Lenovo’s ThinkBook lineup isn’t just for small businesses. It’s where Lenovo pushes boundaries with innovative form factors, like the ThinkBook Plus Gen 4’s e-ink display. Now, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid takes things a step further by combining a traditional Windows laptop with a detachable Android tablet. This intrigued me – I’ve always wondered how a tablet could seamlessly integrate with a laptop, a concept that many Apple fans would love to see in an iPad/MacBook fusion. Lenovo has achieved a high level of success, delivering a solid Windows laptop and a competitive Android tablet. However, there are a couple of significant drawbacks that prevent me from wholeheartedly recommending it as one of the best laptops available. Let’s dive deeper into the specifics.
Specs and Configurations
The ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid comes in a single, premium configuration, priced at a hefty $3,518. You’re essentially purchasing two separate devices for that price. The Windows laptop boasts an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H chipset, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 14.0-inch 2.8K OLED display. The Android tablet features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of UFS storage. Both devices share the excellent OLED display. While the price tag is high, consider that similar premium Windows laptops cost between $1,500 and $2,000, and a high-end Android tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is around $1,200. So, you’re essentially paying a premium of a few hundred dollars for two machines integrated into one. It’s an unusual approach, but it has its merits.
Design: Windows Laptop
Let’s first evaluate the ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid (referred to as “ThinkBook” hereafter) as a Windows laptop. In this context, it’s a decent effort, with a couple of minor reservations. It’s incredibly robust in its chassis, keyboard deck, and the dual-purpose display. It stands shoulder to shoulder with premium laptops like the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 9, Dell XPS 14, and Apple MacBook Pro M3 – all benchmarks for excellent design and manufacturing. My concerns lie with the hinge and the tablet attachment mechanism. Initially, I thought the hinge only allowed limited movement and wouldn’t close completely for a standard clamshell laptop. But this was due to the tight hinge out of the box. I didn’t want to force anything. Looking at the reviewer’s guide, I realized it was designed to close. After a few careful closures, the hinge loosened up. While it remained too tight to open the lid with one hand even after repeated use, this wasn’t unusual. The other issue is the somewhat tricky attachment and detachment mechanism. Removing the tablet is straightforward, but putting it back on is more challenging than it should be. Perhaps most disappointing is the laptop’s occasional struggle to start up. It seemed confused about whether it should run Windows or Android when the tablet was attached. Intuitively, it should automatically switch from Android to Windows mode, and maybe it’s intended to. But I often had to press the power button and tap a few keys to get it to wake up in Windows or at all. Apart from these issues, it feels like a decent Windows laptop. At a combined thickness of 0.63 inches (roughly), it’s competitive with laptops like the Yoga 9i Gen 9 and MacBook Pro M3. Its weight, however, tips the scales at 3.87 pounds, due to the inclusion of two devices and batteries. Aesthetically, it’s a modern-looking machine with clean lines and minimal top and side bezels. The bottom chin is relatively large, but that’s expected given the overall design.
Design: Android Tablet
As an Android tablet, the ThinkBook is an intriguing product. While I don’t usually review Android devices, I use an iPad Pro 13, so I’m familiar with large-screen devices running mobile operating systems. From a non-reviewer perspective, I’d say the Lenovo ZUI 15 skin running on Android 13 is very smooth and eerily similar to iPadOS. I won’t spend too much time on the Android software functionality, as I haven’t used enough modern Android tablets to do the topic justice. However, aside from the usual Android phone apps that don’t translate well to the tablet format, I enjoy using it as an alternative to my iPad Pro. In terms of hardware, there’s little to complain about. As mentioned earlier, the build quality is excellent. The tablet portion is thin at 0.26 inches and reasonably light at 2.14 pounds. This is almost as thin as the iPad Pro 13’s 0.20 inches, but the Apple tablet is significantly lighter at just 1.28 pounds. Some of the extra weight is likely due to the complex hinge and connection mechanism.
Lenovo includes a sturdy easel accessory, great for propping the tablet on a desk. It’s not truly portable, though, so a case with an integrated kickstand would be more practical for many users. I’m not sure if Lenovo will ever release such an accessory, and the product probably won’t be popular enough to attract many third-party options. Of course, the centerpiece is the 14.0-inch 2.8K OLED display. We’ll delve into objective measurements below, but it’s a bright, vibrant display with OLED’s signature deep blacks. The tablet is a bit large for using the included active pen for writing and drawing, at least without resting it on a table. However, it’s fantastic for watching HDR content, although the iPad Pro 13’s tandem OLED display does reach higher brightness levels.
In essence, if you’re looking for both a high-quality Windows laptop and a good Android tablet, even if not the absolute best in either category, the ThinkBook is worth considering as a single purchase.
Windows/Android Hybrid
Lenovo includes several utilities on both the Windows and Android sides to support the ThinkBook’s dual-device nature. These are valuable additions that enhance the benefit of having both platforms in one device. On Android, the integration is limited to a Hybrid Folder utility that allows you to access a shared space for transferring files between the two systems. It requires a simple pairing process. In Windows, you also have the same Hybrid Folder utility for accessing the shared space. Additionally, there’s a more useful Hybrid Stream utility that opens Android in a window, allowing you to use both environments simultaneously. Furthermore, the Device Companion Mode enables you to use the tablet as an external device for note-taking and drawing, as well as a second display. This is very similar to Apple’s Continuity feature with the iPad Pro and a MacBook. Again, all of this may appeal most to a specific niche of users, but if that’s you, you’ll appreciate it.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The ThinkBook features Lenovo’s standard keyboard, with its large, sculpted keycaps and ample key spacing. The switches provided a light, responsive experience during my testing, and I was up and running quickly. It’s as good as most laptop keyboards I’ve reviewed, with perhaps only Apple’s Magic Keyboard being superior. When used with Android, it’s the best keyboard I’ve encountered for Google’s mobile operating system. The touchpad is reasonably sized, although there’s room on the palm rest for a larger one. It’s mechanical, while I prefer haptic touchpads, especially at this price point, and its bottom clicks were a bit loud. It’s not my favorite. The display is touch- and pen-enabled and works well. As mentioned earlier, the 14-inch tablet is a bit large for writing and drawing while holding it in one hand, so most people will probably use it on a surface.
