Last year, Lenovo showed off a cool futuristic concept gadget called Project Crystal, the world’s first laptop with a transparent microLED display. But today, in what has become a tradition for Lenovo during IFA, the company is back with another demo notebook, this time equipped with a motorized rotating hinge.
Named the Auto Twist AI PC, Lenovo’s latest concept looks almost exactly like a traditional clamshell when closed. However, with a simple voice command, its lid automatically lifts and rotates into practically any position — even into tablet mode.
While there’s no official pricing yet, or even plans to bring the device into full production, Lenovo says the Auto Twist is designed to offer better adaptability, improved ergonomics, and possibly better security.
But for now, the company’s main goal is simply to see what environments or use cases might be able to make the best of such a newly designed laptop.
For example, thanks to built-in object tracking, Auto Twist can rotate its display and follow people moving around the room, which could be very helpful when creating a presentation. It can also detect a person’s body and possibly their posture before moving its display to the best position to reduce fatigue or strain.
Alternatively, the laptop can detect when it’s not being used and then close its lid to prevent unwanted users from accessing it. And while Auto Twist’s AI tag sounds a little gimmicky, Lenovo hopes the laptop will be able to do many of these things automatically or through simple natural language voice control (the laptop currently supports commands to change into laptop mode, clamshell mode, and more).
After seeing it in person, the most immediate use case that came to my mind was POS (point-of-sale) payment terminals. Here, staff often have to manually move the screen around so customers can see their total or add things like a tip.
Admittedly, Auto Twist seems superfluous in that situation, given how easy it is to rotate the screen the old-fashioned way with your hands. And at least from what I saw, the built-in motor wasn’t as smooth as you’d probably want for business applications. But, it’s an interesting idea that has potential for high-end luxury outlets.
Then there’s the fun part. During my demo, I saw Auto Twist play a clip of a dancer as its motorized hinge tried to match its display to the person’s movements. I also saw the laptop present an ultra-wide panoramic photo in a more appealing way by rotating its display horizontally.
Also, while other cutting-edge tech like laptops with foldable displays suffer from a lot of weight and bulk, the rotating servo on Lenovo’s latest concept is relatively unobtrusive and doesn’t impact the overall portability of the device too much.
So, while it remains to be seen how useful Auto Twist really is or what it might become going forward, I appreciate that Lenovo is still trying to find new ways to evolve the classic clamshell laptop.