I tried Lenovo's new rollable ThinkBook and can't go back to regular-sized screens

ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

ZDNET's key takeaways

• The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 is available now, starting at $3,300.
• The 120Hz, OLED, portrait-style 16.7-inch display delivers an expansive workspace, supported by a haptic touchpad.
• It has limited I/O, has some visible creasing on the rollable display, and has a sky-high price.

Lenovo unveiled its "rollable" laptop at CES two years ago as a wild proof of concept that turned heads, but left consumers skeptical. Well, the company has since proved its point: the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable is now available to consumers for an eye-watering $3,300, but packed with premium design elements, solid hardware, and a 120Hz OLED display that extends to almost 17 inches at the press of a button. 

Also: Lenovo's $3,000 rollable ThinkBook laptop is officially available to buy - know this before you do

I've been using the ThinkBook Plus for over a week as my main laptop, and I have to admit, I'm enamored by the extendable screen, particularly as a productivity machine for work. 

But as the first of its kind, it's far from perfect. There are a handful of trade-offs due to the laptop's form, and the sky-high price invites a critical eye to every element of its design. That being said, it is ultimately a well-engineered laptop. Let's take a closer look. 

Like all ThinkBooks, the laptop exudes business, featuring a metallic, two-tone design. It's not my favorite aesthetic, but it's certainly durable and resists fingerprints way better than all the matte black designs out there. 

Upon first glance, the laptop looks like any other. One of the first things to stand out is the thick bezels framing the display, but as your eye draws to the bottom, you notice something strange: there's no bottom bezel -- the screen just continues below the keyboard. 

Also: How to buy a laptop for school, work, or gaming (and our top picks for each)

The rest of the rollable screen is parked underneath, waiting to be unfurled. With the push of a button, the standard-sized display extends upwards, increasing the screen size to 16.7 inches.

Kerry Wan/ZDNET

The result is a large, portrait-style display that goes far beyond any other standard laptop screen size on the market. The glossy, OLED screen delivers a fantastic picture, with no flickering or dimming around the edges, although there is some visible creasing that looks like what you'd see on a foldable phone's display. 

This is especially true if you rotate the glossy display to reflect the light. It's a little more visible than I expected and certainly something of note (given the price), but ultimately, it doesn't really overshadow the benefit of the large screen. 

For example, you stop noticing the creasing when your attention is focused on what you're actually doing. It's one of those things that's an inevitable part of its mechanics -- it took foldable phones several years to reduce the creasing on their displays -- and although it doesn't exactly scream "premium", it doesn't cancel out the benefits the screen provides. 

Also: I tried Lenovo's infamous 'rollable' laptop at CES - it's more practical than I thought

So what are the said benefits? First off, the extra room is a breath of fresh air. It allows for a spacious workspace that I have to admit, makes for a very nice user experience. Personally, I like running one large, full-screen desktop, but you can also put two windows, one on top of the other, for two 16:9 desktops. 

To maximize real estate, I set the scale in Windows to 125%, bringing the UI down to a more manageable size that results in a crisp and efficient interface. However, if you want a larger UI, it still feels more roomy than a regular laptop display. 

If you're a programmer, you'll appreciate the extended portrait orientation, but anyone who works with documents will love being able to see a third more content on the screen at a glance. 

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET

As an editor, it drastically improves working in Google Docs and my browser-based CMS, both of which benefit from more visibility without having to squint at a UI that's been scaled down to the atomic level. 

Even basic web browsing is improved, with more of the page on the screen at once, and more content visible with less scrolling. In that sense, the display mirrors the mobile layout, which is ultimately more scrollable. 

Rolling the screen up can be done by pressing the associated key or with a hand gesture in front of the webcam. While it's extending, the screen defaults to playing an animation (different ones are selectable in settings) with some thematic music, then reloading your desktop once it reaches the desired size. The music can be a little much in a quiet office, so luckily, all of these features can be turned off. 

When fully extended, the bottom third of the screen is occupied by the Lenovo widget panel, which shows reminders, your to-do list, and a calendar at a glance. You can pin this to stay permanently on or have it hide behind your other apps. 

There's actually a lot of content here, including short videos that show how to use gesture controls to raise and lower the display and some suggestions on how to organize the screen more effectively. 

