Lenovo has made laptop computer screens that roll, flip, and go clear, and now for IFA 2025 it’s asserting a brand new idea with a display that may rotate into portrait mode. The Lenovo ThinkBook VertiFlex Idea is a fairly standard-looking 14-inch productiveness laptop computer, however should you nudge the display’s edge from its top-right nook, the entire show rotates 90 levels inside its chassis, realigning itself into a greater view for paperwork, coding, or doomscrolling.
That’s it. That’s its entire trick. It’s each totally pleasant and a contact mundane — a lot less complicated than different, wilder Lenovo ideas. There isn’t some fancy versatile OLED show or whirring motor constructed into the chassis — only a intelligent, pivoting monitor system hidden behind its display. It’s one of the down-to-earth Lenovo ideas but, which suggests it’s obtained a great probability of turning into an actual product.
I obtained to see the idea laptop computer in particular person throughout an early preview in New York Metropolis forward of its IFA debut in Berlin. As with different Lenovo ideas, I discovered it charming, and the corporate reps had an anxious air of “Do you assume that is cool too?”
And, properly, it’s fairly cool. For those who’re like me and also you usually plug your laptop computer into a giant monitor and use the laptop computer display as a secondary show, with the ability to use it in a vertical orientation is fairly nifty.
The display was straightforward sufficient to rotate vertically with one hand. I felt obligated to be light with it and maintain the laptop computer deck down with my different hand to forestall the entire thing toppling over, but it surely was sturdy sufficient that that wasn’t needed. As soon as the display is turned, the laptop computer lid has simply sufficient room on both facet to relaxation a cellphone beside it, the higher for utilizing Lenovo’s Smart Connect app to switch information and management your Android cellphone along with your mouse — although it wasn’t absolutely working in my transient demo.
There isn’t a lot else to the VertiFlex idea laptop computer itself. Lenovo isn’t speaking full specs, however the one I noticed had two Thunderbolt (presumably Thunderbolt 4) ports, one USB-A port, HDMI, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The 14-inch idea laptop computer isn’t particularly skinny or significantly mild, at 17.9mm / 0.7 inches thick and 1.39kg / 3.06 kilos. It’s a bit thinner and two-thirds of a pound lighter than the rollable ThinkBook Plus, however nonetheless thicker and heavier than a traditional laptop computer just like the ThinkPad X9.
I used to be excited final 12 months by the ThinkBook Flip idea, which took the versatile OLED from the rollable and turned it right into a barely less complicated folding-screen setup. With a typical non-flexible panel and fewer shifting components like motors, the VertiFlex is even less complicated. I’m not fairly as stoked by a daily outdated rotating display as I’m by ones that fold or flip, but it surely nonetheless appears enjoyable and doubtlessly helpful — and more likely to be rather a lot cheaper than the $3,300 ThinkPad Plus Gen 6 rollable. Lenovo reps advised me that the VertiFlex idea is also simply scaled to completely different laptop computer sizes. Do folks need their laptop computer screens to rotate into portrait mode? I do not know. I definitely wouldn’t thoughts it, for the best value. However I like quirky gadgets, and I’m completely satisfied to see Lenovo throw extra concepts on the wall and see what sticks.
Pictures by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge