Confirming a previous leak, Lenovo officially announced the ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid during its CES 2024 product reveals. It combines a Windows 11 notebook with a 14-inch OLED 2.8K touchscreen display that can detach from the keyboard and be used as an stand-alone Android 13 tablet.
↫ John Callaham
I’m not even sure why I’m posting this, other than that it perfectly illustrates the problems Windows on one side, and Android on the other, face in providing the full device spectrum to users. Windows only really works on desktops and laptops, while Android only really works on smartphones and tablet. As such, Frankenstein devices like these have to be made to cover the entire spectrum.
I kind of want one.
It seems like the perfect device for someone like me. I gave my Kindle Fire 10 tablet to my bedridden father in law so he would have something simple to use for keeping his mind sharp, and replaced it with a Surface Go 2 (running Linux of course). However, I already miss the simplicity and appliance-like nature of the Fire tablet, even though I replaced it because I needed the extra horsepower and features of a full PC in tablet form. Pairing a complete x86 SoC with an equally complete ARM64 SoC in the same shell is ingenious.
Morgan,
Don’t forget about itanium…
x86-64 + ARM64 + itanium == brilliant 🙂
Alfman,
There was a time I looked at Itanium with awe. Fortunately it did not last long 🙂
Does it come with a 10,000 BTU air conditioning unit? Kinda puts a damper on the whole portability thing 😉
Morgan,
We had a very good solution in Samsung Galaxy phones back in the day. The “DaX” subsystem used to come with a full featured Linux desktop.
Yes, not everyone prefers Linux, but it was still a fully featured operating system. When I docked my phone on my desktop, I would have a small but powerful computer (especially useful in power/internet failures, as I had unlimited 4G, but limited tethering).
They dropped it. The current DeX is just a skin on Android with rudimentary multi-app / windows support. (lower case “windows”, not the Microsoft operating system).
So, yes, I can see the appeal of such a device. But let’s see whether Lenovo will stick with it and iterate it until it becomes useful, or will they abandon it like Samsung?
Yep I had a Samsung with the original Linux based DeX, it was pretty cool but it wasn’t a powerful enough device to use as a daily PC. These days the phones are nearly workstation-class computing power but they gimped DeX by making it all Android instead of actual Linux.
I wonder what approach they’re taking to the hinge issues that dogged these kinds of devices like ten years ago (if anyone remembers the Asus Transformer?).
Weirdly, the only company that was able to get the “tablet with detachable keyboard” hardware right was Microsoft (with their Surface). Other designs — I’m thinking of the Transformer but there were three or four others — all tried laptop-style designs with hinges that included connection points for the tablet.
The stress of opening and closing the laptop caused the connection points to fail pretty quickly, even when (as with the Transformer) the stress was distributed across the length of the keyboard with a brace or mounting bracket.
The pictures in this article look like a horrible design from that perspective.
i consider 14 inch way to big for a tablet in either case for me personally. 7-10 inch is something i could consider though.
Does it come with two batteries ?
And scarce split storage so that you never have enough on either side ?
So I’m reading a new slim form factor desktop PC with an Android powered monitor.
Please bring back the Edit buttons.
I’m not against messages being journaled if needed, for integrity, but I’m too old to change my “Post First, Think Later” ways.
Anyway this is the internet and edits are supposed to be triggered by regret which by definition always follows a post!