Beyond the display, the rest of the laptop's core components are quite nice. The keyboard is a little shallow, but the keys feel great, with a satisfying click that's crisp and responsive. 

I was also thrilled to find the haptic trackpad to be just as well-engineered, with a uniform click no matter where you press down on the pad, and a sensitive input for swipe gestures. One thing to note, however, is that in cooler temperatures, you might have some trouble with the pad recognizing your fingers, especially if they're cold.

Also: The Lenovo ThinkPad streak is over: This model I tested bucks a decade-long trend (for the better)

Also note that the laptop's form factor limits its I/O access, with just two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports and a headphone jack. All three ports are located on the left side of the device, which might be problematic for some users, but is an expected trade-off for the features. 

All in all, the laptop's core physical build feels premium (if a little chunky), and even without the rollable display, it would be a solid office laptop. The fingerprint reader on the power key, along with support for Wi-Fi 7 seal the deal as a modern business device. 

Under the hood, the Intel Core Ultra 7 "Lunar Lake" processor, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage make for a standard hardware loadout comparable to any number of mid-to-upper range business laptops. The big display is powered by an integrated Intel Arc 140V GPU with 16GB of internal memory, supplying more than enough power for daily use. 

If you're looking to game on this laptop, it can handle some mainstream titles, but it's not exactly built for running top-tier gaming content. In "normal" laptop mode, you've got a 2000 x 1600 resolution, standard fare for a 14-inch. But if your game supports a 2000 x 2350 resolution, you can play with the screen fully extended, which definitely feels like a unique experience, but because of all the screen space, it isn't exactly optimized for high-APM gaming. 

If you're playing an older game that doesn't support that resolution, well, the game will simply revert to the traditional resolution, resulting in empty space below the window and negating the whole point of the extended display. The bottom line here: gaming can be a bonus for this laptop, but not what it's made for. 

Also: Finally, a Windows laptop that I wouldn't mind putting away my MacBook Pro for

Regarding battery life, the display expectedly cuts into the 66Whr battery's longevity, although not as much as you might expect. During normal use, you can get a full work day of use out of it with the screen extended, but it's cutting it close. If you add in videoconferencing and more demanding workloads, you might not make it through the day without a power top-up. 

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET

That being said, the Lunar Lake chip does allow for the battery loss to reduce to a trickle when not in use, and it charges fast: about 80% in an hour. In our video playback test, we got a little over 11 hours at half brightness in balanced mode over Wi-Fi. 

So let's address the elephant in the room: the price. Lenovo is well aware that this laptop is not for everyone. In fact, it's probably the most niche product I've reviewed all year. Instead, it's more about proving a point. 

Also: I've tested dozens of ThinkPads: Here's the Lenovo model I keep coming back to

Lenovo wants to project a reputation of innovation, but more importantly, it wants to prove it can deliver said products to market. This device reflects that mission, earning it an important place in Lenovo's portfolio, even if it's not the year's top seller. 

It's also the first iteration of this rollable concept, and as such, the physical design is not quite as polished as you'd find in Lenovo's other high-end laptops, like the ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition or the X1 Carbon. These laptops come from a product line backed up by decades of design and engineering, with the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 having room to improve in subsequent model versions. 

ZDNET's buying advice

The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 is an impressive product, even considering its trade-offs. The display has visible creases and thick bezels, but when it's fully extended, you forget about them. The battery isn't the best, but it's far from the worst. It's not a stellar gaming rig, but that's not why you buy a ThinkBook, anyway. 

It's niche, and it's expensive, but it does what it's supposed to: deliver a fantastic user experience in the office, with an expansive, flexible display that looks great, pairs nicely with a premium haptic touchpad, and just the right amount of power under the hood. 

Also: I switched to the Dell 14 Premium for two weeks, and it made my XPS laptop look bad

At $3,200, this isn't a mainstream laptop, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you're absolutely sold on the extendable display and are committed to the form factor in the long term. 

The reality is that you can get almost anything for less: a MacBook Pro M4 with 24GB of RAM, or the new brand-new Dell 14 Premium with the same processor and an upgraded Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU for $1,000 less. But if you're in love with the big screen, I can say that it's a productivity game-changer in the office.