Last year, we praised Lenovo for introducing the ThinkBook Plus Gen1 laptop, with a large E-Ink display in the primary display’s back cover. In 2021, Lenovo takes the concept to the next level and makes it even more attractive and powerful: there’s the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen2 ($1,549+).
The dual-screen nature of the laptop has no incident on how compact or light the computer is. At 2.86 Lbs, it feels even lighter than a lot of competitors in its class. The 53 Wh battery capacity is comparable to industry standards, and the 65W charger can replenish it relatively quickly.
The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen2 comes with a 12” E-Ink display, up from the original 10.8” shown last year at CES, and yes, Windows 10 runs on it.
You might have seen such displays on eBooks, and they are really comfortable for reading text, so E-Ink is exceptionally comfortable to read emails, documents, news, etc., without the adverse effects of screens blue light.
In addition to the visual comfort, E-Ink consumes extraordinarily little power compared to the standard laptop color display. You could read or check emails during a long flight or commute and use drastically less energy, so there’s certainly value to extract from E-Ink.
Upon opening the laptop, the primary color display is available: it’s a 13.3-inch IPS LCD panel capable of 400-NIT brightness and certified with Dolby Vision, which is often a sign of good color quality. Both E-Ink and LCDs have a resolution of 2560×1600.
Inside, the laptop is powered by an Intel Core i7 11th Gen with up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, which is in-line with today’s market.
ThinkBook 16p Gen2 for Creative users
The other ThinkBook that caught our attention is the ThinkBook 16p Gen2 ($1,299+). With its large 16-inch display, 32GB of RAM NVIDIA RTX GPU, and Ryzen CPU, it could be an ideal choice for creative users who need to crunch large quantities of data to compress video or render 3D scenes.
It is so powerful that it needs a 230W power adapter to feed electricity. While you may not be able to use such an adapter in a plane, the relatively large 70 Wh battery might be of help during those moments.
At 4.4Lbs, we expect The ThinkBook 16p to feature an excellent performance/weight ratio, and if you want, there’s a more affordable ThinkBook 14p ($840) as well.
Filed in . Read more about CES, CES 2021, Lenovo and Lenovo Laptops.