First unveiled at CES this January under a different name, the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 is a unique dual-screen laptop with one OLED and another color E Ink display placed on opposite sides of the laptop lid. This lid is anchored to a clever swivel hinge that allows for 180-degree rotation. This allows the ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 to be both a laptop and tablet with either display.

But is the addition of an E Ink screen and swiveling form factor useful or just a gimmick? I've been using the machine for a week across two continents, and while the hardware is impeccable, there are some software quirks that Lenovo needs to iron out. Ultimately, I just don't have a lot of use for an E Ink screen. Still, as a conventional OLED laptop, it performs well, and I love how this thing looks. It could be considered one of the best laptops were it not for the relatively high price.

About this review: Lenovo sent us the ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 for the purposes of this review and did not have any input into its contents.

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4: Price and availability

The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 is available on Lenovo's online store. There is only one configuration for now, with a Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, and 512GB storage, priced at $3,039. However, you can build a cheaper configuration with a Core i5 processor for $2,800. The top-tier configuration has a 1TB SSD for $3,153.

As is usually the case with Lenovo products, it will likely be available on other e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Best Buy later.

Design and hardware

A unique vibe

The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 is a great-looking laptop all around, but I particularly like how it looks when closed. The lid doesn't cover the bottom of the laptop entirely, which results in a layered look. When closed, the laptop doesn't look like a clamshell but rather two thin tablets stacked on top of each other. The brushed metallic finish on the aluminum casing adds to the unique vibe.

But that's not all: The top of the lid is, in fact, an E Ink screen, and Lenovo gave it the ability to display images, even when the machine is locked and asleep. The default image is a colorful wallpaper that looks great, but I also customized it with art from one of my favorite artists. And yes, you can set the image to change at set intervals. This further helps the design stand out. I work out of coffee shops often, and sometimes, I get sad at seeing a sea of Apple logos on the table. I like that this laptop helps me stand out, and the choice of artwork or photo used can make a statement.

The machine is relatively thin and lightweight, considering it has two screens. It measures 0.7 inches (about 17.7mm) at its thickest point and weighs almost three pounds. There are only three ports: a pair of USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports — one on each side — and a headphone jack on the left side. There's also a power button on the right side that doubles as a fingerprint scanner.

I haven't tested many laptops where the power button is on the side, which further makes this feel like a tablet. The fingerprint scanner, however, is not great by 2023 standards. It often requires multiple touches to register my print. I think it may be because the scanner is narrow, and the table surface on which the laptop sits prevents my finger from touching the scanner fully. Whatever the case, I have not needed to try multiple times to unlock a fingerprint scanner since the Samsung Galaxy S20 series' notoriously poor in-display scanner.

Finally, let's move on to the keyboard. The keys are well-spaced, though key travel is shallower than other laptops I've recently tested from Huawei, Asus, and Apple. Still, I enjoyed the typing experience, and I was able to reach my peak typing speed of 107 words per minute on Typingtest.com. The glass trackpad is fine, offering a bit of friction for the fingers without feeling too grippy. I rarely encounter false taps the way I would on some Dell XPS or Huawei trackpads.

The package does include a stylus, which Lenovo calls Precision Pen 3. It works OK (I'll explain more in the performance section), but there's no place to store the stylus on the laptop. No magnetic attachment, no slot — it's an entirely separate carry.

Display

Two great displays with one downside

Open up the laptop, and you'll be greeted with a 13.3-inch 2.8K (2880x1800) OLED screen that looks great indoors. Blacks are deep, and reds pop off the screen. Lenovo purports that it covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, and it also supports multi-touch and a stylus, the latter of which comes with the package. But its 400 nits of maximum brightness and semi-reflective coating make the screen a little tougher to see under the harsh sun Then again, most laptops suffer in this regard, so it's not a Lenovo problem.

On the other side is the aforementioned color E Ink panel. It's smaller at 12 inches, so it's wrapped by thicker bezels, and its 12Hz refresh rate is really jarring at first. The benefit of E Ink, for those who may not know, is that the display does not emit light. Instead, it relies on ambient light, so it's less stressful for our eyes. E Ink screens can also recreate the feeling of reading on paper, which is why it's such a popular display tech for e-readers.

E Ink screens are usually black and white, and that's what you got on the first two ThinkBook Plus models. The upgrade this year is the switch to color. Now, don't expect vibrant colors because E Ink panels are so low-powered, and the point is to be easy on the eyes. But that means everything looks slightly dull.

The swiveling hinge feels well constructed, without much flopping. Even at really weird angles, like midway folded and opened at 45 or 160 degrees, the lid didn't move much when I shook the machine. However, do note the swivel mechanism cannot keep rotating endlessly. You can flip it exactly once; once it hits the 180-degree flip, it stops moving. So, you need to rotate the other way to flip back. It's not a big deal either way.

One potential concern I had with this laptop was that at least one of the screens is exposed at all times. Lenovo says both screens are protected by Gorilla Glass (though it didn't specify which version), and Lenovo says the machine is rated MIL-STD 810H, a 12-step military test to ensure the machine can survive various temperatures, altitudes, and basic drops.

