I’m typically a Windows person, however one of many issues that’s all the time sorely tempted me concerning the Apple ecosystem is the interconnectedness. Not solely are macOS and iOS comfortably comparable in kind and performance (and getting moreso yearly), however there are such a lot of simple methods to switch content material between a Mac and an iPhone. That’s why I loved testing out Lenovo’s ThinkTelephone by Motorola, which is meant to be — and I by no means thought I’d be penning this phrase — the smartphone model of a ThinkPad.

The ThinkTelephone has a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, a 6.6-inch OLED display, a 5,000mAh battery, a bunch of fancy enterprise safety features (a phrase ThinkPad fanatics will definitely be acquainted with) and two rear cameras together with a 50-megapixel stabilized normal extensive and a 13-megapixel ultrawide (plus a depth sensor). It’s MIL STD 810H licensed and IP68 rated for mud and water resistance. It ships with Android 13. But the good half, and the differentiating characteristic in my view, is how a lot enjoyable it’s to make use of with a ThinkPad.

My favourite software program characteristic is named Unified Clipboard. When you’ve got this enabled, any picture you’re taking, textual content you copy, paperwork you scan, or video you’re taking with the ThinkTelephone is robotically copied to a clipboard that your ThinkTelephone shares along with your ThinkPad. You can then paste that media immediately in your linked ThinkPad, which appears very useful for dropping pictures into displays and paperwork as you’re creating them. This was enjoyable to make use of, and labored completely every time I attempted it. (And I did strive many instances…it was actually enjoyable.)

This Unified Clipboard characteristic is a component of an entire suite of options referred to as the Think 2 Think connectivity (come on, that’s cute) that connects the ThinkTelephone and the ThinkPad. You may also drag and drop information, and the 2 units can rapidly uncover one another and join over Wi-Fi whereas close by.

You may even use the ThinkTelephone as a webcam whereas taking convention calls on the ThinkPad. The latter works with any video conferencing software program, Lenovo advised me, so it’s not like another fancy webcam options corporations have come out with this yr the place your organization’s conferencing software program of selection must resolve to help them.

I used to be in a position to pretty simply set the ThinkTelephone because the ThinkPad’s conferencing webcam immediately from Lenovo’s software program settings, however I’m advised that you are able to do it from particular person functions (Zoom, and so on.) as nicely.

Physically, there are another touches that make this cellphone look blissfully ThinkPad-y. The black textured again… come on, you possibly can’t miss that similarity. But probably the most hanging homage to Lenovo’s premium enterprise laptops is the pink button on the aspect of the ThinkTelephone — which isn’t fairly a keyboard nub however, you realize what, it’s shut. You can map each a single and double faucet of this button to shortcuts of your selection, which I’m positive some ThinkPad customers (who might, for instance, have expertise remapping among the ThinkPad’s unconventionally positioned keyboard keys) will admire.

All in all, this cellphone looks as if a enjoyable thought to me. There are a number of ThinkPad lovers on the market. Why not give them a cellphone to match?