It looks like the latest addition to the ThinkPad X1 line will be a foldable PC, and it’ll come out before the Surface Neo. No name is confirmed yet, but the PC is expected next summer following a short preview at the Canalys Channels Forum in Barcelona.
The strange introduction saw Lenovo‘s Milanka Muecke, director of global commercial comms and brand, pull the 13″ OLED screen device out of her handbag to demonstrate its bendiness. “I have it right here and you can have it in your purse,” she said. “It looks like a leather bound notebook that you can carry with you all day long, but it is a full performance PC that fits in the palm of your hand.”
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As for when the ThinkPad X1 will ship, the device “will start shipping probably Q2 next year.” The COO explained that “hardware is ready, but we need to still fix certain things from a software point of view, and that doesn’t depend 100 percent on us.” Lenovo did not expand on which software development is holding the device back.
There’s a good chance that it is related to Windows 10X, the version of Windows 10 that is specifically designed for foldable devices. If the company does successfully manage to hit their deadline however, they’ll beat the upcoming Microsoft Surface Neo to market, with the Surface planned for ‘Holiday 2020’.
Unfortunately, no concrete price was given, though we wouldn’t expect it to be low. Generally right now it seems that foldable tech can’t be done cheaply, yet. On top of this, ThinkPads tend to sit on the higher end of the price spectrum, so expect the new foldable ThinkPad to cost quite a lot at launch.
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