Lenovo Unveils World's First Foldable PC, Coming In 2020 (venturebeat.com) 80
At its Accelerate 2019 event in Orlando today, Lenovo previewed "the world's first foldable PC." While we don't know the name, price tag, or ship date, we do know that the foldable PC will be part of Lenovo's flagship ThinkPad X1 line and that it will arrive in 2020. VentureBeat reports: Lenovo backs up its "the world's first foldable PC" claim by saying it looked at laptops sold by major PC manufacturers this month. None shipped more than "1 million units worldwide annually" with foldable screens. Apparently Lenovo is hoping to ship at least 1 million units of its new foldable PC in the first year.
We don't know much about the device yet, and that's on purpose. Tom Butler, Lenovo's ThinkPad marketing director, did say that the company has been working on the device for "several years" with partners Intel, Microsoft and LG. He confirmed that those three have been part of the project from the very beginning. Intel chips and Windows will be powering the foldable ThinkPad. LG is responsible for manufacturing the screen, the highlight of the device. It's a 13.3-inch single OLED 2K display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. It's also a touchscreen and will support pen input. When folded in half, the width of the device is reduced by 50%, as you might expect.
We don't know much about the device yet, and that's on purpose. Tom Butler, Lenovo's ThinkPad marketing director, did say that the company has been working on the device for "several years" with partners Intel, Microsoft and LG. He confirmed that those three have been part of the project from the very beginning. Intel chips and Windows will be powering the foldable ThinkPad. LG is responsible for manufacturing the screen, the highlight of the device. It's a 13.3-inch single OLED 2K display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. It's also a touchscreen and will support pen input. When folded in half, the width of the device is reduced by 50%, as you might expect.
The reason it will fail (Score:1)
No nipple mouse.
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My Latitude has one of those, but I don't even use it. I like the extra buttons though, I tend to use them at least as much as the buttons below the trackpad.
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Solution: virtual nipple mouse.
Why 13.3"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Um... (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't a foldable PC called a laptop or netbook?
In any case, I'm waiting for a foldable desktop PC.
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So it has a DVD drive, an LTO drive and 32" QHD screen then?
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What is the difference between a tablet and a laptop? A laptop has a keyboard... This doesn't have a keyboard, so it's a tablet.
That's my logic and I'm sticking to it.
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I'm waiting for a foldable desktop PC.
Yeah, I guess [youtube.com]
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In any case, I'm waiting for a foldable desktop PC.
Are not most so-called laptops these days actually foldable desktop PCs?
Surely nobody uses those 15"+ computers on their laps?
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foldable keyboard (Score:2)
Thinkpad used to be known for its nice keyboards and the sorely missed trackpoint
Come to think of it:
- Early Thinkpads keyboard *also* used to be known for the "Butterfly" foldable keyboard [wikipedia.org].
- Back in the PDA-era (Palm, WinME, etc. before Apple decided to "invent" the iPhone form factor a few decades later after everyone on the market including their own Newton) foldable keyboard used to be a "big thing" (see Thinkoutside's Stowaway foldable W-shaped keyboard [danbricklin.com]: a full-sized laptop that can fold into a pocket. I still have and use a bluetooth variant)
Will Lenovo try to come
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Foldable Tech? Wait till gen 3 at least (Score:2)
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Sincerely, where is the demand for this tech? (Score:2, Interesting)
I like new things too, but why we doing folding screens? Where would they best come into play? Is it so you can carry a widescreen monitor to a coffee shop? Maybe for outdoor presentations? I'm just trying to imagine where/when you would need it, and how big the demand would be.
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I like new things too, but why we doing folding screens? Where would they best come into play? Is it so you can carry a widescreen monitor to a coffee shop? Maybe for outdoor presentations? I'm just trying to imagine where/when you would need it, and how big the demand would be.
Well everyone has smartphones and not everyone has tablets. The only difference is smartphones are smaller, so lets make tables fold smaller. Right?
Courage? (Score:2, Interesting)
I see that Lenovo has the courage to remove the keyboard from a laptop, or at least that's what the rendering looks like.
I wonder if it will have a keyboard option, otherwise, why group it with the Thinkpads?
Hopefully it goes better than Samsung's foldable phone.
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I see that Lenovo has the courage to remove the keyboard from a laptop, or at least that's what the rendering looks like.
Apple [laptopmag.com] had the courage (?) first...
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Looks like a new hula hoop (Score:1)
Seems this foldable stuff is just a fad like 3D television before it. It will only get popular if they can make the screen out of something as hard as glass, which is obviously impossible, Maybe once they figure out a nice wat to just have two separate displays come together so closely that you cannot feel or see the split line. This seems at least technically possible.
WTF- this is "news"? (Score:4, Funny)
"we don't know the name, price tag, or ship date"
Oh wow, sounds awesome, tell me more.
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Yes this is news. I'm sorry you impatient millennials pretending to be JustAnotherOldGuy demand to know everything now.
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Yes this is news. I'm sorry you impatient millennials pretending to be JustAnotherOldGuy demand to know everything now.
Wait, impatient millennials are pretending to be ME?
Wow, those people really need to up their standards and aim higher. No one should waste their time pretending to be me.
(As for me, I was born prior to 1960, so yeah, by today's standards I'm officially an "old guy".)
Close but no cigar (Score:3)
What an idiotic idea (Score:2)
I mean we already have foldable PCs, those are called laptops. You have the keyboard on the lower half and the display on the upper half. That design features high usability while being comparatively cheap to produce and durable. Yes people have made that design cheaper by removing the keyboard and that did attract some users, however that comes with drawbacks in its usability.
This design however combines expensive elements (foldable display) with usability problems (no physical keyboard) creating a device
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You have the keyboard on the lower half and the display on the upper half.
So a foldable PC where no single component actually folds. You're a genius mate.
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The hinge folds.
This is a tablet, not a PC, netbook or laptop (Score:2)
It's highly disingenuous of Lenovo to brand this a ThinkPad when it's clearly a tablet and not a laptop. It has no physical keyboard (or even a bluetooth keyboard as standard - that's likely to be an optional extra), so anyone calling this anything other than a tablet is basically fibbing.
My 2 main concerns are:
1. Will it run Linux and/or Android? I really, really don't want Windows on a tablet.
2. Will the price be astronomical? It can't cost more than the most expensive tablet on the market (iPad Pro?) or
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where is the keyboard? (Score:2)
there is no keyboard shown in the video, so either it is a detachable keyboard
or the keyboard can be toggled on in one half of the (touch)screen.
god, i hope it is not the later.
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Good ol' days (Score:2)
My lapttop has that. (Score:2)
2. This is a laptop and not a PC
First? (Score:3)
Keyboard Issue (Score:3)
This might actually be a bad idea, you can't touch type on a screen which kills productivity. There's been examples of screens that are completely flat such as a laser projection keyboard but no one likes using those because you can't feel where the keys are.
So... Lenovo's Macbook Wheel? (Score:2)
It better not be a ThinkPad.
Ideapad, maybe.
StupidIdeaPad sounds far more fitting.
Can't touch-type on it. It's not a good thing when you can't type without looking at your fingers the whole time.