Lenovo continues to experiment with rollable-screen OLED laptops here at CES 2026, and its latest Legion Pro concept laptop is sure to pique the interest of on-the-go gamers. Its 16-inch display fits nicely in the Legion Pro 7i chassis it's built around. But open the laptop up, and its screen expands sideways, in both directions, to become either a 21.5-inch "Tactical Mode" screen, or an even more immersive ultra-wide 24-inch "Arena Mode" display. The current firmware has you hit Fn and the arrow left/right keys to expand or retract the screen. Hitting the keys twice skips the middle mode and completely extends or retracts the screen.
The ultra-wide form factor has been popular among desktop gamers for years, but has been extremely rare in gaming laptops due to size constraints. But Lenovo is trying to make that an issue of the past with the Legion Pro Rollable — or at least it will if the company takes this concept further and creates a retail version.
Of course, you'll need some serious CPU and GPU power to push those extra pixels. But the Legion Pro 7i that this concept is built around tops out with a mobile RTX 5090 and Intel's Core Ultra CPUs. While I of course don't know how much a finished version of this rollable concept will cost, I am sure there are quite a few gamers who would love to be able to carry around a 16-inch laptop that can deliver a screen up to 24 inches diagonally.
Lenovo's press release positions the Legion Pro Rollable as a device for esports competitors who can "carry small but train big" as they travel to and from events. And sure, I can see that, but I'm pretty sure there's a larger market as well for more casual gamers and road warriors who would love a screen-morphing portable with a screen that can get very large when you need it, while rolling back to a 16-inch size so it can fit in your backpack.
In a hands-on with the concept device, the screen looked very much like a product in development. The bezels were chunky and some of the screen edges didn't line up right. It works, but I didn't get to try a game on it. The main thing Lenovo seems to need to do is to work on the tension mechanism to hold the screen taught. They have this in the ThinkPad rollable concept (see below) with two motors and steel cables, so they know how to do it. But in the Legion, the screen looks a little wavy.
The sample I tried also made a pretty loud creaking noise, though Lenovo representatives told me it was a quirk of the unit I tried. I saw others that didn't have the same issue.
The other thing that I couldn't really tell was how much weight this might add. Probably not a huge amount, but the base laptop they used here was already a powerful and heavy system.
ThinkPad Rollable XD Concept
The ThinkPad Rollable XD is a more traditional vertical rollable concept that expands from a 13.3-inch screen to 16 inches. But rather than house the unseen parts of the screen in the base, this design has it wrapping around the top of the lid, giving you a dynamic "world-facing" display when the laptop is closed, or you haven't expanded the primary screen.
Of course, the screen needs to be protected, and Lenovo worked with Corning on a dual-sided Gorilla Glass Victus 2 screen cover with a 180-degree bend that wraps around both sides. And while there are other ways to control the expanding screen mechanism (like using your voice), you can swipe on the top edge of the display to move it up or down. When it's expanded, you can see the motor mechanism on the back. I like that the company left some of the complex engineering on display, though I doubt this kind of choice would make it to a final product.
Lenovo also touts AI features under the hood of the XD concept, like "live translation, voice assistant, multi-modal, and lid-controlled interactions." But I think one of the most interesting things about the XD concept is that it's a ThinkPad, unlike previous rollable concepts – and the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 that the company brought to market last year. Perhaps the switch to arguably the company's flagship brand is an indication that the company sees a serious, productivity-focused future for the expandable screen tech it's been dabbling with for a few years now.
At the very least, housing the whole screen and the sliding mechanism in the lid should make it easier to take screens like this and add them to more laptops. And as someone who has taken a portable monitor and a mechanical keyboard to CES in previous years, pairing an expandable screen with one of the best laptop keyboards available has me at least a little more interested than I was before.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
