It was only a matter of time before we saw a foldable display on a laptop and it is no surprise to see Lenovo doing it first.
At MWC 2025, the owner of the laptop giant and Motorola has shown another in a long line of interesting concept devices. Last year we saw a transparent screen on a laptop and now it is folding – and this is much more practical.
The ThinkBook Flip AI -PC concept essentially takes the type of screen that we are used to on a number of external foldable phones, such as the Huawei Mate XS and Honor V purse, makes it a lot bigger and attaches it to a laptop scassis.
Lenovo calls it the “Industrie’s first external notebook” and the rather simple idea is that there are many different ways in which you can use the screen. It is potentially a new form of the convertible 2-in-1 laptop.
Chris Martin / Foundry
You can use the ThinkBook -Flip in tablet, reading, clamshell, sharing and vertical modes, with all the different positions that you can place the screen. In traditional laptop mode it is a 13-inch display that can be unfolded into a full 18.1-inch.
I love the idea of tablet mode to view content in tight situations such as on a train table, and the curve of the display when it is folded can be used as its own strip – a bit like the touchbar on old MacBooks or the edge of the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge.
The flexible OLED display looks pretty good with specifications such as a refresh rate of 120Hz and 400 NIT brightness. It is also sensitive to touch.
In general I like the idea, but there is clear work to still do before this laptop is ready to send to willing buyers.
The software is Janky and came across countless mistakes and glitches while I was at the Lenovo stand.
I am also very worried about the durability of the device in its current form. The outer display is exposed when you ‘close’ the laptop as you would do a normal model, there is a huge bulge along the fold when the screen is in vertical mode and it turns it too easily.
Still, that is why devices such as these proof of concepts and I cheer Lenovo again to try things out.
Whether the ThinkBook -Flip will be on the market or not, and how much it will achieve, can still be seen, but it is certainly one of the most memorable devices I have seen on MWC 2025.
