Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 review: setting the bar for foldables

Its beauteous 16-inch OLED show morphs into a 12-inch laptop, but bash splurge for the ‘optional’ keyboard and folio.

Early into investigating Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 Gen 1, I concisely regretted purchasing its dual-display Yoga Book 9i. I bought it months ago, and it improved my day-to-day beingness successful truthful galore unexpected ways, I told myself I’d ne'er bargain different single-screen laptop. But then, the X1 Fold showed up with its folding OLED surface and tried to crook maine into that Distracted Boyfriend meme arsenic I transformed it from a 12-inch netbook to a 16-inch drafting tablet portion shouting to my spouse from downstairs, “Come look astatine this laptop!”

We spent immoderate clip folding and unfolding the laptop, sticking the curved centerfold adjacent to our eyeballs truthful we could spot however creaseless the seam was. We rapidly forgot that it folded successful fractional arsenic we played games and watched movies with it unfolded. I yet realized I had already bought the close laptop for me, but the ThinkPad X1 Fold is simply a folding laptop done right, truthful hellhole yeah, I wanted it.

Lenovo released its archetypal X1 Fold successful 2020, but it was excessively up of its time. Its well-built and beauteous OLED show couldn’t marque up for a big of issues: abbreviated artillery life; a tiny and dim display; an underpowered processor; a $2,500 starting terms sans stylus oregon keyboard; and the information that it didn’t ever admit whether it was being utilized arsenic a tablet oregon arsenic a laptop. Lenovo fixed astir each of those issues with its 2024 Fold.

The show is overmuch bigger and overmuch brighter. The artillery beingness has doubled. The processing and integrated graphics show person changeable up similar a puck hitting the doorbell atop a strongman carnival game. The plan is adjacent much gorgeous. Lenovo besides threw successful a stylus, and convey goodness it did due to the fact that this laptop is arsenic bully a drafting tablet arsenic it is simply a netbook. It is simply a amended laptop successful each way, but successful price.

Lenovo is inactive asking for $2,500, minimum, but the terms is much justified this clip around. The 1 caveat being it wants different $300 for a Bluetooth keyboard and kickstand folio, which are some important to the Fold experience. Its virtual keyboard works fine, but it’s not perfect for typing thing much than a fewer hunt phrases into Google. Plus I needed the folio to prop the ThinkPad Fold up adjacent to my 27-inch monitor, which is however I usage my Yoga Book.

Sure, I could driblet $20 connected a tablet basal large capable to accommodate the Fold’s 16-inch display, but it wouldn’t treble arsenic a keyboard cover, and it astir surely wouldn’t beryllium arsenic portable. I spent astir an hr searching for a third-party magnetic keyboard but couldn’t find thing suitable. Even if I did find 1 (I’m convinced they don’t exist) and it precisely covered the Fold’s bottommost half, it astir apt wouldn’t archer the instrumentality to power into laptop mode erstwhile attached. (I tried this with the Yoga Book’s included keyboard — nary dice, and it’s excessively large for the Fold.)

So not lone is it annoying that I’d person to bargain Lenovo’s “optional” keyboard and folio to get the astir retired of this foldable laptop, but besides the trackpad was frustrating to use. I had to cleanable my digit oils disconnected the trackpad often oregon other it would miss excessively galore swipes. That’s disappointing since typing connected the keyboard is arsenic bully arsenic you’d expect from a ThinkPad oregon immoderate different Lenovo laptop.

No centerfold creases. No creaking noises.

Lucky for maine that I astir often utilized the ThinkPad X1 Fold the aforesaid mode I usage my Yoga Book 9i: connected to my show with a standalone keyboard and mouse. In that mode, the Fold worked amended than my Yoga Book successful immoderate ways. Unlike the Yoga Book, which has 2 abstracted screens, the Fold’s hinge is down its show and doesn’t make a spread successful the mediate of a paragraph, and I cannot stress capable however bully it was not to person to woody with any benignant of surface spread during my clip with the Fold.

However, my Yoga Book 9i’s 2 13.3-inch carnal displays bash supply a larger workspace than the Fold, whether oriented horizontally oregon vertically. I besides similar however I tin set the space of the Book’s apical surface to lucifer my outer monitor. Because the Book’s dual displays are connected with a disposable halfway hinge, it doesn’t warp what’s successful the halfway of the show similar the ThinkPad Fold erstwhile I person 1 oregon 2 windows open. So I had to support the Fold tilted astatine a akin space to the Yoga Book’s bottommost display, which was benignant of awkward, but I forgot astir it aft a while.

And that’s wherever my issues with the Fold end. One of my favourite Fold features is the fluidity of opening the laptop into desktop mode. When the keyboard is wrapped wrong the folio cover, which attaches to the keyboard via a magnetic hinge, you simply unfastened the ThinkPad Fold similar a publication until it’s wholly flat, prop it up against the stand, and ta-da! All you request is simply a Starfleet azygous and a LCARS background, and you’re acceptable to spell wherever not galore laptops person gone before. (No? Just me?)

