Lenovo continues to try to do the aesthetic work of the “laptop with a Kindle attached to the lid” at CES 2021, announcing the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2. It outperforms the original ThinkBook Plus with a larger 12-inch E Ink and better cover panel, with a faster refresh rate, higher resolution and improved software that makes it easier to launch applications without opening the laptop.
The ThinkBook Plus debuted at CES last year, standing out as a laptop with an E Ink screen built into the cover that allowed users to take notes, read ebooks and display things like calendar information.
The new model improves this, however, with a 12-inch 2560 x 1600 E Ink panel that supports multitouch and works with the detachable pen, creating what must be a more enjoyable E Ink experience. The main screen inside swaps E Ink for a regular IPS screen, but it also has a resolution of 2560 x 1600, offering 400 nits of brightness and support for Dolby Vision.
The rest of the specs indicate a competent laptop too, with 11th generation Intel processors, 16 GB of LPDDR4x memory and up to 1 TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage. The design has also been improved, with a more elegant overall appearance. These improvements have also resulted in a higher price: it will be available sometime in the first quarter of 2021 starting at $ 1,549.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22230158/14.png)
Along with the new ThinkBook equipped with E Ink, Lenovo also announced three other new products in the line. There is the ThinkBook 13x, which starts at $ 1,199 and claims to be one of the “thinest 13-inch Intel Evo business notebooks”. It is effectively just a ThinkBook Plus Gen 2, without the E Ink screen at the top.
Finally, there are a couple of options with AMD technology. First, there’s the ThinkBook 14p Gen 2, which starts at $ 849, offers AMD’s next-generation Ryzen processors (probably the Ryzen 5000 laptop chip rumors expected at CES 2021) and offers configurations up to 32 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage. There are also two intriguing display options: a 14-inch 2.2 K IPS panel and a 14-inch 2.8 K OLED panel.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22230160/16.png)
There is also the ThinkBook 16p, the 16-inch version of the 14p, which will also offer AMD’s next-generation chips and a larger screen (although there is no OLED option here). That said, it will offer the option of adding a new discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX next-generation GPU for those who need extra power. The 16p will start at $ 1,299 and, like the other three laptops, will be available in the first quarter of 2021.