Lenovo’s Legion Pro Rollable Gaming Laptop Goes Ultrawide on the Press of a Key

For a standard laptop firm, Lenovo by no means fails to make a splash at CES, no matter whether or not the experimental merchandise are literally sensible to make use of.

This 12 months, the corporate has not one however two laptops with rollable OLED screens, certainly one of which is a gaming laptop computer that may increase its show horizontally, including an additional eight inches of display screen actual property—all with the press of only a single key.

You by no means knew you wanted a display screen that would try this, but it surely’s precisely the form of oddball tech CES is all about.

Rolling Out

The first rollable experiment this 12 months is essentially the most daring, the Legion Pro Rollable Concept. It’s a 16-inch gaming laptop computer with a display screen that may increase horizontally to a 21.5-inch “Tactical” mode, or all the way in which as much as a 24-inch “Arena” mode. Let’s be actual: a display screen a lot wider than the laptop computer housing it appears wacky. And it requires the laptop computer lid to be comically thick.

But with the recognition of ultrawide exterior displays for gaming, it does make a certain quantity of sense. A 24-inch display screen coming from the footprint of a 16-inch laptop computer is fairly superior particularly in the event you’re somebody who desires to take their gaming laptop computer on the go, whether or not whereas touring and even simply from one a part of your own home to a different. Like the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable OLED laptop computer that got here out final 12 months, the complete OLED display screen is hidden till triggered to unroll with a key press. In this case, the laptop computer makes use of two motors that unrolls the display screen in each instructions concurrently, supplying you with that ultrawide facet ratio when absolutely expanded. Beyond that, it is constructed on the chassis of a Legion Pro 7i, so in concept a laptop computer like this is able to characteristic high-end elements much like what’s in that mannequin, like RTX 5090 graphics and the newest Intel processors.

Going Up

Lenovo has additionally introduced the ThinkPad Rollable XD Concept, which iterates on its earlier rollable design that expands the display screen vertically. It nonetheless begins with smaller OLED show (this time a 13.3-inch display screen) and may be expanded as much as 16 inches with one keystroke. This is an much more dramatic transformation than final 12 months’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, which begins at a 14-inch measurement earlier than rising.

Rather than hiding the additional display screen actual property rolled up beneath the hinge, this new idea offers you utilize of it on the lid. Lenovo calls this a “world-facing” display screen, but it surely’s not clear precisely what the use case for this extra show space can be. The demo unit had some placeholder widgets however nothing that functioned but.

This just isn’t Lenovo’s first exploration of placing screens on the lid, however to this point they’ve been always-on, digital-ink screens that solely sip energy and do not tax the battery an excessive amount of. I do just like the look of this design higher, particularly having the ability to see the display screen wrap across the prime. The drawback is that it requires the webcam to take a seat over on the aspect, form of like on an iPad. Definitely not an excellent spot for video calls.

Both of those rolling-screen computer systems are mere ideas at this level, however Lenovo has a observe document of really releasing a few of these flashy tech ideas.

Lenovo can also be asserting the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist. This was an idea we first noticed a number of years in the past, which makes use of a motorized hinge to twist the display screen round in both route. This permits the gadget to comply with you round a room throughout a video name and even remodel into pill mode simply by utilizing a voice command. It nonetheless appears like a little bit of a piece in progress, but it surely reveals that these proof-of-concept tasks are extra than simply novelties.