ThinkPad X1 Fold: How is a folding laptop different from a folding phone?

OK, who’s really surprised that we’re kicking 2020 off with a pretty big emphasis on foldable devices? While Samsung may be gearing up to launch their upcoming second take on the folding smartphone, Lenovo‘s just launched their very own folding laptop called the ThinkPad X1 Fold.

And, when I saw it in Las Vegas a couple of hours ago, the first thing that came to my mind was: how is this different from like a Galaxy Fold? Is there a huge divide between a “phone” that unfolds into a tablet and a big tablet that folds down into a smaller tablet? Well, to answer that, let’s start with a look at what the ThinkPad X1 Fold actually is.

To put it simply, the X1 Fold is basically a proper laptop with a bendy-foldy screen, so you’ve probably already got an idea of how this differs pretty greatly from a folding smartphone. Since the X1 Fold is a proper PC, it’s running on full-fledged Windows 10, which is way more powerful than the mobile operating systems folding phones tend to run on.

However, if you’ve ever tried to interact with Windows 10 purely by touch, you’ll probably also know that that’s pretty…awful. That’s one reason why I never bought into Windows 10 tablets that don’t have physical keyboards–it just feels like the OS wasn’t built for it. And in many ways, the X1 Fold doesn’t change that.

It should, however, become way more productive when you use it with the included keyboard. When Lenovo was going through the demo, they showcased that you can basically use the X1 Fold in one of two basic configurations. There’s what I’d like the call the “desktop AIO” mode, or the “on your lap” mode.

When you want to use it as a “desktop”, all you need to do is unfold the device, deploy the built-in kickstand and plonk it down on your desk. Then, you can use the keyboard with built-in trackpad like you would any normal wireless keyboard.

Alternatively, if you don’t have that much space, you can instead fold the X1 Fold in on itself into “laptop” mode and put the keyboard on the bottom half of the display. In the production model, this will tell the laptop to only use the top half of the screen as the full display, allowing you to use the device like you would a regular laptop,

In a sense, it’s very similar to what Microsoft showed off with their Surface Neo concept device awhile back, which was also something I raved over.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how well this works on the X1 Fold just yet, because the unit we got to try out during our hands on was just an early sample and it had a lot of kinks to work out. In fact, the keyboard they used in the demo was just a dummy unit so I also can’t tell you how typing on it feels either. That being said, I’ve always had confidence in Lenovo’s ability to produce a great keyboard–especially on their ThinkPad devices–so I have pretty high hopes.

That being said, the thing I was most skeptical about was the device’s folding screen. If the Galaxy Fold taught me anything, it was that current folding screens were all fragile af, so it was very surprising to me to see that the ThinkPad X1 Fold actually supports a stylus input so you can write and draw on the screen with the included stylus.

And upon closer inspection, I have to say that I was very impressed with the rigidity of that flexible OLED panel that they co-developed with LG Display. Lenovo says that it’s almost as hard as glass, and when I asked them how they managed to achieve this level of durability, they told me it had a lot to do with the display’s support structure. When Lenovo developed the X1 Fold, they developed it to be a ThinkPad through and through.

That means, it needs to fulfill pretty much every standard they hold their other ThinkPad laptops to, including durability. So, when they were developing the X1 Fold they cycled through over 50 different materials from magnesium to aluminium before finally settling on carbon fibre, which makes up the main support structure of the flexible OLED. The reason they went with this was because carbon fibre wasn’t just durable, it also had the “softness” required to absorb impact and increase the screen’s durability.

Now, they didn’t tell me exactly how durable the laptop was, but when I was handling the device, it filled me with a lot more confidence than the Galaxy Fold did. I was also assured that users of the X1 Fold wouldn’t have to baby it, which is a pretty good sign.

In fact, this sense of durability is reflected in the rest of the X1 Fold’s build too. While most of what I’ve seen from the folding phone corner feels premium but fragile, the X1 Fold’s body is distinctly industrial in its design language. It feels more like a well-built tool that you should use every day, rather than some expensive jewelry that you’d keep in a glass case.

On top of that, the display just feels more taut than the mushy insides of the Galaxy Fold, and although both devices fold with a little bit of a gap at the hinge, when the X1 Fold is unfolded, there is a far less visible crease in the middle. You really have to go looking for the crease to be able to barely spot it, and that’s a big improvement over the very obvious line down the middle on the Galaxy Fold.

Oh, and a nice side benefit of having the gap in the X1 Fold is that you can actually fold the laptop up with the keyboard in the middle so that everything sits flush. Pretty neat.

Powering this folding laptop was also a little bit tricky. Since it was a ThinkPad, Lenovo needed it to be capable, at the very least, but also have an excellent battery life. That’s why they went with Intel’s upcoming Lakefield processors which the company says provides a good balance between the power of a Core i processor with the battery performance of an Intel Atom chip. How that feels like in the real world, remains to be seen, but Microsoft also plans to use Lakefield chips on their Surface Neo.

What some may find interesting to hear with the ThinkPad X1 Fold, however, is the fact that this laptop actually uses active cooling–which means that there’s a fan inside it. Lenovo told us that one of the key things they needed to get right with the X1 Fold was to make sure it didn’t get uncomfortably hot. In their vision of this product, people are using and carrying it around like they would a leather bound book (hence, the leather exterior) so the device couldn’t feel warm in your hands.

During the demo, it obviously didn’t feel warm to the touch, but I’m curious to see what it would feel like when you run more power-intensive programs.

Lenovo’s obviously very proud of what they’ve accomplished here with the ThinkPad X1 Fold. They told us that typically, they developed products from the inside out. They’d pick out the best components, for example, and then figure out how to design a chassis to hold all of those components together.

A pragmatic approach, for sure, but that ultimately led to what many would consider “incremental” updates. With the X1 Fold, they flipped that on its head and went all out to create what they consider to be a whole new class of device altogether–something they’ve been working on for the past four years.

I don’t know that I’d personally go so far with how I’d describe the ThinkPad X1 Fold, but I will say that Lenovo definitely has something to be proud of. Despite the bugs and kinks that they need to work on, the ThinkPad X1 Fold is a surprisingly polished device. But I guess it should be, as Lenovo plans to put this on sale sometime in 2020 (no info on local availability or pricing yet, however).

The only thing I’m not sold on is the software. Windows 10 just doesn’t feel very optimised for this kind of device or interface, and Lenovo had to go out of their way to develop a whole bunch of workarounds just to get their product to work properly. That said, there is a silver lining here, and it’s called Windows 10X.

Yes, that’s the spin-off on Windows 10 that’s supposedly designed for dual-screen/folding screen PCs and the X1 Fold will ship with that version of Windows…eventually. But, it won’t come before the regular Windows 10 version, and we don’t know if you’d be able to switch to it from regular Windows 10.

In fact, we don’t even know if Windows 10X will be any good. And seeing the last Windows 10 spin-off, I’m a little skeptical. But, as of right now, all we can do is wait because from what I’m seeing, the hardware is pretty much there already.

Photography by Rory Lee on the Sony A6600.