Lenovo just announced the new ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 at IFA 2022 in Berlin. It’s the successor to the ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 1, the world’s first OLED foldable laptop.
This new version brings several powerful upgrades that should transform the usage model (stay tuned for the full review). The first generation was a proof of concept that made it through a complete production cycle. From that data and experience, Lenovo has made huge improvements.
First, the beautiful 2,560×2,024 OLED display is larger, with a 16.3-inch diagonal, versus 13.3-inch. Working with it completely open yields a superior visual experience, unlike any laptop you’ve had recently, because it’s a 4:3 ratio.
If you use the lower half of the screen as a virtual keyboard, you still have a 12-inch 3:2 display that is competitive with ultra-compact laptops.
Lenovo is showing the ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 to the media at IFA 2022 in Berlin (Photo: Eliane Fiolet)
The new ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 is designed to function in Landscape and Portrait mode from the get-go, which is what we suggested during our review of the Gen 1 model. This feature is now truly built-in and is fantastic for anyone working with documents.
Overall, the laptop still looks very compact, like a booklet (in width x height), and would fit in small bags and even large purses (we tried).
The physical keyboard is much improved as well. Thanks to the slightly larger size, Lenovo’s engineers were able to make it feel more comfortable.
Of course, it’s still relatively compact since it has the footprint of a 12-inch laptop’s keyboard, but Lenovo managed to add a fingerprint reader and the iconic TrackPoint.
The computing power should be significantly higher, thanks to Intel’s 12th CPUs. It remains to be seen exactly which models will make it to retail, but it’s possible to get a Core i7-1260U (speculation) as it is a 9W TDP processor that is incredibly faster than the Gen1’s i5-L16G7 7W CPU.
In theory, users would see a 5X improvement in CPU-heavy benchmarks like Cinebench R23 or Geekbench.
Because the graphics unit is integrated into the CPU, it also benefits from all the improvements made in Intel’s 12th-generation chips. We’re looking forward to running the benchmarks to shed light on what should be a significant increase in (theoretical) performance as well.
Since it’s an Intel hardware platform, there are three USB-C ports, two of which are Thunderbolt 4 (TB4). These TB4 ports open the door to excellent docking solutions that could turn this small laptop into a fixed (and classy) computer once you get to your desk.
The 5MP webcam should produce significantly better video than most laptop cameras when you join a video call. We’ve seen this on the recent ThinkPad X13s, and it might be the same camera hardware.
Living on the edge is not cheap, and this new ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 comes with a price tag of $2499+, just like its predecessor. This one is better in every single way and might just become the ultimate status symbol in a corporate boardroom.
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