Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The First Folding Screen Tablet!”.
Hey what’s up mkbhd here, okay, so the whole folding screen thing still pretty new, we’re, maybe two years into seeing real devices that are shipping with folding screens in them, but yet still there’s a lot of questions about hey. Are these really a future? Is this actually, where we’re gon na go, and can this apply to more than just phones? So this this is the world’s first foldable oled laptop, but also the world’s first foldable oled tablet in a lot of ways too, most of the time. But the whole point is: this: is pushing that technology basically to its size limits at this point and so from it. We can learn a lot about where the tech is right now so shout out to lenovo for sponsoring this video, for this showcase to have a first look at the thinkpad x1 fold. So i’ve already said this folding display tech is definitely in its infancy. So, building an entire machine around it, no matter what size is going to be extremely bleeding edge, and we see that in all the folding phones and the razor from motorola and the galaxy fold, the question is: is it worth exploring a bigger scale version of it? So this is what that looks like right now.
So this is a 13.3 inch oled display about the size of a large tablet, but it folds right in half, and so that becomes the size of like a small laptop. It turns it into two 9.6 inch screens when it’s folded. So now just looking around this thing, it’s quite the combination of premium materials and also bleeding edge workarounds.
If you will, like the the whole thing, is wrapped in leather and, if i’m being honest, it looks really nice when closed the leather, sleeve kind of slides into place around the hinge slides out when it’s open. That part is nice and when it’s fully open, you can pop out this kickstand on the back with this red felt material inside i mean they’re really playing well to my red and black habit, but this part is very well considered. It looks great. The hard part, though, is the actual folding screen part. So when you look inside, you see the bezels, the size of which really aren’t a problem at all. But what’s unique here is they’re a rubberized material and they’re sort of raised up and that with an accordion mechanism in the middle hides the complexity of that hinge.
That’S making it possible, but that right there is the hardest part like we already saw. It took samsung two generations to get the hinge weight right on their tiny galaxy fold, so it takes a lot of engineering to get the hinge weight right in a bigger laptop version of it, which is arguably even more important. But after that, it does open and close, it opens a hundred percent flat and it closes to nearly gapless but i’ll get to why it’s like this in a second, some other fun pieces, though it has a power button and volume rockers over here on the side And there’s a light behind the power button. There’S two usb-c ports, both of which are fully functional, so you can charge it through either one depending on where you’re sitting or how you’re holding it it has optional 5g built in and up to one terabyte nvme ssd and it actually has pen support.
Most foldable displays so far have been explicitly very fragile and they don’t have pen support, they’re, delicate and scratch easily. But this one is not one of those, so it has an optional digital pen that you can use to sign documents or draw things or even just move around the ui, whatever you want, if you’re into that. So why would you want this? Like laptops? Are fine they’re pretty good as they are right? Why would you want a future version of this instead of that? Well, for lenovo, it’s all about the different postures that this can be in. So again, like the fold, i guess i’ll kind of keep referring to the fold, because it’s the one we all know about, but that in its theoretical best case, can be a phone and a tablet, and so again because of the postures this can be in. This is theoretically in its best version, both a tablet and a laptop. So this guy here is running windows 10, as you can tell so all the usage is on an os.
That’S already running pretty well with touch, but i’d also be interested in seeing how an android version could possibly handle this form factor. But this is tablet mode, so big tall display 2048 by 1536 resolution. It’S a bit thicker overall than a normal tablet, but it’s also bigger overall than a normal tablet.
It’S a 13-inch oled display. So that’s your benefit for your video watching your multitasking, your virtual keyboards typing, your browsing. Everything here is all bigger and of course you can even go vertical with it.
So maybe there’s some tall documents, maybe there’s some vertical videos you’re trying to watch. Maybe you just like that vertical tablet life, but all that works fine, but again the bonus of the kickstand here is, if you’re, watching like a video on youtube or a movie or something is that you have a screen, basically the size of a 13 inch laptop Without nearly as much weight or mass as a typical, 13 inch laptop, so that would be my number one use for this particular version. Imagine watching videos on a plane tray table at a comfortable distance without worrying about the keyboard, so that’s tablet mode which is sweet, but then you can also, of course, fold it in half, but there’s actually a version where you stop folding halfway and it’s in this Sort of well, they call it book mode. You can see why right so at this point, you kind of start to mentally separate these as two separate screens.
At the same time as the software recognizes all right, this is becoming two separate screens, so you can do reading on one side, taking notes on the other or really just any multitasking side by side. You can have a zoom call on one side and writing or whatever note taking on the other, so for some remote podcast stuff, i’ve done zoom on one side and then audio, recording, app and then notes on the other. It’S a lot of side by side, stuff, plus there’s a bonus of some apps that when they work well we’ll let you just use the whole thing as an actual book which is kind of sweet. But what you’re, really on your way towards here is the laptop modes.
Now, like i mentioned at the beginning, lenovo built an entire pc here like this is a windows computer, there’s a one terabyte ssd, an intel, cpu, eight gigs of ram, there’s fans. It’S the whole thing, so you do have a full-fledged desktop experience on the sideways display, just all touch screen, but the thing about laptops is once you get to this place. Usually you want to do a lot of typing and yes, of course, sure you can have a virtual keyboard and there’s multi-touch and it’s really responsive – and maybe you even add haptics someday, but there’s always just something better about having a real tactile keyboard. But it turns out. Lenovo basically agrees with me on that, because they did build one for the x1 fold and it’s literally an ultra thin bluetooth keyboard with magnets in it that snaps into place over half of the display. You turn it on.
You, connect it and boom the ui snaps to the top half of the screen, and now really it’s acting exactly like a normal laptop you’re word: processing writing emails, whatever it is you’re into with that keyboard. It even has an actual trackpad and, as far as i can tell, there is almost zero latency, which is impressive over bluetooth, so to the point where it’s just as functional as a laptop, albeit slightly smaller, like a nine to ten inch laptop. So the keyboard’s a little more compact, the screen’s, a little smaller, but it’s definitely still very usable and significantly better than digital typing would be, and this is actually one of those cases where the rubberized bezels helps because they keep the keyboard in place. Along with those magnets and then yeah best part is when you’re done.
If you just want to pack it up and store it, the keyboard can stay inside and the laptop closes perfectly gapless and flat. That is nice. So that’s definitely a lot, but i’m fascinated by this thing now it is 3 000 bucks. So it’s definitely not for everyone, but the upside of having foldables like this existing and coming out is the more we have talented people working on making foldable stuff good. The better they actually get over time and the more we’re working towards that dream of having an actual two-in-one. Where really can be both of those form factors well and a big part of this is getting developers in on making quality apps that take advantage of the folding display thing, which is, i mean, it’s still early stages. For that, that’s the whole point and there’s not a whole lot of great apps doing that. Yet in i was going to say the microsoft store or really any store at this point.
So the only way to change that is to start by making good foldable stuff and get that ball rolling. But then, hopefully, the cycle kind of feeds itself. The tech gets better. You know the chips get better.
The batteries get better. This whole profile gets slimmer and even more refined. Maybe you don’t need the fan vents anymore. Would you be into that? Let me know in the comment section below: would you rather have a laptop and a tablet and a phone, or maybe a convertible somewhere in between those, either way, thanks for watching shout out to lenovo again for sponsoring this video for the thinkpad, x1 and i’ll leave.
All the links relevant below, if you want to check it out all right catch you guys, the next one, peace .