Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable Review: Like Magic

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

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

As a laptop reviewer of complete 10 years, it’s tempting to deliberation you’ve seen it all. Laptops pinch foldable displays aliases moreover 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 nan Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable.

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

Roll Out

There’s thing rather for illustration nan ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. It uses nan aforesaid curved OLED exertion arsenic seen successful conception televisions and smartphones but ne'er successful a merchandise this commercially viable. (I should statement that arsenic of publication time, Lenovo’s unit page says it’s not yet available. We’ve asked Lenovo for a actual timeline connected availability.)

It starts arsenic a 14-inch show pinch a 5:4 facet ratio, which is already odd. That's arsenic quadrate a laptop show arsenic you’ll find. But past push nan dedicated cardinal successful nan usability statement and nan magic happens. The gears commencement rotating, nan 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 toggle shape is fun. Seeing that show unroll retired of nan hinge feels futuristic.

Now, I’ve ever been a instrumentality of vertical abstraction connected laptops. I thin to for illustration 3:2-aspect-ratio devices for illustration nan Surface Laptop complete 16:10 aliases 16:9. At its afloat extension, though, nan 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 will drawback nan attraction of each different personification successful a java shop for illustration rolling up pinch 1 of these babies. The usage lawsuit is not that you'll beryllium switching betwixt these 2 sizes while successful nan 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 nan use of that larger screen? Well, you’ve apt seen personification utilizing a laptop pinch a vertical surface attached to nan apical of nan display. This is nan aforesaid idea. You tin person 2 16:9 windows stacked vertically, which is cleanable for multitasking. I recovered it ace easy to propulsion a video, societal media feed, Slack window, aliases root up top, pinch my penning model down below. Windows 11 split-screen handles that effortlessly, and I’m judge 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 nan bottommost 3rd of nan display, which tin beryllium populated pinch reminders, to-do lists, and calendars, but I didn’t find it very 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 nan sRGB, AdobeRGB, and Display P3 colour spaces. That’s not thing I’ve seen hap very often. It besides gets up to 328 nits successful SDR and 662 nits successful HDR, meaning it’s plentifulness agleam for almost each lighting conditions and moreover has decent HDR capacity erstwhile watching movies and videos aliases playing games.

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

My only existent rumor pinch nan show is that, because it's elastic OLED, it has that aforesaid plasticky protective furniture complete nan sheet that gives it a inexpensive look. When afloat extended, you tin besides spot nan faint crease statement wherever nan original surface was. It’s not overly distracting, but you tin spot it connected acheronian backgrounds.

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

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

Amenities Galore

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

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

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

There are a fewer things Lenovo does to make nan ThinkBook Plus Rollable past longer connected a complaint retired of nan box. By default, HDR is turned disconnected and nan refresh rate is group to 60 Hz alternatively of 120. The powerfulness settings are besides group to Best Power Efficiency connected artillery alternatively than Balanced. It’s not that those are bad settings necessarily, but they skew nan numbers erstwhile you trial nan artillery life compared to different machines. Using nan normal settings I trial on, nan 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 aliases multi-core performance, but that’s not Lenovo’s fault. One of nan strongest aspects of this Intel spot is its integrated graphics performance, and present nan ThinkBook Plus Rollable delivers expected results, allowing you to play immoderate lower-tier games for illustration Fortnite aliases 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 pinch 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 activity and multitasking, 32 GB of RAM isn’t necessary.

Lenovo knows there's conscionable 1 logic personification would bargain a laptop for illustration this. For fun. It's sewage that geeky, gadget entreaty that truthful fewer pieces of modern tech still have. Buy this thing, and you'll want to show disconnected nan translator conscionable to spot nan look connected people's faces. And erstwhile that excitement wears off, you'll still person a laptop that is some premium and immensely useful. That's what separates gimmicks from innovation.