That Lenovo launched a bunch of new laptops at CES 2024 is hardly surprising, but one of those new models has been transformed into a proof-of-concept that rocks an animated color E Ink outer lid.

The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 SPE’s exterior cover is essentially a 13-inch E Ink Prism color screen that users can treat to numerous patterns and images – Lenovo says that the setup supports up to a thousand – in order to “express their personality and creativity.”

It’s not clear which Prism flavor Lenovo is using, though we’d assume it to be the third generation that launched at last year’s CES with an impressive demo on the outer skin of BMW’s iVision DEE concept car. The technology is able to handle eight colors and supports animated imagery.

Lenovo

And of course, being E Ink, it only sips at the host device’s battery – with Lenovo saying that “even when the system is powered off, the top cover can still keep changing.” Examples for the concept include a dynamic clock and mesmerizing patterns (which are definitely going to be very distracting to other students in the university library or colleagues in the boardroom). A short video of the concept can be seen via the source link at the end.

The company hasn’t shared possible release plans, but the model it’s based on – also launched at CES – features Intel Core Ultra 9 processing brains with integrated Arc graphics, up to 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD storage, a 74-Wh battery, a 13.5-inch, 2.8K narrow-bezel Dolby Vision touchscreen display, Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6E, and four Harman Kardon speakers with Dolby Atmos cooked in. That ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 laptop is due for release in Q1 for a starting price of US$1,399.

Source: Lenovo