As a laptop user, some days you just want more screen space to get more done efficiently. That kind of relatable experience has been sparking innovation for years with the Intel customer engineers who work side-by-side with PC-maker Lenovo in China. Their newest co-engineered laptop design, the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable, an Intel Core Ultra processor-powered AI PC, goes on sale June 19 with the world’s first rollable laptop screen. It’s able to vertically expand from 14 inches up to 16.7 inches with either a hand motion or the push of a button. It adds nearly 50% more screen space, all with the power of on-device AI and Microsoft Copilot+.
Everyday Benefits of This AI PC
This laptop minimizes the need for constant scrolling or multiple screens. Excel spreadsheets go from 39 visible lines of information to 66 lines when the screen rolls out. Coders will appreciate the enhanced vertical display that shows more lines. Multitasking and on-the-road presentations are easier as dual 16:9 displays fit on top of each other. And vertical apps like Instagram and TikTok are more easily seen on the portrait display.
When it debuted at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable wowed crowds, winning 75 show awards. The Verge wrote that it “stole the show” and reviewers “love its quirkiness.” Tech YouTuber Linus Sebastian, host of Linus Tech Tips, demonstrated it on ” The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” to oohs and ahhs from the crowd, with Fallon saying, “That’s great! I want that!” And Tom’s Guide wrote that it’s “one of the most innovative laptops I’ve ever seen.”
Six Generations of Working Together
Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus series of laptops has seemingly been one-upping itself through each generation with unique designs.
It started in 2019 with Gen 1 and 2 featuring an E-ink writable display on the laptop cover to sketch, read or check notifications. Gen 3 debuted a secondary screen next to the keyboard. Gen 4 allowed users to turn the screen on its axis or completely fold it back to use as a tablet. And Gen 5 was revolutionary with its hybrid, detachable screen that turned it from a Windows operating system into an Android tablet.
That innovation is fostered by the deep collaboration of Intel engineers who work side-by-side with the Lenovo team in a joint lab at Lenovo’s Research and Development Center in Shanghai, China.
“We listen to what customers are looking for, feedback on what can improve, and match up what features already exist with what future technology we can create,” says Zheng Jiong, Intel’s senior director of Customer Engineering in China. “I feel excited and motivated working on this. Our mission is to incubate all these creative, innovative technologies and get them into real products.”
The world’s first rollable computer screen took two years of engineering, with engineers delving into thermal mechanics and power management, not to mention the need to squeeze in two tiny motors that roll the screen inside a 19.9-millimeter-thin laptop case. (They did it by creating a smaller printed circuit board, reorganizing the commodity hardware and using a high-density battery to free up interior space.)
The rollable OLED screen is made of a plastic-like material, similar to a foldable screen on some smartphones. Jiong says his team needed to figure out three things during the innovation process:
- How to turn off power to the rolled-in section of the screen when it’s not in use. When the screen is rolled out fully, it needs more power.
- How to adjust the system’s thermal profile, which was affected by the heat from the screen once it was rolled back inside.
- How to account for the screen’s dynamic rolling transition without any lagging or noticeable change as it moves from a smaller landscape display to a larger portrait display.
“We engineered all the thermal technology and power control to happen inside the Intel Core Ultra system-on-chip dynamic thermal tuning tool, or DTT,” says Jiong. “We worked with Lenovo to apply these technologies to control the thermal and manage the power. Then, in an industry first, we customized the Intel graphics driver software in a way to create the very smooth screen transition.”
Loaded with Power and AI Agents
Powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable comes with up to 32 gigabytes of RAM and a 1-terabyte SSD. It also has two Thunderbolt 4 ports as well as Wi-Fi 7.
The system offers a range of AI tools, including the new Lenovo AI Now personalized AI agent as well as Microsoft Copilot+ generative AI. It lets you tap into large language models (LLMs) and your local personal knowledge base even when you’re offline, ensuring more secure productivity. Intel Arc graphics capabilities amp up visual computing and generative AI.
The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable has been thoroughly tested and rated for at least 30,000 closings and openings of its lid hinge and 20,000 rolls, both up and down. It’ll start at $3,499 on Lenovo.com and wherever Lenovo products are sold.
Source: Intel
