The ThinkPhone by Motorola, presented by Lenovo, was influenced by ThinkPad notebooks

You’re familiar with the ThinkPad, the illustrious laptop brand that’s famous for its durability, aggressively utilitarian business style, and bright-red pointing sticks. Now, prepare yourself for the Lenovo Think…Phone? ThinkPhone, if you will. A phone that is ostensibly for use in business.

ThinkPad was a brand of laptops manufactured by IBM until it was purchased by Lenovo. Lenovo also owns Motorola, a company that frequently produces a large number of unexciting mid-range cellphones using Motorola’s manufacturing capabilities. It would appear that no one was entirely sure how to brand this, and in the end, they decided to go with the odd “Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola.” The front of the device resembles any other Motorola phone, and the back is woven Kevlar with a “ThinkPhone” logo designed in the style of a ThinkPad, complete with a red dot placed over the letter “i.” This is appropriate, however, given that this phone contains a significant amount of Motorola’s genetic material.

And while we’re on the subject of design trademarks, despite the fact that this device does not require a pointing stick, it does have a side button labeled “Red Key” that attempts to imitate the appearance of a TrackPoint nubbin. This is not the button that turns the device on or off; rather, it is a programmable button that can be used to launch applications or other features.

The specifications have room for improvement. Launching in “the coming months” with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, this will compete with multiple Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 smartphones that have already been revealed and will be available on the market by then. There is the option of 8GB or 12GB of RAM, storage capacities of 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB using UFS 3.1, and a battery capacity of 5000 mAh. Because the screen is an OLED measuring 6.6 inches and running at 60 hertz, the battery life should be somewhat increased as a result. It boasts a water resistant rating of IP68, Wi-Fi 6E, an in-screen fingerprint sensor, 15 W of wireless charging power, and 68 W of charging power via a cable connection. There are three cameras located on the back of the device, including a depth sensor, a main camera with a resolution of 50 megapixels, and an ultrawide camera with 13 megapixels. A front-facing camera with 32 mega pixels is also included. You may anticipate that a ThinkPad Phone would have a microSD slot, a detachable battery, a dock, or any other distinctive hardware characteristics, but you would be mistaken. It does not have any of these things.

I typically use Windows, but the interconnection of the Apple ecosystem is one of the aspects that has always sorely tempted me to switch to using Apple products instead. Not only are macOS and iOS comfortably similar in style and function (and increasing more so every year), but there are so many straightforward ways to transfer content between a Mac and an iPhone. Moreover, the similarities between the two operating systems continue to grow. Because of this, I had a lot of fun putting Lenovo’s ThinkPhone by Motorola through its paces. This device is touted to be the smartphone equivalent of a ThinkPad, and I never imagined I’d be writing those words.
The ThinkPhone comes with a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, a 6.6-inch OLED screen, a 5,000mAh battery, a plethora of fancy enterprise security features (a phrase that ThinkPad enthusiasts will certainly be familiar with), and two rear cameras, one of which is a 50-megapixel stabilized standard wide and the other of which is a 13-megapixel ultrawide (plus a depth sensor). It has the MIL STD 810H certification as well as the IP68 rating for resistance to dust and water. It comes preinstalled with Android 13.0. But the most interesting aspect, and in my opinion, the characteristic that sets it apart from other products, is how much fun it is to use with a ThinkPad.
The feature of the software known as “Unified Clipboard” is my absolute favorite. When this feature is activated, any photo you take with the ThinkPhone, any text you copy, any documents you scan, or any video you shoot with the ThinkPhone will be immediately copied to a clipboard that your ThinkPhone and ThinkPad will share. After that, you will have the ability to instantaneously paste that material onto your linked ThinkPad, which is a feature that will come in quite handy for inserting photographs into presentations and papers as they are being created. This was a joy to use and performed without a hitch every time I put it to the test. (And I did attempt it numerous times since it was so much fun.)

• Instant Connect: The phone and the computer automatically discover one another when they are in close proximity and connect using WiFi.
• Through the use of the unified clipboard, users are able to move content like as recently copied text, recent photographs, scanned documents, and videos between devices by simply pasting the content into any app on the target device.
• The Windows Action Center is updated immediately whenever a notification is received on a phone using unified notifications. When a notification is clicked, the related mobile app is automatically launched on the screen of the PC.
• Drag-and-drop transfer of files between your PC and ThinkPhone is made simple using File Drop.
• App Streaming allows you to run any Android app straight on your own computer.
• Advanced Webcam: Leverage the capabilities of the ThinkPhone’s cameras and artificial intelligence to make all of your video calls utilizing the ThinkPhone as your webcam effortlessly.
• Instant Hotspot: Take advantage of the ThinkPhone’s 5G connectivity by connecting to the internet with just a single click, directly from your desktop computer.

Specification

This feature, known as the Unified Clipboard, is a component of a larger set of functions referred to collectively as the Think 2 Think connection (come on, that’s adorable!). These features connect the ThinkPhone with the ThinkPad. You may also transfer files by dragging and dropping them, and if the two devices are in close proximity to one another, they will discover each other and be able to connect wirelessly.
While you are participating in conference calls on the ThinkPad, you can even use the ThinkPhone as a webcam. According to what Lenovo told me, the latter feature is compatible with any video conferencing software; therefore, it is not like some other fancy webcam features that companies have released this year, in which case the conferencing software that your company uses needs to decide whether or not to support them.

I was able to pretty quickly establish the ThinkPhone as the ThinkPad’s conference webcam directly from the software settings of Lenovo, but I’ve been told that you can also do it via the settings of certain applications (such as Zoom, for example).
The physical design of this phone has a few extra elements that give it a delightfully ThinkPad-like appearance. It’s impossible to ignore the resemblance between the two, the back being textured black. But the red button on the side of the ThinkPhone, which isn’t quite a keyboard nub but, you know what, it’s close, is the most striking homage to Lenovo’s premium business laptops. It can be found on the ThinkPad line of notebooks. You have the ability to map both a single tap and a double tap of this button to shortcuts of your choosing, which is a feature that I’m sure will be appreciated by some ThinkPad users (who, for example, may have previous experience remapping some of the unconventionally placed keyboard keys on the ThinkPad).
In general, I think the concept behind this phone is one that might be a lot of fun. There are a lot of people out there that adore ThinkPads. Why not provide them with a phone of their own?

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