Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable Review: Like Magic

It’s conscionable fun. Ergonomically sound. Bright, colorful, and accelerated OLED screen. Great determination for webcam. Keyboard and haptic touchpad consciousness precise.

Not precisely subtle. Screen has a crease. Needs much ports. Battery beingness isn’t great. Unsurprisingly expensive.

As a laptop reviewer of implicit 10 years, it’s tempting to deliberation you’ve seen it all. Laptops with foldable displays oregon adjacent dual screens person travel and gone, arsenic person a half-dozen different gimmicky trends. Then a container arrives astatine your doorway that subverts what you thought was possible. That’s the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable.

We archetypal saw it astatine CES 2025. It’s a laptop that tin widen from a 14-inch show up to 16.7 inches, each astatine the property of a key. It’s the enactment instrumentality to extremity each enactment tricks. And yet, arsenic I lived with this machine, I recovered it acold much applicable than I assumed it could be.

Roll Out

There’s thing rather similar the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. It uses the aforesaid curved OLED exertion arsenic seen successful conception televisions and smartphones but ne'er successful a merchandise this commercially viable. (I should enactment that arsenic of work time, Lenovo’s retail leafage says it’s not yet available. We’ve asked Lenovo for a factual timeline connected availability.)

It starts arsenic a 14-inch show with a 5:4 facet ratio, which is already odd. That's arsenic quadrate a laptop show arsenic you’ll find. But past propulsion the dedicated cardinal successful the relation enactment and the magic happens. The gears commencement rotating, the mechanisms crank up, and 8 seconds later, your laptop’s show has expanded up to 16.7 inches, which is 50 percent much surface than before. Just watching it alteration is fun. Seeing that show unroll retired of the hinge feels futuristic.

Now, I’ve ever been a instrumentality of vertical abstraction connected laptops. I thin to similar 3:2-aspect-ratio devices similar the Surface Laptop implicit 16:10 oregon 16:9. At its afloat extension, though, the 16.7-inch surface (measured diagonally) has an 8:9 facet ratio, making it considerably taller than it is wide. It looks some awesome and ridiculous simultaneously. Nothing volition drawback the attraction of each different idiosyncratic successful a java store similar rolling up with 1 of these babies. The usage lawsuit is not that you'll beryllium switching betwixt these 2 sizes portion successful the mediate of your workflow but alternatively that it's a portability benefit. While it's successful your bag, it's conscionable a 14-inch laptop, but erstwhile it's retired connected your table, it tin turn into a overmuch larger screen.

And the payment of that larger screen? Well, you’ve apt seen idiosyncratic utilizing a laptop with a vertical surface attached to the apical of the display. This is the aforesaid idea. You tin person 2 16:9 windows stacked vertically, which is cleanable for multitasking. I recovered it ace casual to propulsion a video, societal media feed, Slack window, oregon root up top, with my penning model down below. Windows 11 split-screen handles that effortlessly, and I’m definite you tin easy deliberation of what you mightiness usage that other vertical abstraction for. Lenovo does see a custom, built-in widget sheet that takes up the bottommost 3rd of the display, which tin beryllium populated with reminders, to-do lists, and calendars, but I didn’t find it precise helpful.

The surface is OLED, truthful it people has amended colour and opposition than a emblematic IPS display. The instrumentality I tested had cleanable colour saturation, covering 100 percent of the sRGB, AdobeRGB, and Display P3 colour spaces. That’s not thing I’ve seen hap precise often. It besides gets up to 328 nits successful SDR and 662 nits successful HDR, meaning it’s plentifulness agleam for astir each lighting conditions and adjacent has decent HDR show erstwhile watching movies and videos oregon playing games.

The astonishment for maine came successful the ergonomic benefits of the design. I’ve been reviewing a batch of laptop stands precocious and reasoning astir ergonomics, and arsenic it turns out, the gangly surface of the ThinkBook Plus Rollable is simply a astonishing solution to hunching implicit to look down astatine the surface each the time. That’s not a crushed to bargain this laptop connected its own, but it conscionable mightiness beryllium its concealed weapon.

My lone existent contented with the show is that, due to the fact that it's flexible OLED, it has that aforesaid plasticky protective furniture implicit the sheet that gives it a inexpensive look. When afloat extended, you tin besides spot the faint crease enactment wherever the archetypal surface was. It’s not overly distracting, but you tin spot it connected acheronian backgrounds.

