At CES 2020, one clear trend is the fact that quite a few companies are toying with the idea of foldable screens for laptops. While Lenovo has gone ahead and announced the launch of its Thinkpad X1 Fold, Intel is showcasing its much larger concept design with a horseshoe bend. Just steps away from the Lenovo booth is Dell with its own Concept Ori and a very different take on the foldable form factor. In fact, just next to the Concept Ori prototype is the Concept Duet device with two separate screens instead of one that folds. Justin Lyles, vice-president of consumer design at Dell, says the Duet has two 13.4-inch displays, while the 13-inch Ori folds to become half the size. “The two screens want to connect in the middle, but the technology isn't quite ready yet. And that's how we look at it also. Non-bendable displays are very mature right now, so putting two in a product is a lot easier to do. It's a lot more mature than a bendable display device,” Lyles tells indianexpress.com when asked if dual displays are a stepping stone towards bendable displays. “So you're going to see more dual display devices first, and then it will evolve into bendable displays. But I don't think one's going to displace the other,” he added, underlining that the two form factors are going to live alongside. Also, there is the reality that bendable displays will be very costly initially and will come with limited availability. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold has been priced at $2499, for instance. “I think the dual-screen devices will live quite a long time and actually provides a different usage model. So there's room for both of these eventually. But to start off with, the dual-screen is gonna be the primary device first,” he elaborates. CES 2019 Day 3 Highlights: Google Assistant Connect, Lenovo Smart Clock, IBM Q System One, and more But is the customer demanding a foldable screen, or is this more technology for the sake of technology? “I will definitely say the customer is the beginning, middle and end of everything we do. We do a lot of research and a lot of investigation to know trends, changing behaviours and how people are using technology today. And we really designed our products and features to provide values for the customer,” he counters, adding that Dell does a product when they know it is good for the customer and it solves real problems for them. He says the foldable screens are a good example of that thinking. “The reason why we are showing the concept only and not announcing the product is we are still exploring that space. There's a lot of opportunities there. But we want to make sure we don't misstep in that space by rushing into it too quickly,” Lyles is very clear. “So you will see us explore different sizes of bendable displays over the next couple of years. We are really going to go test this with users in different ways to make sure there's actually a really good value there before we release that to the customer.” Lenovo launches world’s first 5G PC, foldable laptop… and that’s not all On top of this, there is the software that needs to be sorted out. The ThinkPad X1 fold, as well as the two concepts, run Windows 10 right now, which is not exactly made for a form factor like this and the new UI issues it presents. “Products are all about making sure the hardware and the software reach maturity at the same time. When those happen together, we have an opportunity to create a great product. We are working on the hardware right now,” Lyles explains. He says Dell will “pull the trigger” when we find that we have a great hardware solution and it has the best software solution to provide the best customer experience. “So I wouldn't say we are waiting for the software, but the software is getting better every day. So when we are ready with the hardware, we are going to take the best software and it'll be an amazing product.”
