The Lenovo Tech Life | IFA event introduced plenty of new and upcoming products, including the ThinkPad X1 Fold. This was my personal favorite of what was shown off, as its incredible large 16.3-inch (2024x2560) OLED screen shown brightly in all its 600nit HDR glory.
When unfolded you can attach a magnetic keyboard to the bottom for all your typing needs, and when it needs to be carried around it can fold into a 12-inch screen with the same keyboard magnetically attached to the bottom. There’s also a stand that’s used to prop up the tablet when using it and, like the keyboard, can be magnetically attached to the bottom when carrying it around.
The specs are incredible for a tablet with up to an Intel vPro with 12th Gen Intel Core U9 i5 and i7, up to a 32GB LPDDR5 memory, and up to 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. It does use the mobile Iris Xe Graphics GPU but since this is meant for business and not gaming, it’s essentially a non-issue. Inside the chassis and on top of the battery is a graphite plate interwoven with copper, which dissipates the heat released from said batteries. This allows for a fanless design under the hood that maintains the thinness of the tablet, while still keeping it cool.
Inside the chassis and on top the battery is a graphite plate interwoven with copper, which dissipates the heat released from said batteries. This allows for a fanless design under the hood that maintains the thinness of the tablet, while still keeping it cool.
It has a pretty good port selection for a tablet with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, and a Nano-SIM card tray. It also supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, as well as a three-speaker system. This tablet is absolutely tricked out.
The most impressive part of the X1 Fold is how the fold itself works. Unlike the Galaxy Fold phones, there’s no crease when the tablet is fully unfolded as the hinge is built into the chassis of the tablet but not directly attached to the screen itself. The screen is flexible enough to bend with the hinge but doesn’t need to become one.
And the folding isn’t just for portability either but allows for you to fold the tablet halfway and then attach the keyboard to the bottom half while using the top half as a 12-inch screen. The full 16-inch display can also be used as a split screen with four separate tasks in each one.
The ThinkPad X1 Fold will be priced at $2,499 (around £2,152 / AU$3,652) and is expected to launch in November 2022.
IFA 2022 is Europe's biggest tech show, and TechRadar is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and announcements, plus our hands-on first impressions of the new TVs, wearables, audio devices and other gadgets on show.
