I tried Lenovo's new rollable laptop at CES, and its a Windows PC I'd splurge for

Lenovo unveiled an unexpected new laptop alongside its fleet of new devices at CES 2025: a 14-inch laptop with a “rollable” display that extends upwards over 16 inches, and it works better than I initially assumed. 

The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 looks like a normal 14-inch device on the surface but hit a button on the keyboard, and the display starts growing upward. Once it’s fully extended, the screen measures 16.7 inches, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but Lenovo says you gain about 50% screen real estate. 

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It’s definitely comparable to working on an external monitor, as I was able to fit two browser windows of equal size on top of one another just fine when I demoed it. Working on a portrait-oriented monitor is not everyone’s preference (as opposed to a landscape orientation) but plenty of users prefer it, especially coders and writers who work with long, vertical text windows. 

I should mention that this isn’t like a foldable phone; there’s no bend or gap in the screen, which is the first thing I thought when I saw it. The display is on a rolling mechanism that tucks the extra inches away under the keyboard when it’s not extended, making the entire thing one seamless surface. 

The screen itself looks great, to boot. It’s a 120Hz OLED display that goes up to 400 nits of brightness. There’s an obvious benefit to having more screen area on demand, and the amount you gain is significant enough here to warrant its purpose (and potentially its cost, more on that in a minute). But there are certainly some logistical concerns. 

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The first thing I was worried about was that having a display that big would make the device unstable and top-heavy. With the screen extended, however, it doesn’t feel precarious. The bottom half of the device is on the bulky side and keeps it firmly planted on whatever surface it’s on. Weighing 3.7 pounds, it’s not Lenovo’s lightest laptop, but all things considered, even that’s not bad.

When the screen is fully extended, however, closing the laptop back up is awkward. You have a closed clamshell with an active display poking out from behind the keyboard, and it’s certainly not portable in this state. 

The obvious solution is to just remember to lower the screen before packing it up, but someone somewhere will inevitably throw it in a bag in this state, and damage the exposed display in the process. For this reason, I’d recommend the screen automatically roll back to the retracted state if it senses that the clamshell is closed. 

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The process of extending the screen is as easy as hitting a button on the keyboard, but it also responds to a hand gesture. Holding your palm out in front of the device and then raising or lowering it will activate the display to take one of those actions, which could be useful if you’re using this as a laptop for presentations. 

Lenovo first debuted this device two years ago at CES as a prototype model, but now it’s in the pipeline as a fully realized product, expected to be commercially available as early as Q1 2025. This idea-to-reality transformation is what CES is all about, and Lenovo is definitely flexing here to show itself as not only an organization with groundbreaking R&D but one that can actualize its ideas.

As far as its intended user goes, it’s certainly geared toward a business consumer who needs a device with extra screen real estate for presentations and multitasking. Programmers will appreciate the portrait-style 

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Under the hood, this is a ThinkBook, after all, featuring an Intel Core Ultra processor,  Intel Arc GPU, and Wi-Fi 7. For connectivity, it only has two USB-C ports, which seems a little restricting, but at least you know one of those won’t be for your external monitor. 

Lastly, let’s mention the price. Lenovo says the suggested retail will start at $3,499, which relegates it to the high end of the spectrum. Essentially you just have to be committed to the concept for it to be worth it, and the benefit of a mobile extra monitor on demand would need to outweigh simply popping your laptop into a stationary display. 

For remote and hybrid workers, though, this laptop solves a problem, eliminating the need to carry around a portable monitor and reducing the amount of room you take up in the process. Taking this thing to a coffee shop might elicit some stares, for sure, but all that extra screen space will be worth it.