Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 Review: An E-Ink Experiment

We’ll start with the e-ink display because, of course, that’s what sets this laptop apart. It’s a 12-inch panel compared to the 10.8-inch version in the previous generation — it takes up more of the lid’s available space, with large bezels that would have looked normal on a standard display just a few years ago. The e-ink screen is 16:10 like the main display, and it’s sharp at the same WQXGA resolution.

It’s also not backlit, and so like all such e-ink screens, you can only use it with direct lighting. There will be more on that in a bit, but it’s generally a good thing. It’s designed to save your eyes from the blue light that standard displays emit and make it theoretically less fatiguing to use for long reading sessions.

The e-ink display works just like the ones you’ll find on the Amazon Kindle and other dedicated e-book readers. Its image is created from tiny black-and-white particles that electronically align in the right direction to create a grayscale image. As such, the display is fixed until it’s refreshed, which takes noticeable time and causes the typical warping effect you get with the technology. That makes the display suitable for things like viewing documents and other information, reading e-books, and taking notes. It doesn’t work well for watching videos or anything else that requires a fast refresh rate.

When the laptop is asleep or turned off, the static image provides some personalization — you can choose your own background image, which becomes the lid’s aesthetic. When it’s turned on, you’re presented by default with a set of panels providing customization information, like your Outlook calendar (if configured), the weather, a sticky notebook, and customizable buttons to open supported applications.

I was able to add and run any application that I had installed on the laptop, including the full suite of Office apps, Google Chrome, and the Kindle reader for PC, although not every application will work well with the e-ink technology. Certainly, gaming is out of the question, and you’ll want to avoid apps that require immediate response to input.

Like the ThinkBook 13x, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 equips a low-power 11th-gen Intel Core CPU, in this case, the Core i7-1160G7. It, too, runs at up to 15 watts compared to the 28-watt Core i7-1165G7 that’s more popular in thin and light laptops. That promises longer battery life but slower performance. I didn’t notice any slowdowns during my testing, but then again, my review process isn’t very demanding. The 16GB of RAM and fast 512GB SSD helped things move along, and so I found the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 quick enough for most productivity workers.

I’ve mentioned that the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 and ThinkBook 13x are almost identical outside of the former’s e-ink display, and I noticed that similarity the minute I started working with the main 16:10 IPS display. It sure looked the same to me, with the same high resolution, the same dynamic and natural colors, and the same deep contrast (for an IPS display). I couldn’t tell the two apart when I looked at them side by side.

According to my colorimeter, these are indeed the same panels. The ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 was bright at 418 nits, had slightly above-average color width at 76% of AdobeRGB and 100% of sRGB, very accurate colors at a DeltaE of 1.03 (1.0 or less is excellent), and a strong contrast at 1,440:1. The ThinkBook 13x came in at 417 nits, the same color width, a DeltaE of 1.04, and contrast at 1,430:1. Lenovo chose an excellent display for both machines, to its credit. The Dell XPS 13’s 4K display was equally good at 420 nits, 79% of AdobeRGB and 100% of sRGB, accuracy of 1.3, and contrast at 1,360:1.

The ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 enjoys an excellent IPS display that can serve creative types in a pinch. It doesn’t have wide enough colors to be a full-time creative laptop, but the colors are accurate and the contrast is high enough that less demanding creators can do some work. It’s more than good enough for productivity users, and its Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR) support makes for excellent Netflix and Amazon Prime Video bingeing.

Two downward-firing speakers provide audio duties, and I found them a bit louder in the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 than the ThinkBook 13x — but not by much. Mids and highs were nice and clear with zero distortion, but the bass was lacking. Headphones would be preferred for bingeing Netflix and listening to music, but the sound quality was fine for the occasional YouTube video.

Lenovo has two keyboards it uses on most of its laptops, the iconic version on the ThinkPad line and the equally recognizable but not quite as famous version on laptops like the IdeaPad and ThinkBook. The ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 has the latter keyboard, of course, and it enjoys the same sculpted keycaps, copious key spacing, and snappy switches that provide a comfortable bottoming action. There’s not a ton of travel, though, which makes the keyboard a little less suitable for long typing sessions than the keyboards on the HP Spectre and Dell XPS lines.

The ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 packs in 52 watt-hours of battery life, slightly down from the 56 watt-hours in the ThinkBook 13s and another compromise made in favor of a thinner chassis. There’s a low-power processor inside but a high-resolution display, so I wasn’t sure what battery life to expect. My impressions were also colored by the results I saw on the equally configured ThinkBook 13x, which were decidedly mixed.

In our web-browsing test that cycles through a series of complex websites, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 lasted for 7.75 hours, about 40 minutes less than the ThinkBook 13x. That’s not a terrible score, but we see more thin and light laptops exceed 10 hours in this test. The ThinkBook 13s managed 9.3 hours, and the Dell XPS 13 4K was worse at 6.3 hours.

In our video test that loops a local 1080p movie trailer, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 made it to just 12.75 hours, less than the 15.57 hours the ThinkBook 13x achieved and more than the Dell XPS 13’s 10.5 hours. Note that the ThinkBook 13x played very choppy video during the test, indicating that perhaps it wasn’t powered up enough to make for smooth video and thus unfairly extended its score. The ThinkBook 13s lasted for 13.4 hours in the video test.

I also used the PCMark 10 Applications battery test to see how the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 performs as a productivity machine. It hit 9.25 hours, which is a good score that’s close to the 10 hours we like to see on this test. The ThinkBook 13x lasted for 8.5 hours, while the ThinkBook 13s hit 11.5 hours and the XPS 13 4K made it to 8.7 hours. In the PCMark 10 Gaming battery test, which shows how hard a laptop is working while unplugged, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 went for 2.25 hours, less than the ThinkBook 13x’s 2.75 and around the same as the ThinkBook 13s. The XPS 13 4K hit 3.5 hours, indicating that it throttles down quite a bit during the test, but I didn’t notice any choppiness in its video.

All in all, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 had decent battery life for a thin and light laptop. It should get you through a full day’s work, which is the standard we like to see. Of course, if you use the e-ink display, you’ll get significantly longer battery life, although our suite of benchmarks isn’t geared toward testing that display technology.

Judged as simply a thin and light laptop, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 lacks any compelling feature to recommend it. It’s a lot like the ThinkBook 13x in that respect — yes, it’s slightly thinner and lighter than its larger sibling, the ThinkBook 13s, but it’s also slower, has less battery life, and lacks the connectivity of the larger machine. Those are unfortunate compromises for just a tiny bit less thickness and weight.

Toss in the e-ink display, though, and that changes the dynamic. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re an e-ink lover and want to be able to use your laptop in bright lighting environments while giving your eyes a break, then it’s a great feature. It adds just enough value to make the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 a standout laptop for those who will take advantage of this unique feature.

Are there any alternatives?

If you don’t care about the e-ink display, then the ThinkBook 13s is a better choice. It’s less expensive while offering the same small business features, it’s faster with better battery life, and it has better connectivity. There are two versions to choose from, with the Gen 2 running either Intel or AMD or the slightly upgraded AMD-only Gen 3 model.

Again, if you don’t care about the e-ink panel, then the Dell XPS 13 remains a better alternative. The XPS 13 is no more expensive while offering a superior and better-looking build, it’s faster and longer-lasting depending on the display, and you get the option of an incredible 3.5K OLED display.