Lenovo looks set to bring a crowded, strangely confident booth to CES 2026: practical ThinkPad refinements for road warriors and creators, plus a clutch of motorized and flexible-display experiments that feel like the company’s way of asking "what if?".
The Auto Twist: concept finally pushed toward shipping hardware
One of the clearer headlines from the leaks is that the ThinkBook Auto Twist concept—first shown as a demo of a motorized swivel hinge—may become a real product next year. According to the information shared with Windows Latest, Lenovo will ship a ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist that uses an electromotor and a dual-rotation hinge to flip and rotate the display automatically. That lets the laptop switch between traditional clamshell, presentation (screen facing out), and tablet modes with a push of a button or, reportedly, via voice and camera cues.
Specs in the leak read like a mid-premium convertible: a 14-inch 2.8K 120 Hz OLED touchscreen, Core Ultra Series 3 silicon, up to 32 GB LPDDR5x, up to 2 TB of PCIe storage, a 75 Wh battery and a 10 MP front-facing camera. Ports include two Thunderbolt 4 and HDMI 2.1; starting weight is near 1.4 kg. Price and timing mentioned in the leak are notable—roughly $1,499 and a June 2026 on-sale target—if Lenovo follows the roadmap.
Liliputing’s earlier hands-on with the original Auto Twist concept highlights the potential convenience here: automatic rotation means not having to fumble the hinge mid‑presentation. But the moveable mechanism also raises obvious long-term durability questions. If Lenovo can deliver a quiet, reliable motor and better-than-usual repairability, the twist could be more than a gimmick.
X1 gets a structural rethink—repairability is suddenly a headline feature
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 Aura Edition and the X1 2‑in‑1 Gen 11 Aura Edition reportedly adopt a dual-sided motherboard layout—components on both faces of the board—to free up space, improve cooling and make room for a much larger haptic touchpad. The change isn’t just about thinness: sources claim it yields better sustained thermal performance (Lenovo is said to tout about 20% improved heat dissipation and a sustained 30 W envelope) and iFixit-like repairability improvements. One leak even put an iFixit-style score at 9/10 for the redesign.
Both models are expected to use Intel Core Ultra X7 Series 3 chips with up to an integrated NPU delivering roughly 50 TOPS, paired with optional Intel Arc 12Xe graphics. Display options span efficient WUXGA panels to high‑color 2.8K OLEDs. Other practical upgrades include Wi‑Fi 7, optional 5G, a 10 MP wide‑FOV webcam with distortion correction, and recycled materials for chassis parts.
If you care about repairability and sustainability, this is interesting terrain: Lenovo’s materials notes in the leak mention recycled magnesium, aluminum and even 100% recycled cobalt in batteries—details that usually sit in late-stage spec sheets but here come out front-and-center.
The X9 15p, ThinkCentre AIO/Tower and peripherals: bigger, louder, more local AI
For people who need performance, the ThinkPad X9 15p Aura Edition is the headline pro machine in these leaks. Expect up to Intel Core Ultra X9 Series 3 silicon (the platform’s higher‑end SKU), up to 64 GB LPDDR5x, a 15.3-inch 2.8K OLED at 1,000+ nits HDR peak and an 88 Wh battery. The X9 also reportedly restores a full‑size SD card slot and includes a very large haptic touchpad and a six‑speaker audio system—clearly aimed at content creators.
On the desktop side, leaked ThinkCentre products range from a 27.6-inch, almost‑square Aura AIO (16:18 aspect) geared toward document-heavy workflows to a beefy ThinkCentre X Tower targeting AI and data workloads with options for dual RTX 5060 Ti or a single RTX 5090 and up to huge memory configs. Lenovo’s AI Fusion solution and an AI Fusion Card were also mentioned as ways to enable local fine-tuning of models—an example of the industry’s drive to put more AI work on‑premise right at the PC.
Accessories leaked alongside the hardware include a Bose‑tuned ANC foldable headset and a hybrid presenter/mouse with on‑device AI shortcuts. Lenovo also floated a "Sensor Hub" accessory that uses cameras, radar and mics to sense presence and adapt performance and privacy in real time—an idea that intersects with product-level AI and sensor fusion trends.
These leaks arrive as vendors race to make PCs feel smarter and more context aware—something Microsoft, Google and others have been tooling for with their own local and cloud AI initiatives. (For a sense of how companies are proliferating on-device AI tools, see Microsoft’s recent MAI image work and broader platform pushes around image models.) See Microsoft's MAI-Image-1 for one such example of vendor-led model work, and how platform AI is spreading into apps and devices. You can also compare Lenovo’s in-device sensing ambitions to broader platform experiments like Google's AI Mode, which explore agentic, context-driven features on consumer devices.
Rollables, mini PCs and the small print
Not every idea here is ready for retail. The ThinkPad Rollable XD Concept—an ambitious vertical rollable OLED that expands from a compact 13.3-inch workspace into a tall 16-inch canvas—was repeated in the leaks as a concept rather than a shipping product. It’s an R&D showcase: transparent glass that exposes part of the flexible display when closed, a “world-facing” surface for notifications and quick interactions—neat, but not immediately practical.
There are also rumors of a tiny 1‑liter cylindrical Yoga Mini mini‑PC and early AIO prototypes in other leaks. These point to Lenovo testing many form factors at once: some are incremental (better cameras, more efficient internals), others are speculative (motorized hinges, rollable panels) and a few are plainly ambitious.
If the leaks are right, CES 2026 will be the moment Lenovo tries to show it can be both conservative and experimental at the same time—stocking the shelves with well‑spec’d ThinkPads while also waving prototypes that may shape the next few years of PC design. Expect to see more concrete pricing, availability and durability claims as Lenovo’s official announcements roll out.