Software and performance

Excellent as a conventional laptop, average everywhere else

The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 in laptop mode with the OLED screen behaves like any other Windows laptop. It runs Windows 11 Pro, and the overall software experience is nearly identical, except Lenovo added a couple extra pre-installed, one of which is to control and customize the E Ink screen. By default, you have to press a physical button located in the F-key row or hit a software toggle to switch to the E Ink screen. But you can also set it so the E Ink screen turns on automatically when you close the lid or rotate the screen around.

While the software adapted to shifting screens mostly well, I did encounter stutters and outright freezing about three or four times. Considering I've been using this laptop daily for a week and must have flipped the screens around a few hundred times, this software failure percentage is low. But be prepared for the moment when your screen doesn't register your finger taps.

Lenovo designed a custom UI for the E Ink screen, but you can also switch it off and just run Windows. Whatever you can do on a Windows laptop, you can do on the E Ink screen, including watching videos, but you won't want to because the 12Hz refresh rate results in severe lag. Even basic operations like clicking an onscreen button or scrolling through a page feel slow. But again, that's fine because this screen is mostly for reading. Lenovo's marketing claims the screen is ideal for writing, too, but I type way too fast for an E Ink screen to keep up, so that's a non-starter for me.

This means how much use you'll get out of the E Ink screen depends on how much you read, the type of content you often consume, and if you want to write using a stylus. If you're a frequent e-book reader, the Amazon Kindle app works well. If you read a lot of long press releases or academic papers, this screen will also come in handy. However, I find that reading websites is not as enjoyable due to the delay in scrolling, and most websites today have ads and pop-ups that look really distracting on an E Ink display. I think most people will end up using the OLED screen much more.

So, I have very few grips with the outside of the laptop. The inside is a different story. The 13th-generation Intel Core i7-1355U processor with 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM is fine, although, with only integrated Iris Xe graphics, this won't be a machine for heavy video work or gaming. I can also forgive the decent stereo speakers located on the bottom of the relatively small 56Wh battery. But I have a problem with the 512GB of SSD storage, which is stingy on a $3,000 device.

As I said, using the machine as a normal laptop was great for me. I used it mostly as a work machine, writing lots words into the XDA CMS and on Chrome, and watched quite a few videos, too, because the OLED screen looks great.

I don't think this machine is meant to be a performance beast, but I ran some benchmarks anyway. The numbers are alright. They're comparable to other devices with the same chip, but it suffers in terms of Cinebench R23 single and multi-core benchmarks.

I already said earlier I am not a fan of using this thing as a tablet, mostly because Windows as a tablet sucks regardless of the device (you have to wait half a second for the screen to rotate orientation and the on-screen buttons are not optimized for touch, for starters). But the machine is also a bit heavy and thick as a tablet. This is not a device you want to hold with your arms for longer than a minute. But I suppose if you use it on a table or propped on a cushion on your lap, then it's fine.

The included stylus is decent. It can detect over 4,000 levels of pressure, but I see noticeable latency between my pen strokes and what I see on screen. In terms of latency, it's definitely behind not just the Apple Pencil or Samsung's S Pen but also budget styli from Xiaomi or OnePlus.

Still, I enjoyed sketching on it for fun, and Lenovo's software can also detect handwriting and convert it to text. The basics work; it's just the latency that ruins the experience. But for a free stylus that's included with the package, I won't knock points off.

Battery life is not great. When I am actively working on the machine in OLED laptop mode, I drain close to 15-18% per hour. This is not extremely heavy use like video editing or rendering graphics, but just typing words in Chrome, with Slack and Spotify open in the background. To give a real-life example: I started this writing session with 77% battery and about 90 minutes of writing later, the battery sits at 49%.

As expected, the E Ink screen doesn't seem to eat much power because even when the laptop is sleeping, the E Ink screen continues to display a graphic. Even leaving it overnight, I did not notice any meaningful battery drain. When I used the device with just the E Ink screen, the battery drained only 1% in 40 minutes. I did not use the E Ink screen longer than 40 minutes, however, because, as I wrote earlier, there really isn't that much you can do on it other than read text.

Should you buy the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4?

You should buy the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 if:

• You want a versatile machine that can be a Windows laptop, tablet, and e-reader
• You want a laptop with a customizable lid that can make a statement
• You have around $3,000 to spend

You should not buy the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 if:

• You want a good value laptop
• You don't have use for an E Ink screen
• You have a heavier workload that requires graphics work

I personally really like the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4. I am currently on a work trip, and I chose to bring it with me even though I could have just wrapped the review before I left. As mentioned earlier, I love just looking at the laptop sometimes, particularly when it's in closed form. In my younger, more pretentious days, I would have enjoyed "making a statement" with my lid graphic of choice, too.

But at $3,000, the price is just too high for most people. And unless your eyes frequently feel stressed looking at conventional screens, I'm not sure the addition of the E Ink screen moves the needle much. If I were to use this as my long-term work laptop, I could see myself spinning that E Ink screen over maybe once or twice a month. And Windows on a tablet is still so bad I'd rather not. This means the ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 is still ultimately just a normal Windows laptop to me, and at its price point, it's tough to recommend to the masses.