If you find yourself splitting your digital life between your Android phone and your Windows laptop, there’s now a device for you that runs both the popular operating systems. At CES 2024 in Las Vegas, Lenovo has announced a hybrid machine that is a tablet that attaches to a keyboard and can run both Google and Microsoft’s popular software depending on what you’re doing.
The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid runs Windows 11 when you have the tablet docked to the keyboard base, acting like a traditional laptop. But when you detach the tablet display from the base, it turns into an Android tablet.
The keyboard base houses all the components of a Windows PC, while the tablet is a monitor for that when plugged in, but a separate computer entirely when detached with components to run Android.
Although you can run Windows on tablets, it’s not the best experience, which Lenovo seems to be acknowledging here by switching to Android when there’s no keyboard. It means you can get work done and type out documents and emails in Windows, then unclip the tablet and settle down to an evening of Netflix on the sofa.
“The new ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid is a flexible hybrid solution with a laptop base system and a tablet that can work independently or together and seamlessly switch between laptop and tablet,” Lenovo said in a press release.
What’s not immediately obvious though is that there is no continuity between the two modes – so if you are working on a document in Windows and then detach the tablet, you can’t keep working on it because it turns into an Android tablet. It appears Lenovo simply runs two operating systems and you can’t get them to talk to each other to continue what you were doing between the two.
That could be a sticking point given the ThinkBook is going on sale in the US later this year for about $1,999 (there’s no UK price yet) – a steep price given many great laptops and tablets cost hundreds less.
Lenovo says you can also use the device in Android mode with the keyboard, or connect the detached keyboard to an external display to run Windows on a bigger screen.
