Folding smartphones have been around for many years and are almost on the verge of becoming mainstream. But what these foldable screens mean for laptops was not clear. But thanks to some bold steps taken by PC market leader Lenovo, clear use cases and usable form factors are emerging.
I have been using and testing the world’s first and only rollable laptop—ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable (I know, quite a mouthful), for a few weeks, and checked out new concepts such as Legion Pro Rollable and ThinkPad Rollable XD at CES 2026, as well as ThinkBook VertiFlex and Auto Twist AIPC at IFA 2025. These highlight the trend and early target users, such as content creators, gamers, specific enterprise personas, and others.
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Bringing design innovation and excitement to laptops
Ever since their inception in the 1980s, laptops have always been clamshell rectangular boxes, with a display on one side and a keyboard on the other. Sure, thickness and weight have reduced, battery life has increased, display sizes have changed, performance has improved by magnitude, but the basic shape and look haven’t changed much. This is a far cry from how phones have evolved, from feature phones to keyboard phones (BlackBerry), touch screens, curved displays, and to the latest foldables.
Lenovo has been trying to change that by introducing design innovation and breathing new life into the laptop category. It pioneered the 2-in-1 form factor with a 360-degree hinge in 2012, introduced the first commercial laptop with a vertical rollable display in 2025, and showcased a slew of rollable form factors at various trade shows.
In a recent discussion on my Tantra’s Mantra podcast, Tom Butler, Lenovo’s VP of worldwide commercial portfolio, compared these new formfactors to concept cars that car companies demo at industry events. The concept devices may or may not be introduced as is, but the technologies and designs are surely commercialized in future products.
Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable — world’s first rollable laptop
This was the first incarnation of the rollable laptop concept. I have been using this device for a few weeks and have also been talking to a few likely enterprise users about it. It looks like a regular 14-inch laptop, but its screen extends vertically to a 16.7-inch (diagonal) portrait-mode display. The concept was announced in 2022, the prototype was displayed at MWC in March 2025, and the commercial version quickly started shipping in June 2025. The laptop is currently sold out on the Lenovo site, primarily due to the limited production run. It is also discontinued, probably in preparation for its next version. Nonetheless, it is a good proxy for such devices that will come in the future.
The display of this laptop, which extends and shrinks with the press of a button, seems like sheer magic. It turns out it has many practical use cases too. At the very outset, it would be ideal for anybody working with long-format content. At the top of the list are content creators, as well as folks who deal with long documents, such as legal and financial professionals, contract personnel, software/ web developers, and the like.
In today’s mobile age, content, especially visuals and videos (e.g., Instagram), is optimized for smartphone screens, i.e., for portrait mode. Usually, content creators use desktop PCs or laptops with vertically mounted external displays for editing and managing such content. This laptop would be ideal for them. Even for consumers, watching such content on a large vertical display would maximize screen real estate rather than fitting it on a horizontal screen with a lot of unused space. Since social media is optimized for scrolling, a long vertical display is almost a match made in heaven.
For folks who read, write, review, and debug long-form documents, a vertical extended display means fewer page-ups/downs and back-and-forth, which directly translates into improved productivity. Considering that the enterprise personnel who handle such content are usually highly paid (e.g., lawyers, financial analysts, software developers), even small productivity gains might yield significant cost and time savings.
Personally, I am a big user of X (Twitter) and LinkedIn, both of which are optimized for vertical content. Hence, I found this laptop extremely useful. I live-tweet/post from events, during which, in addition to sharing my own opinions, I have to monitor social media trends and what others post continuously. In such a case, this display is a lifesaver, as I can review a large chunk of content with a quick glance without scrolling. As an analyst, I also read a lot of documents and reports and review long spreadsheets, etc. For all of this, I found out firsthand that the productivity improvements are real.
There are two things you should consider before buying this or any such rollable product. First, its price! Being the first such laptops on the market, they will be priced as a premium offering (this rollable retailed at $3499). That means it is well-suited only for those who can realize productivity gains and achieve reasonable RoI. Second, it’s weight. Because of the larger display and rolling mechanism, such laptops will be slightly heavier. That means your utility of the larger screen has to be enough to justify lugging the extra weight all the time.
Since rollable displays are flexible OLED displays, not traditional glass screens, you also need to ensure the display quality meets your needs, especially if you are a graphics artist, etc. Also, they have moving parts, and the rolling mechanism is still in its early stages; you have to be cognizant of the working environment, such as the effects of dust, moisture, etc.
Just to be sure, during my limited use, I did not encounter any of these issues, and the user experience was very similar to that of traditional laptops, of course, with the added benefits of the large display. Lenovo rates the rolling mechanism for 20,000 rolling cycles, which cover most, if not all, use cases. I also got good battery life (almost a full day), even with extended, fully rolled-out display time.
Bottom line, if you are one of the target users and personas identified above, and can afford the price tag, buying these laptops is a wise choice.
Even more exciting rollable concepts coming soon
As mentioned, Lenovo is working on a broad portfolio of rollable concept devices, most of which were shown during its own and industry events.
The first one is ThinkPad Rollable XD, an evolution of the Gen 6 rollable, and likely its replacement. In this, the additional screen, when not in use, instead of stowed away, wraps around and works as a secondary display. This can enable many interesting use cases that increase productivity. For example, to share the screen with somebody in front of you, say for translation and other interactions, for customer service terminals, etc. Also, when the laptop is closed, the external display can be used for notifications, quick lookups, etc., minimizing the need to open the laptop and fire up the whole screen, mimicking the way foldable phones work. This will also increase battery life.
The most exciting concept was the Legion Pro Rollable gaming PC, which expands laterally to turn a standard 15-inch display into a 24-inch-wide screen. This would be an instant hit if priced right. Also, the increased weight of rollable laptops would be negligible compared to the usually heavy gaming laptops.
Going back to the notion of mimicking the smartphone experience on laptops, the Vertiflex brings it even further without a rollable display. It allows the display to rotate 90 degrees and switch between landscape and portrait modes. This is done manually, requiring a simple hinge mechanism without the extra weight or complexity of the rollable display.
I am sure this is only the beginning of these new form factors. The rollable concept allows designers to go wild and experiment like never before. And with Lenovo’s proven track record of quickly commercializing them, foldables are charting a new path for laptops, and users are in for an exciting journey.
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