Connectivity and Webcam
One limitation as a Windows laptop is the relatively limited connectivity options. There are just two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 on the laptop portion and one USB-C 3.1 port. Besides a 3.5mm audio jack and the Smart Connector for the tablet, that’s all you get. Many 14-inch laptops offer a wider selection of legacy ports. Wireless connectivity is fine, with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 provided by a radio in the tablet portion. There are two webcams, a 1080p front-facing camera with an infrared sensor that supports facial recognition in both Windows and Android, as well as a 13MP rear camera.
Performance
The Windows laptop is powered by a 28-watt Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, a 16-core, 22 thread chipset that’s now a generation behind. It was a very popular chipset powering some fast laptops and is still in use as Intel’s latest Lunar Lake chipsets begin to roll out. Its main competition comes from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300, both released in recent months. Based on our benchmarks, the ThinkBook is a reasonably fast Windows laptop for demanding productivity users. Its Intel Arc graphics limit its usefulness for gaming and creative apps, but in terms of CPU performance, it’s a capable machine. However, when compared to AMD’s and Qualcomm’s latest chipsets in similar laptops, you’re not sacrificing much performance. The bigger question will be on-device AI performance, which will suffer from the Core Ultra 7 155H’s slower Neural Processing Unit (NPU). We don’t have the same set of benchmarks for Android tablets, so I’m somewhat limited in evaluating the tablet’s performance. The tablet portion is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which is a generation behind the chipset in the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra. The laptop didn’t perform particularly well in the Geekbench 6 benchmark, scoring 1,850 single-core and 4,740 multi-core. However, throughout my testing, I found its performance to be smooth and lag-free. Games ran well, too. I’m sure the 12GB of dedicated RAM helps keep things running smoothly. Overall, I was satisfied with the ThinkBook’s performance as a tablet and couldn’t detect much difference from the iPad Pro 13 that I use with Apple’s latest M4 chipset – even though that tablet performed significantly faster in Geekbench 6 at 3,705 single-core and 14,221 multi-core.
Battery Life
The Windows laptop portion has 75 watt-hours of battery capacity, and the Android tablet portion has 38.7 watt-hours. Both promise solid battery life in their respective environments, although the 14-inch 2.8K OLED display is somewhat power-hungry. In our Windows web-browsing test, the Windows laptop lasted 9.75 hours, and it managed just 8.5 hours in our video-looping test. Usually, those results are reversed, and neither keeps up with the latest Qualcomm Windows on Arm laptops that last for more than a full day. Again, we don’t have objective battery life tests for Android, but based on my testing, it’s safe to assume around 10 hours or so of battery life. This is competitive with other tablets like the iPad Pro 13. When connected to the keyboard base, you can tap into the much larger battery and can expect multiday battery life as a result.
Display and Audio
The hybrid solution is built around a 14.0-inch 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED display running at 60Hz. This is more than sharp enough for the screen size, and subjectively, the display is bright and colorful with OLED’s trademark deep blacks. It’s impressive for both Windows laptop and Android tablet use. The only drawback is the 60Hz refresh rate, as many premium displays are running at 120Hz. This includes the Surface Pro 11 and iPad Pro 13 panels.
According to my colorimeter, this is a high-quality display. It’s bright at 411 nits, which isn’t the brightest around (the Surface Pro 11’s comes in at 532 nits, and while we can’t test the iPad Pro 13’s tandem OLED display, that one likely comes in at over 1,000 nits with standard dynamic range content), but it’s still more than bright enough for most environments. Its colors are very wide, at 100% of sRGB, 97% of AdobeRGB, and 100% of DCI-P3, compared to the Surface Pro 11 at 100%, 85%, and 100%, respectively. And, those colors are incredibly accurate at a DeltaE of 0.68 (less than 1.0 is considered excellent). Finally, the contrast ratio was a spectacular 28,760:1, with perfect blacks. For productivity users and creators, this is an excellent display. Media creators will love it as well, although the iPad Pro 13’s display will have the highest brightness in high dynamic range (HDR) video with upwards of 1,600 nits.
Audio is provided by four side-firing speakers, similar to the iPad Pro 13’s setup. I found the sound to be a bit lacking by comparison, without the deeper bass of Apple’s tablet.
A Nice Idea With One Significant Flaw
When I signed up to review the ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid, I was excited to see how well a hybrid device could meet two very different needs. Let’s face it – what you want in a laptop isn’t exactly what you want in a tablet. And I can confidently say that the two modes function well enough, separately and together, that you’re not compromising the experience for integration. But aside from some challenges that are probably software-related, namely getting the machine to start up when switching modes, there’s one primary flaw that software can’t address. Namely, it’s how the tablet connects to the laptop base. It’s too finicky, and I often felt like I was forcing something that might break. Given that the tablet serves as the top portion of a clamshell laptop, a more robust mechanism makes sense. But for this to feel like a unified system, it needs to be more seamless.
There is undoubtedly a target market for this unique device. Someone who likes to play mobile games on their tablet while on the go, for example, or someone who appreciates the idea of traveling with just one device. I’d love to see a second generation with improved software and hardware, but for now, this isn’t quite up to par.
