Lenovo laptop concept
Is the laptop about to get a major upgrade? Lenovo

Chinese tech giant Lenovo has unveiled its vision for the "future of personalised computing" with a concept device that re-imagines the laptop as fully foldable and almost fully controlled by your voice.

At an event in New York, the futuristic ThinkPad ditches the trackpads and mouse inputs that have dominated the PC space for decades, instead opting for a touchscreen, a pencil-like stylus and voice-activation set-up that wouldn't be amiss on a Star Trek spaceship.

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We've already seen all these features make their way to laptops separately from various manufacturers, with voice-control in particular becoming a prominent PC technology thanks to digital assistants like Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana.

Although Lenovo can't see a world without keyboards just yet, the concept seems to imagine a bold future where we rely on assistant AI in a much greater way.

The other key feature of the dream device is its foldable, bendable and even rollable design. Prototype foldable screens have teased tech trade shows and company events for years now, and it has been long-rumoured that Samsung and LG are testing flexible displays for next-gen smartphones and tablets.

Lenovo has its own foldable screen plans but the concept here depicts a laptop that swaps physical hinges for a device that can be rolled shut. The speculative PC would use "advanced materials" and "new screen technologies," according to Lenovo.

You can watch the ThinkPad concept's brief appearance at the Lenovo Transform event in the video below (here's a direct link to the part in question) where it receives a notably muted reception from those in attendance.

Will we ever see the bendy laptop make it to market? Flexible form is clearly an interest to a number of manufacturers and it would no doubt be a hit for consumers. While they say there's no smoke without fire, it will be largely dependent on display technology and the ability to manufacture flexible components. It's firmly a concept for now, but never say never.

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