Here’s The Roundup Of Lenovo Concept Laptops (And More) In MWC This Year

I don’t think I’ve encountered a laptop maker introducing this many concept laptops at once, but Lenovo might just be that one – the laptop giant has brought several concept laptops, along with other innovative ideas showcasing various technologies and some interesting use cases, so let’s go through all of them.

Lenovo MWC Concept Products

ThinkBook “Codename Flip” Concept

This isn’t Lenovo’s first rodeo in putting more than one laptop’s worth of screen into the size of one, though this is another take on putting a larger screen, this time using a flexible OLED display that folds outwards. The typical use case for such design would be presenting content to another user, of which the laptop maker has tried to approach this idea with dual-axis rotating hinge before.

Keep the screen facing inward and you’ll have all 18.1 inches of screen to work with, extending from its 13-inch chassis; Lenovo envisioned several use cases for this design, which, aside from the aforementioned screen share mode, also includes traditional clamshell mode, plus vertical mode, tablet mode, and reading mode. Internally, this concept laptop packs an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor with 32GB LPDDR5X RAM, presumably the Lunar Lake kind (CU7 258V).

Magic Bay Accessories

One unique feature of the ThinkPad 13x Gen 4 and ThinkBook 16p Gen 6 laptop – also introduced in MWC – is a row of pogo pins behind the laptop’s webcam module dubbed “Magic Bay”. This connects to several would-be accessories the company is showcasing as concepts for now, including the coveted dual-screen extension which has been tried by many modders in the community. (Bonus points if you remember Razer’s Project Valerie many moons ago.) This arms the ThinkBooks with two additional 13.3-inch displays, forming a triple-display setup that will certainly make power users drool.

On another note, Lenovo also showcased another display extension concept in the form of an 8-inch display called ” “Magic Bay 2nd Display Concept”, which, according to their words, serves as a “dedicated AI dashboard, providing quick access to productivity tools, messaging apps, and AI-generated insights.” The logical thought in me says this could just be as simple as an app, but oh well, what do I know.

Moving on, there’s the Codename Tiko and Codename Tiko Pro – while both have similar codenames, the intended function is slightly different. The former is more of a fancier version of Tamagotchi that gives information to the user in the form of emojis and “expressive AI interface”, while the latter shares some similarities to an in-car dashboard with its extra wide aspect ratio. And just like its in-car counterpart, the information like time, weather and notification is displayed in a widget-style interface.

3D Products & Lenovo AI Ring

3D is making a slow comeback to the consumer tech, and with Acer already showing off its 3D prowess through its SpatialLabs lineup for a while now, Lenovo is looking to respond with its take on 3D-capable devices. The ThinkBook 3D Laptop Concept features 3.2K “hybrid display” that switches between 2D and 3D modes seamlessly, and the same applies to the brand’s Hybrid Dimensional 34-inch Curved Monitor Concept based on its gaming-centric Legion design.

Lenovo also brought its version of smart ring to MWC, though this is not a health tracking device like you’ll see in the smartphone world; instead, this is a ring that enables user to do gesture-based control on the PC, along with manipulating 3D models plus “interactive UI adjustments”. The “AI” part in its name comes from its “AI-driven motion tracking”, which enables users to rotate, zoom and interact with 3D objects in the spatial environment.

Yoga Solar PC Concept

You’ve heard of solar-powered EVs, but solar-powered laptops? Lenovo’s Yoga Solar PC Concept is exactly that. The lid of the laptop is covered in an array of photovoltaic cells with a new ‘Back Contact Cell’ technology that raises the conversion rate up to 24% (a very high number by today’s standards). Alongside the laptop, there’s also the Solar Power Kit dedicated to this laptop to provide extra juice via additional solar panels, using MPPT (maximum power point tracking) to maximize energy conversion.

Of course, the solar panels are not here to replace batteries – Lenovo says the use of solar panels help maximize the endurance by utilizing solar-powered energy when available, even in low-light conditions. The panels is said to provide up to “one hour of video playback” with 20 minutes worth of direct sunlight. Despite the addition of solar panels, the entire chassis is still no thicker than usual at just 15mm, while weighing 1.22kg.

AI Display & AI Stick Concept

Finally, Lenovo is putting NPUs (neutral processing units) inside a display and a discrete USB-C module and called them AI Display and AI Stick, respectively. The idea is fairly sound on paper – to give existing PCs without onboard NPUs the capability to process Large Language Models (LLMs) locally with Lenovo AI Now software, with the former also capable of articulating its display physically to face the user automatically.

The latter, meanwhile, packs 32 TOPs of compute power, which is less than the current line of CPUs released by Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm (around 40+ TOPS); it can also be plugged into a wall socket for maximum performance. Exactly how much, we have no idea, as this is merely a concept – although I do wonder, isn’t discrete GPUs like RTX 4060 a lot more powerful to handle LLMs anyway?

Pokdepinion: That’s a lot of concepts – although I’ll say some of them don’t make perfect sense to me right now.