Lenovo ThinkBook Plus (Gen 5) Review: A Windows and Android Hybrid

Windows 2-in-1s have been doing the tablet-laptop hybrid thing for a portion now, but the tablet portion of that equation ever feels lacking. While iPads and Android tablets person refined the acquisition for much than a decennary and person immense ecosystems of tablet-optimized apps astatine the ready, Windows remains a spot of an disfigured duckling.

But what if you combined a Windows laptop with a afloat Android tablet? That’s the thought down the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus (Gen 5), and it’s an absorbing beast.

The closest analogue to the ThinkBook Plus (Gen 5) is Microsoft’s now-dead Surface Book enactment but without the request to divided shared hardware betwixt the surface and the base. Instead, the ThinkBook packs each of its laptop internals into the keyboard basal and the abstracted tablet hardware successful the display. What you extremity up with is simply a laptop that tin instantly (well, nearly instantly) power betwixt Windows and Android astatine the property of a button, oregon run separately erstwhile you detach the screen.

The hardware is nary slouch either. My reappraisal portion Lenovo has an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, 32 GB of RAM, and a 1-terabyte solid-state thrust for storage. The tablet information of the instrumentality includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset (the flagship Android processor from 2022), 12 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of storage. Those are reasonably beefy specs connected some ends of the equation and assistance support the ThinkBook Plus (Gen 5) feeling snappy with some Windows and Android.

As you’d expect from a $3,500 machine, the physique prime of this ThinkBook Plus is exceptional, with an all-metal chassis that feels similar it tin past being tally implicit by a pickup motortruck (please don’t bash that). It features a 2,880 x 1,800-pixel-resolution 14-inch OLED touchscreen show that looks arsenic bully arsenic you tin get successful a premium laptop. Combined with a acceptable of robust speakers tuned by Harman Kardon, you person a large wide media experience.