OLED plus E Ink: Lenovo’s ThinkBook Twist is midway to my dream laptop computer

Last month, I spent 15 entire minutes hunched over an HP Spectre x360 in a drafty Best Buy retailer — agonizing over whether or not its superb OLED display would destroy the laptop computer’s battery life and repeatedly googling for the reply. When I came upon the reply was “yes, substantially less battery,” I needed to stroll away.

But why ought to I’ve to decide on between an excellent display and one I take advantage of all day? Why not each? That’s the thought behind the ThinkBook Plus Twist, a brand new laptop computer that Lenovo’s saying at CES 2023.

Not solely does it have a 13.3-inch, 400-nit, 60Hz 2.8K OLED touchscreen that covers 100% of the DCI-P3 coloration gamut, you’ll be able to swivel its display round to disclose one other 12-inch, coloration E Ink touchscreen round again — one which refreshes 12 occasions a second (12Hz), which positively felt gradual in a demo however isn’t unhealthy for E Ink know-how.

In case you want a refresher, E Ink is an ultra-low-power display tech, due to dye-filled microcapsules that largely keep secure, regularly displaying a picture till you refresh the display to point out one thing else as an alternative. They’re utilized in e-readers just like the Amazon Kindle that measure their battery life in months as an alternative of hours however can’t show many colours or supply clean refresh charges.

But with Lenovo’s laptop computer, they don’t essentially must — since you’ve additionally acquired that superb OLED panel on the opposite facet. As a author who generally wants my laptop computer to go a full workday and past but in addition generally watches video, this could possibly be one of the best of each worlds: Windows on E Ink for studying and writing, Windows on OLED for every little thing else.

Just don’t count on Kindle battery life out of a laptop computer like this because you’ve acquired the overhead of operating Windows on its thirteenth Gen Intel processor (and as much as 16GB of RAM and 1TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage) quite than a easy e-reader chip. Lenovo’s estimating as much as 21 hours of battery life from its 56Wh battery utilizing the E Ink display, and it isn’t offering context about what sort of content material can run for 21 hours at a time.

This additionally isn’t fairly my subsequent laptop computer as a result of it’s missing any full-size ports, with only a pair of Thunderbolt 4 USB-C jacks and a 3.5mm audio jack to its title, and I hesitate to purchase a laptop computer with a squared-off entrance edge that’ll probably dig into my wrists… plus the OLED display ought to most likely be a high-refresh-rate 120Hz 16:10 panel like those that Asus is transport for those who actually need my cash.

Now, it feels prefer it’s lastly in the proper place — and even when it’s not my dream laptop computer, it’s a working blueprint.

Lenovo says the ThinkBook Plus Twist has a beginning value of $1,649, and it ought to ship in June 2023.