Although the new MacBook Pro 16-inch 2021 kills the Touch Bar — Apple still refuses to make a touchscreen laptop — it looks like Lenovo is looking to give that crowd a secondary touch display right next to the keyboard, complete with pen input.
If this rumored ThinkBook Plus model turns out to be genuine, this innovative (and strange) design will give creative professionals a new tool to express themselves.
Well-known leaker Evan Blass posted an image of the supposed design on Twitter. The 17-inch laptop has a similar design to the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 2, albeit with a secondary screen placed beside the right side of the keyboard. The image also shows a stylus resting on the keyboard.
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This suggests users can write or draw on the color screen. The proposed ThinkBook Plus’ secondary screen placement differs from that of the aforementioned ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 which featured a secondary e-ink screen on its lid.
As noted by sister site, Laptop Mag, Asus’ ProArt Studiobook is comparable to the rumored ThinkBook Plus. The ProArt Studiobook features a 16-inch, 4K OLED HDR display and has an Nvidia RX 3070 GPU and an AMD Ryzen 5000 H-series GPU. It’s possible that this ThinkBook Plus will have similar features given that it needs to be a performant machine capable of handling an artist’s demanding projects.
Aside from the image, we don’t have additional information to go on. With CES 2022 right around the corner, it’s possible we’ll see the laptop at the show. This image is not official so we can’t say if this ThinkBook Plus is real or not. If it is, we think the secondary screen’s placement — though odd — would help creatives become more productive.
