There are countless vertical content that we see daily on horizontal screens. This text, without going any further. Also a Tiktok video They share us by WhatsApp, a short, an article, a book or a PDF. The programming too It is very grateful for a vertical screen. The problem is that if we use a laptop, we have no option. The screen is horizontal yes or yes, and it does not seem viable or makes a lot of sense to make a vertical laptop.
Well, Lenovo has had an idea of the most peculiar: a laptop with a screen that rotates.
This is the Lenovo Thinkbook Vetiflex Concept in vertical mode | Image: Xataka
Lenovo Thinkbook Veriflex Concept. That is the name that receives this peculiar device that the company has taught during its conference in IFA and that from Xataka we have had the opportunity to try. The device, at first glance, is a conventional laptop, but if we throw up the upper right corner we can pivot the 90 degree screen and put it vertically. The Windows interface, of course, adapts to the new format as it does on tablets.
How it works. Between the rotating screen and the rear support there is a hinge. Unlike other devices, such as the roller laptop (which we have also been able to throw the glove) or the TV Samsung the serothe mechanism is manual. It does not turn automatically. To my surprise, the turn is very, very fluid and soft. Another thing is that it transmits rigidity, which does not do so.
To turn the screen you have to pull this corner | Image: Xataka
On the other hand, the hinge does not support several positions (for the cover photo I had to make some juggling). The screen can only be put in vertical or horizontal, not in intermediate positions. Something that, everything is said, has all the meaning of the world because why we would like to have an inclined panel 45 degrees.
It shows that it is a concept. The hinge is perfectly exposed to the outside. It is not seen with the naked eye, but the mechanism can be seen if we look from above or on the lid when we pivot the screen. That is something that, if you want to launch it commercially, would have to change. It would be enough to accumulate some dust inside to cause a failure. For that same reason, folding mobiles have a kind of cap protecting the hinge.
This is how the hinge area is seen from behind | Image: Xataka
The thickness of the screen is similar to that of a conventional laptop | Image: Xataka
Another aspect that seemed curious is that the screen cannot be pivoted with one hand. By pulling the upper right corner, we have, in turn, to hold the laptop chassis with the other hand so that it does not move. Surely here you have to make concessions in one or another address: or a resistant hinge that endures long -term or a lighter hinge that allows the operation with one hand.
The idea is very cool. The Lenovo Thinkbook Vrtiflex Concept has a 14 -inch panel, weighs 1.39 kilos and I must recognize that it feels surprisingly natural. The feeling has been like the first time I opened a folding mobile (curiously, Motorola Razr It’s now … Six years, my God, how time passes). At first it is strange, but when you have done it a couple of times and you have lost the “fear of breaking”, it is natural. As much as changing any vertical to vertical tablet. Moreover, I find it more natural than folding a convertible, without going any further.
Horizontal, the laptop passes through a normal and current laptop | Image: Xataka
Personally, I can imagine using such a laptop. For productivity, I think the horizontal format serves me better, but if I am working on a topic and I have to read documentation, or it is good for me to have more text on the screen or, simply, the new chapter of One Piece has just left and I want to read it in conditions without changing the device, it sounds good to turn to turn the portable screen.
Will you see the light one day? From Lenovo they have insisted that it is a concept and, as such, leaves several unknowns on the table. The first is its durability. From the firm they have not confirmed what expectations have in the hinge because, after all, it is a device fresh out of a laboratory. The second is if it will be launched at some point.
Folded, again, it’s like any other laptop | Image: Xataka
Lenovo invests 2,000 million dollars annually in R&D. Some of the products you develop never see the light. Others are prototypes or concepts that feel the bases, which are the seed, of products that are then launched. And I know well because I had in my hands the first folding portable concept quite a while before Light saw in the form of a final product. We do not know if we will see this implementation in a product at some point, but it must be said that it could make sense in certain cases of use.
Be that as it may, I have no doubt that Lenovo has a job ahead, starting to hide the hinge better and remove such a delicate mechanism from dust and/or the inclement ones to which a laptop can be subjected when we carry it in the backpack.
Images | Xataka
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