I tried Lenovo’s new rollable Thinkbook and cannot return to the regular size screen

Thinkbook plus gene 6 rolling

Key takeaways of zdnet

• Thinkbook Plus Jean 6 is now available, starting from $ 3,300.
• 120Hz, OLED, portrait-style 16.7-inch display offers a huge scope, supported by a haptic touchpad.
• It has limited I/O, something appears on rollable display, and a sky-high price.

Lenovo unveiled its “rolling” laptop in CES two years ago, which is a wild proof of the heads, but consumers suspect. Well, the company has proved its point since then: Thinkbook plus gene 6 rolling An eye-water is now available for $ 3,300 for consumers, but is packed with premium design elements, solid hardware and a 120Hz OLED display that extends about 17 inches on a button press.

Also: Lenovo’s $ 3,000 rollable thinkbook laptop is available to buy officially – before you do this

I have been using Thinkbook Plus for more than a week as my main laptop, and I have to accept, I am enamored with extendable screen, especially as a productivity machine for work.

But as of the first of its kind, this is perfect. Due to the laptop form, there are a handful of trade-offs, and the sky-high value invites an important eye to every element of its design. It is said, it is eventually a well -engineer laptop. let’s take a closer look.

Like the all thinkbook, the laptop left a business characteristic of a metallic, two-tone design. This is not my favorite beauty, but it is definitely durable and reflects fingers, which is better than all mats black designs.

At first glance, the laptop looks like someone else. One of the first things to stand out is the thick bezels that frames the display, but as soon as your eye pulls down, you do some strange notice: no bezel is down – the screen continues just under the keyboard.

Also: How to buy a laptop for school, work, or gaming (and our top pics for each)

The rest of the rolling screen is parked below, which is waiting for unfit. With a button push, the standard size performance moves upwards, increasing the size of the screen to 16.7 inches.

The result is a large, portrait-style display that goes far beyond any other standard laptop screen size on the market. The shiny, OLED screen offers a great picture, with no flicker or dimming around the edges, although there is some visible deficiency that seems to be what you will see on the display of a foldable phone.

This is especially true if you rotate the bright performance to reflect the light. This is slightly more visible than my expectation and of course some notes (looking at the price), but eventually, it does not really overshraddo the benefit of the larger screen.

For example, when you really focus on what you are doing, you stop paying attention to being reduced. This is one of the things that are an indispensable part of their mechanics – it takes foldable phones for many years to reduce their decrease on their display – and although it does not “premium”, it does not cancel the benefits provided by the screen.

Also: I tried Lenovo’s notorious ‘rolling’ laptop in CES – it is more practical than I thought

So what are the above benefits? First, the additional room is a fresh air breath. This allows for a vast workpiece that I have to accept, makes a very good user for experience. Personally, I like to run a big, full-screen desktop, but you can also keep two windows, one above one, two for 16: 9 desktops.

To maximize real estate, I set the scale in Windows to 125%, bringing the UI to a more manageable size, resulting in a crisp and efficient interface. However, if you want a big UI, it still seems to be more room than a regular laptop display.

If you are a programmer, you will appreciate the extended portrait orientation, but whoever works with the documents will like to be able to see the third and content on the screen at a glance.

As an editor, it improves working in Google Docs and my browser-based CMS, both benefit from more visibility without squint in a UI that is reduced to a atomic level.

Even basic web browsing is improved, with more page on the screen at once, and more materials with low scrolling appear. In that sense, the display represents the mobile layout, which is eventually more scrolling.

Rolling the screen can be done with a gesture of the hand by pressing the key related to or in front of the webcam. While it is expanding, the screen default to play an animation (separated in settings) with some thematic music, then once reaches its desktop after reaching the desired shape. Music can be slightly higher in a cool office, so fortunately, all these characteristics can be closed.

When fully expanded, the Lenovo is occupied by the Lenovo widget panel on the lower third of the screen, which at a glance shows the reminder, your two-do list and a calendar. You can pin it to live permanently or hide it behind your other apps.

Here are actually a lot of materials, including short videos that show some suggestions about how to use gesture control to increase and reduce performance and organize the screen more effectively.

Beyond the display, the rest of the main components of the laptop are quite good. The keyboard is slightly shallow, but the keys look great, with a satisfactory click that is crisp and responsible.

I was also thrilled to find the heptic trackpad to be well engineered, no matter with a similar click that you press down on the pad, and a sensitive input for swipe gestures. However, one thing to note is that in cooler temperatures, you may have some problems with the pads recognizing your fingers, especially if they are cold.

Also: Lenovo Thinkpad Streak is over: This model I tested a decade long trend (for better)

Also note that the laptop form factor limits only two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports and a headphone jack, limiting I/O access. All three ports are located on the left side of the device, which may be problematic for some users, but a expected business for features is closed.

In all, the laptop core physical build premium (if slightly chunky), and even without rollable display, it will be a solid office laptop. The fingerprint reader on the power key seals the deal as a modern business tool with support for Wi-Fi 7.

Under the hood, Intel Core Ultra 7 “Lunar Lake” processor, 32GB RAM, and 1TB storage create for a standard hardware loadout that is compared to any number of mid-to-upper range business laptops. The Big Display is powered by an integrated Intel Arc 140 V GPU with an internal memory of 16 GB, which supplies enough power for daily use.

If you want to do games on this laptop, it can handle some mainstream titles, but it is not made at all to run the top-tier gaming material. In “Normal” laptop mode, you have got a standard fare for 2000 x 1600 resolution, 14 inches. But if your game supports 2000 x 2350 resolution, you can play with the screen fully expanding, which definitely looks like a unique experience, but due to all screen space, it is not absolutely adapted to high-APM gaming.

If you are playing an old game that does not support that resolution, okay, the game will simply return to traditional resolution, resulting in empty space under the window and will deny the entire point of extended performance. Bottom line here: Gaming can be a bonus for this laptop, but not what is made for it.

Also, finally, a Windows laptop that I will not like to remove for my MacBook Pro

Regarding the battery life, the display requires the 66Whr longevity of the battery, although not as much as you can expect. During general use, you can get a complete working day of use with the expansion to the screen, but it is cutting it closely. If you add videoconferencing and high demand workload, you cannot make it through the day without power top-up.

It is said that the Lunar lake chip allows the loss of the battery to reduce a trickle when it is not used, and it charges rapidly: about 80%in an hour. In our video playback test, we found more than 11 hours on half a glow in balanced mode on Wi-Fi.

So let’s address the elephant in the room: price. Lenovo is well aware that this laptop is not for everyone. In fact, it is probably the best product I have reviewed. Instead, it is more about proving a point.

Also: I have tested dozens of thinkpad: here I am coming back the Lenovo model

Lenovo wants to project the reputation of innovation, but more importantly it wants to prove that it can deliver the said products to the market. This device reflects the mission that makes it an important place in Lenovo’s portfolio, even if it is not the top seller of the year.

This is also the first recurrence of this rollable concept, and thus, physical design is not quite polish as you will find in other high-end laptops of Lenovo, such as the Thinkpad X9 Aura version or X1 carbon. These laptops come from a product line supported by the decades of design and engineering, with the Thinkbook Plus General 6 to improve the latter model versions.

ZDNET purchase advice

Thinkbook plus gene 6 There is an impressive product, even considering its business-bands. Crease and thick bezels appear in the display, but when it is fully enhanced, you forget about them. The battery is not the best, but it is away from the worst. This is not a staller gaming rig, but it’s not that you buy a thinkbook, anyway.

It is niche, and it is expensive, but it does what it is believed to: provides a great user experience in the office, with a huge, flexible display that looks great, well added with a premium haptic touchpad, and only the right amount of power under the hood.

Also: I swung to del 14 premium for two weeks, and it spoiled my XPS laptop.

At $ 3,200, it is not the mainstream laptop, and I will not recommend it until you are not fully sold on the Extendant display and committed to the form factor in the long term.

The reality is that you can get almost anything for less: a MacBook Pro M4 24GB RAM, or new brand-new Del 14 premium For $ 1,000 lower with the same processor and an advanced Nvidia geforce RTX 4050 GPU. But if you are in love with the big screen, I can say that it is a productivity game-changer in the office.