(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
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Before the IFA 2025 trade show in Berlin, I met with Lenovo in New York City. Alongside a slate of more concrete PC announcements, the PC giant showed me an interesting pivoting-screen laptop concept that I can only hope actually comes to fruiition.
This concept—which is not currently planned to launch as a real product—revolves around a screen that spins at its center point, rotating in place from horizontal to vertical orientation. When I saw this concept before its unveiling, Lenovo was still deciding on the name, but it has since settled on “ThinkBook VertiFlex Concept.”
You can check out my hands-on video above. It explains how the VertiFlex Concept works and shows off the transformation. My deeper written impressions follow below.
Design: Hidden Hinges Turn Your Screen 90 Degrees
At first glance, and even after handling the machine for a few minutes, nothing about this device looks out of the ordinary. Based on an existing ThinkBook chassis, this is a 14-inch laptop that’s both slim (0.7 inch thick) and light (3.06 pounds). Over the years, I’ve seen many laptops of this size and purpose for traveling professionals—compact, lightweight, and ready for the road.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)This laptop’s party trick hides between the lid and the user-facing screen. A central pivot point and a pair of cleverly designed hinges work together to let you rotate the panel. By pushing or pulling any of the display’s corners to the right, you can quickly rotate the display from a traditional horizontal position to a taller vertical layout.
As you apply pressure, one of the hidden hinges acts like a horizontal track to move the screen, first, to the side. At a certain point along the way, the other hinge activates to begin lifting the screen upward. This motion starts the screen-rotation process; the screen simultaneously riding upward keeps the bottom corner from hitting the laptop’s base as it spins.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)When the screen is vertical, a soft, felt-covered backplate is revealed on the user-facing side of the lid. (The fabric is hidden behind the screen when it's horizontal.) This surface makes the panel glide smoothly as it turns, and it is more pleasant than just plastic. You can even prop up your phone here next to the screen and use Lenovo’s Smart Connect feature to mirror the screen and transfer files.
Using the ThinkBook VertiFlex: A Smooth Screen Switch
Describing the rotation process is more complicated than using it in practice: It’s super fluid, intuitive, and satisfying. The hinges are an elegant solution—all the mechanisms are hidden from sight—and rotating the screen is simple. Once I was shown how it works and left to some hands-on time, I repeatedly rotated the screen between horizontal and vertical positions without issue. You’ll feel just enough feedback and resistance, and the screen produces a pleasant settling sensation when it rotates into place. The screen moves faster than you think, but somehow doesn’t feel fragile.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Some of you may immediately see the benefit of rotating your screen vertically. Whether you find the idea useful comes down to use cases and personal preference; many users with dual monitors already rotate one screen vertically because they enjoy the layout for a second screen or reference material. Displaying long documents and coding are two standout examples of why you’d rather use a vertical screen, but this makes flipping between the two formats so easy that it’s not much of a commitment, anyway.
In fact, I prefer this solution to Lenovo’s own ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, which features a flexible-surface screen that can roll up under the laptop and then extend upward with an automated extension mechanism. Unlike the ThinkBook VertiFlex, that device physically adds inches to the screen when extended, rather than just reorienting the display, so you may find it more appealing. It’s also sold as a real product, though the screen technology makes for one expensive laptop (it's more than $3,000!), and the transformation doesn’t feel as smooth or intuitive as the ThinkBook VertiFlex.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)What’s Inside, and When Will We See More?
As for this laptop's components, I don’t have much to say yet. Normally, I’d be eager to run down the specs of any new PC I get my hands on for you, but they’re simply not relevant here. Since the ThinkBook VertiFlex centers on the moving display, its components are already secondary, compounded only by the fact that Lenovo has no retail plans for this device.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)In fact, Lenovo didn’t share what was running inside the prototype at all. Without needing to finalize specs, worry about performance, or nail down a price to launch this as a real product, the core components could be anything.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)I’ve seen a lot of laptop concepts over my years covering the industry, many from Lenovo itself. While some clearly won’t see the light of day as retail products, I hope the company continues to work on the ThinkBook VertiFlex and brings it to market. Right now, Lenovo has no plans to turn this project into a product. I can see an audience for this idea, though, and I genuinely think it could be helpful for people’s workflows without adding much bulk or complexity to their laptop setup. Bring on the spin, I say.