Lenovo’s new phone looks just like its ThinkPad

Lenovo’s new phone looks just like its ThinkPad

Levono ThinkPad laptops are some of the most iconic for-work laptops out there. You’d likely come across one (brand new or refurbished) in your course of white collar, PMET work. It’s light, sleek, and works as intended, if a little stuffy-looking. But nearly anyone who has seen one cannot forget its famous ThinkPad TrackPoint (and Lenovo knows it, because they made a video on the history of the red nub).

Announced during the height of CES 2023 and ThinkPad’s 30th anniversary is the Lenovo ThinkPhone. It looks exactly like a ThinkPad would, if it was in a phone format. And Lenovo hopes it serves the same ThinkPad clientele with the corporate-friendly features baked into the ThinkPhone.

For starters, it’s manufactured by Motorola, and it features a proprietary ThinkShield security platform. ThinkShield is a combination of hardware-based and AI-based security, and it’s made easy for corporations to deploy ThinkPhones across the organisation using Zero Touch provisioning (with enterprise device management options Moto OEMConfig and Moto Device Manager available out of the box).

This essentially allows the ThinkPhone to be controlled by IT administrators of a company, right down to the phone’s Moto Secure app. Also added to this phone is Moto Keysafe, an additional on-device processor for storing sensitive data on the phone (PINs, passwords, cryptographic keys. etc.), making these data tamper-resistant. 

The ThinkPhone doesn’t just look like a ThinkPad. The phone is MIL-STD-810H-certified, which means it meets the U.S. Military’s requirements for usage in stressful environments (after all, the boardroom is a battlefield, if Korean dramas are to be believed). The body uses aramid fibre, with a frame made from aircraft-grade aluminium, topped off with Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus on its display. It’s also rated IP68 for water and dust resistance. Lenovo also didn’t forget about including red accents via its customisable Red Key – letting its users jump straight to a shortcut they’ve chosen.

Specs-wise, this Android-based phone it carries a 6.6-inch Full HD+ display (1080p), with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ processor, a battery life of up to 36 hours, and fast-charging via the 68W TurboPower fast-charging adapter available in the box. Lenovo is otherwise quite light on the details of this phone.

Despite its Android operating system, the phone features tons of shortcuts and tools for better phone-to-PC interoperability. Examples include Unified Clipboard (transfers copied text or photos/videos between devices after connecting it to the PC), File Drop (drag-and-drop, across systems), and App Streaming (opening an app on the phone on the PC instead). 

The Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola will be available in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Middle East, Australia, and “select countries across Asia” in the coming months, with no exact dates given. We’ll update again when we get pricing and local availability if any.

Source: Lenovo (newsroom)