Beyond the screen, Lenovo has done its champion to marque this laptop look arsenic discreet arsenic possible. When afloat extended, it surely looks unusual from behind. The instrumentality is mostly rather sturdy and well-built, but the surface hangs ever truthful somewhat astatine the crease. The ThinkBook Plus Rollable besides has immoderate heavy broadside bezels, which are determination to location the “rolling” mechanism, arsenic good arsenic supply capable width for the laptop to inactive person country for a full-size keyboard.

It’s 0.78 inches thick, truthful it’s not precisely arsenic portable arsenic a accepted ThinkBook oregon ThinkPad laptop. Nor does it person arsenic galore ports. On the near side, you’ll find conscionable 2 USB-C ports and a headphone jack. The close broadside has nary ports astatine all. If you’re utilizing 1 USB-C larboard for charging, that leaves conscionable 1 escaped for different accessories. Even conscionable 1 much USB-C larboard would person been helpful. You'll need a hub.

Amenities Galore

As a laptop with a premium price, it's important that Lenovo didn’t telephone successful the parts of the instrumentality that don't person to bash with the rollable screen. For example, the keyboard and touchpad are some fantastic. The keys are snappy and precise, but inactive consciousness similar they person capable travel. Meanwhile, the touchpad is haptic, simulating a mechanical click. It's similar the ones you get connected the Surface Laptop oregon the MacBook Pro, and it’s great.

The webcam uses a 5-megapixel camera and comes with an IR camera for facial authentication. In my testing, it struggled a spot successful debased light, introducing excessively overmuch sound and overexposing the image. One happening I similar astir it, however, is the placement. Due to that gangly screen, the space of the webcam places you successful the halfway of the screen, a spot much similar a desktop webcam that’s attached to the apical of a monitor. Heck, there’s adjacent a somewhat decent acceptable of speakers connected this thing. They're not going to stroke your caput with bass, but they amazed maine nonetheless.

The ThinkBook Plus Rollable is not astir its performance, though Lenovo made a bully prime successful utilizing the Intel Core Ultra 258V. Or truthful I thought. This is an businesslike spot that gets coagulated performance, but much importantly, it usually gets large artillery life. Not the lawsuit connected this ThinkBook.

There are a fewer things Lenovo does to marque the ThinkBook Plus Rollable past longer connected a complaint retired of the box. By default, HDR is turned disconnected and the refresh rate is acceptable to 60 Hz alternatively of 120. The powerfulness settings are besides acceptable to Best Power Efficiency connected artillery alternatively than Balanced. It’s not that those are atrocious settings necessarily, but they skew the numbers erstwhile you trial the artillery beingness compared to different machines. Using the mean settings I trial on, the ThinkBook Plus Rollable lasted 10 hours successful section video playback and considerably little successful real-world applications and tasks. You tin get a mates much hours by lowering these settings, but that’s existent of conscionable astir immoderate laptop.

Performance was astir arsenic expected for this chip. It’s not astir arsenic accelerated arsenic Apple’s M4, successful either single-core oregon multi-core performance, but that’s not Lenovo’s fault. One of the strongest aspects of this Intel spot is its integrated graphics performance, and present the ThinkBook Plus Rollable delivers expected results, allowing you to play immoderate lower-tier games similar Fortnite oregon Marvel Rivals astatine decent framework rates, truthful agelong arsenic you’re consenting to driblet graphics settings to Medium and usage upscaling arsenic necessary.

There’s conscionable 1 configuration available, and it happens to beryllium a stacked model, coming with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. That’s bully to have, but it's partially what makes this laptop truthful expensive. For what this instrumentality is meant to do, which is basal enactment and multitasking, 32 GB of RAM isn’t necessary.

Lenovo knows there's conscionable 1 crushed idiosyncratic would bargain a laptop similar this. For fun. It's got that geeky, gadget entreaty that truthful fewer pieces of modern tech inactive have. Buy this thing, and you'll privation to amusement disconnected the translation conscionable to spot the look connected people's faces. And erstwhile that excitement wears off, you'll inactive person a laptop that is some premium and immensely useful. That's what separates gimmicks from innovation.