Lenovo's folding Thinkpad X1 laptop gets a release date, and it could be before the Surface Neo

In the summer Lenovo showed off a folding laptop at their Accelerate event. Called the Lenovo Thinkpad X1, the laptop is designed for highly mobile, tech-savvy professionals who demand the best tools, and promising that the unprecedented portability will in no way compromise productivity and reliability.

The device was given another outing at the Canalys Channels Forum in Barcelona yesterday, the Register reports,  and the company also gave an indication of when the laptop will be hitting the market.

Lenovo demonstrated it by pulling the 13.3-inch laptop from their handbag.  They note that in the past, a 13.3-inch screen on a laptop demanded that the device stays at that same size footprint —but that the single OLED 2K display made in collaboration with LG Display can fold in half and reduce its width by 50 percent.

They see a number of scenarios for the Intel-powered Windows device, including:

• Wake up, fold it into a book, and start the day scanning your social media feeds in bed.
• Walk to your kitchen, unfold it, and stand it up for hands-free viewing of your top news sites.
• Hit your commute on the bus or train and morph it into a clamshell to catch up on emails.
• Get into the office, dock it into your multi-monitor setup and get to work.
• Go into meetings, take notes with its pen, and write on a full screen tablet.
• After lunch, set up the stand and use its mechanical keyboard to type out a few work emails.
• Come home at night, open it up and stream your favourite shows.
• Relax in bed, fold it in half and enjoy your latest read before going to sleep.

At the event, Gianfrano Lanci, chief operating officer at Lenovo, revealed when the device will be hitting shelves.

“It will start shipping probably Q2 next year,” he said, noting the “hardware is ready but we need to still fix certain things from a software point of view and that doesn’t depend 100 per cent on us.”

This is slightly earlier than Microsoft’s Surface Duo dual-screen laptop, which is expected in Q3 or Q4 2020.

Lenovo didn’t elaborate further regarding the software issues, but he is presumably referring to Windows 10X, Microsoft’s operating system for dual-screen PCs.

To see what that all the excitement is about, see Lenovo’s sizzle reel video below: