratings available on the market, the company said. It's achieved through its Back Contact Cell technology, which places brackets and gridlines behind the solar cell for maximum absorption. Its Dynamic Solar Tracking system monitors the panel's current and voltage, working alongside the Solar-First Energy system for prioritizing the sun's rays for energy savings and stability. It can even generate power in low-light conditions while the PC is idle. The Yoga Solar PC can convert enough direct sunlight in 20 minutes to power up to one hour of video playback, according to the company. Measuring just 15 millimeters thin and weighing approximately 2.7 pounds, it's being called the world's first ultra-slim solar-powered PC. This improves upon Samsung's NC215S, which was reportedly the first laptop to include an integrated solar panel in 2011 and needed two hours of sunlight to run for one hour. Engineers and designers are realizing the potential of harnessing the sun's rays to power devices big and small across a variety of applications. What kind of solar tech would you be the most willing to use? Rooftop panels Community solar A portable solar generator None of the above Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. By leveraging renewable energy sources at every opportunity, we can more rapidly eliminate the use of dirty fuels and promote a cleaner, safer environment. Aptera's battery-powered electric vehicle includes solar panels on much of its exterior that help extend its runtime, while other companies have designed portable solar cells to help charge electric vehicles while parked. Lenovo has a track record of sustainable endeavors, championing repairs when possible to reduce waste, and offering cash for trade-ins so they can handle old devices more responsibly. Mary Jacques, Lenovo's executive director of Global ESG and Regulatory Compliance, told The Cool Down last year: "Our customers are really hungry for more and more information about not just the products that they're buying, but the impact that we can have on their sustainability journey." Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
