Lenovo is continuing to do weird things with laptops and E Ink displays. In 2018 the company released the Yoga Book C930 dual-screen laptop with an E Ink touchscreen display where you’d normally find a keyboard. This year the company has decided to put an E Ink display on the back of a laptop.

The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus is a Windows laptop with a 13.3 inch full HD primary display. But it also has a 10.8 inch E Ink screen covering much of the notebook’s lid.

You can use that secondary screen to decorate the cover of your notebook, display presentations, or read documents when the laptop is closed. Since the E Ink screen also supports pen input, you can use the ThinkBook Plus as a note-taking device in addition to using it as a laptop and an eReader.

The notebook is set to hit the streets in March for $1200 and up.

Lenovo hasn’t released details specs for the ThinkBook Plus yet, but the company says the notebook will feature a 10th-gen Intel Core processor, solid state storage, and optional Intel Optane memory.

It has as fingerprint sensor in the power button, Harman audio, and support for Amazon Alexa voice controls. There’s a shutter that can cove the camera when you’re not using it. And since the E Ink display only consumes power when the image is changed, you can use it to display upcoming appointments or other information when the laptop is closed.

Another possible use for the E Ink display include displaying incoming notifications when the laptop is closed during a meeting, since the computer supports connected standby mode.

While the ThinkBook Plus is certainly an unusual design in 2020, Lenovo’s actually not the first company to come up with the idea of a notebook with an E Ink screen on the lid. Intel showed off a laptop prototype with a smaller ePaper display embedded in the lid way back in 2014. But that was just a concept device, while Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus is expected to be a real thing you can buy later this year

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3 replies on “Lenovo ThinkBook Plus is a 13.3 inch laptop… with a 10.8 inch E Ink lid”

  1. That’s so close to what I want, a comfortable outdoor word processor, all it needs is an old dell xps ferris wheel hinge or a sony vaio flip hinge to bring that eink screen around front. I’d use it indoors some too, why waste battery power on color/backlighting if you’re just typing?

    But no

  2. This would be very attractive to students, I think. I know I would’ve loved to have something like this back when I was getting my degree.

  3. Awesome! This feature will become standard. Great idea. Just reading, writing notes … you can get much longer battery life with this.

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