The extracurricular surfaces of the laptop are adorned with finely woven strips of achromatic recycled synthetic fibre (PET), and the texture is pleasantly tactile. Running my fingertips implicit it felt similar a fabric-woven tote container but smoother. It’s an elegant aboveground that hides fingerprints successful its tiny crevices, too. Forget level laptop lids, hide amusive colors — I privation much fun, classy textures successful black! (Sorry, Yoga Book!) Those crevices bash drawback crumbs, truthful eating astir the Fold is simply a no-go. The smaller the crumbs, the harder they are to prime retired with your fingernail, but a tiny brush, astir the size of a kid’s toothbrush, works to get them retired if you person to get your snack on.

The Fold’s dimensions are well-balanced, which makes it consciousness lighter than it is portion carrying with 1 manus oregon tucked into the crook of your arm. It’s lone 0.68 inches heavy and weighs 2.82 pounds (without the folio keyboard), which makes it 1 of the lightest laptops connected the marketplace — arsenic airy arsenic a MacBook Air. I besides liked however the magnetic stylus conveniently attaches to the bottom-right broadside successful laptop mode.

I’ve ne'er been much enamored with a laptop lid.

I’m gladsome Lenovo ships a stylus with this laptop because, arsenic a drafting tablet, this instrumentality is marvelously massive. Unfolded, it’s implicit 16 inches of OLED canvas that didn’t marque my table consciousness cluttered.

I’m not an artist, but I gave drafting and coating a spell with the Fold and didn’t find overmuch to kick about. The acquisition felt astir identical to Lenovo 2-in-1s and convertible laptops from different brands I’ve tested implicit the years, and the 2560 x 2024 show covers 96 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, truthful immoderate paints Bob Ross decided to premix successful the video, I could make a adjacent integer mentation of his colors.

I could sometimes consciousness long, slender bumps spanning the magnitude of the centerfold, which is not uncommon for folding displays. But erstwhile the full instrumentality warmed up, it evened out, truthful that didn’t impact my quality to constitute and draw. The stylus itself was what gave maine the astir trouble.

I’m nary artist, but I enjoyed coating connected specified a ample integer canvas.

Well, astir styluses springiness maine occupation (thanks, dysgraphia), but the extra-pointy extremity made it little amusive to lipid overgarment with Bob Ross successful Adobe Fresco than it was to sketch an oculus due to the fact that it was hard to find the close space to mimic coating with a two-inch brush. To beryllium just to Lenovo, lipid coating with any stylus feels wholly antithetic compared to the existent thing, for evident reasons, but erstwhile I figured retired however to tweak the Fresco settings to get arsenic adjacent to Ross’ tried-and-true level brushes arsenic possible, I felt mostly good astir my blessed integer clouds.

Watching movies and unreality gaming with ray tracing connected was *chef’s kiss* acknowledgment to the display’s colour gamut, too, contempt the 4:3 facet ratio. Cyberpunk 2077 (I’m yet getting astir to playing Phantom Liberty) looked amended connected the Fold than my Gigabyte M28U gaming monitor, though I did person to messiness astir with the in-game solution settings truthful everything didn’t look truthful squished.

Overall, Lenovo did a phenomenal occupation balancing the ThinkPad X1 Fold’s plan with its hardware needs. I ne'er had an contented with drafting applications lagging oregon moving excessively galore browser tabs (within reason). Its 12th Gen Intel U-series processor is miles up of the original’s Intel Core i5-L16G7, which was a sluggish five-core, five-thread processor designed to grip astir 7W of power. (That’s right, nary Hyper-Threading.)

In contrast, the Intel Core i5-1230U’s 2 show cores are hyperthreaded (10-core, 12-thread), and its 8 ratio cores immensely helped with doubling the caller Fold’s artillery life; I was capable to play Cyberpunk 2077 connected GeForce Now with the show brightness maxed retired (446 nits, arsenic tested) for an mean of 5 hours but averaged astir 9 to 10 hours astatine astir 50 to 60 percent brightness if I was lone utilizing my machine for work-related tasks.

I usually don’t similar netbook-sized laptops, but the Fold won maine over.

Even with the stylus covering 1 of the 3 vents successful laptop mode (there’s lone 1 spot wherever it tin magnetically attach, and that’s it), the Fold never got hotter than a lukewarm bath. The CPU’s powerfulness gully is capped astatine 26W, adjacent though it’s designed to gully up to 29W. The chassis ne'er went supra 31 degrees Celsius, either, truthful I could comfortably permission it level connected my thigh for an hr portion Bob Ross helped maine brushwood up connected my integer coating skills.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 Gen 1 has acceptable the barroom arsenic the foldable laptop to beat, adjacent if the keyboard and folio are captious add-ons to an already not-cheap laptop. The lone different folding surface laptops that could supply a comparable acquisition are the HP Spectre Fold and LG Gram Fold, but the second is lone disposable successful South Korea, and we person not tested the erstwhile — not to notation that the Spectre Fold is doubly the terms of the ThinkPad Fold.

Still, if this Lenovo foldable is simply a motion of wherever much laptop designs are headed, I’m each in. If the institution tin marque a folding laptop the aforesaid size arsenic its Yoga Book and see a keyboard and folio successful the future, adjacent if the terms were inactive $2,500, I’d bargain it.

Photography by Joanna Nelius / The Verge