You've heard of the ThinkPad—the legendary laptop marque known for durability, aggressively utilitarian concern design, and bright-red pointing sticks—now get acceptable for the Lenovo Think...Phone? The ThinkPhone. A telephone supposedly for concern use.

ThinkPad was primitively an IBM laptop marque earlier it was bought by Lenovo, and Lenovo besides owns Motorola, which it uses to regularly pump retired a batch of unexciting mid-range smartphones. It looks similar nary 1 was rather definite of however to marque this, and officially, they settled connected the awkward "Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola." That's fitting, though, since determination is simply a batch of Motorola DNA successful this phone—it looks similar a generic Motorola telephone from the front, and the backmost is woven Kevlar with a ThinkPad-style "ThinkPhone" logo, implicit with a reddish dot implicit the "i."

And speaking of plan trademarks, portion there's nary request for a pointing instrumentality here, determination is simply a "Red Key" broadside button, which does its champion to emulate the look of a TrackPoint nubbin. This isn't the powerfulness button, but it is simply a customizable fastener you tin programme to motorboat an app oregon immoderate different feature.

The specs could beryllium better. This is launching successful "the coming months" with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1—several Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones person already been announced and volition beryllium connected the marketplace by then. There's 8GB oregon 12GB of RAM, options for 128GB, 256GB, oregon 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage, and a 5000 mAh battery. The show is simply a 6.6-inch OLED astatine 60 Hz, which volition astir apt agelong retired the artillery beingness a bit. It has IP68 h2o resistance, Wi-Fi 6E, an in-screen fingerprint sensor, 15 W wireless charging, and 68 W wired charging. There are 3 rear cameras (way excessively galore for a concern phone, right?): a 50 MP main camera, 13 MP ultrawide, and a extent sensor. There's besides a 32 MP beforehand camera. You mightiness expect a ThinkPad Phone to person a microSD slot, oregon a removable battery, oregon a dock, oregon immoderate unsocial hardware features astatine all, but you would beryllium wrong.

Enlarge / Here you tin spot the saccharine logo (does it person to beryllium Motorola branded?) and the Kevlar back.

Motorola

Lenovo's property merchandise talks up a clump of concern bundle features, but nary of them seems unique, either. Underneath a batch of branding, I spot a unafraid element, which comes modular with a Qualcomm chip, a clump of Android for Work fleet absorption features, and a rebranded mentation of Motorola "Ready For."  Ready For is present "Think 2 Think" and wirelessly connects a telephone to a Windows PC. You'll spot telephone notifications successful the Windows panel, a unified clipboard, drag-and-drop record support, and casual hotspot capabilities. The telephone besides comes with Microsoft 365 apps preinstalled.

Is it conscionable me, oregon is determination not astir capable "ThinkPad" successful the ThinkPhone? The hardware conscionable seems similar a Motorola telephone with a caller backmost panel. Replicating the famously boxy plan of a ThinkPad alternatively of featuring the rounded corners of a Motorola telephone would person gone a agelong way. Just look astatine the Galaxy S22 for an illustration of just however boxy phones tin get. Give that a flat-front show and support the rear curves and you would person a precise boxy-yet-comfortable phone.

Besides the design, it does not look similar a batch of good, business-first ThinkPad characteristics person made it to the ThinkPhone. Ask idiosyncratic wherefore they bargain a ThinkPad, and they would astir apt database (in immoderate order) the TrackPoint (N/A connected the ThinkPhone), plan (nope), repairability (nope), large artillery (nope), the keyboard (phones utilized to person keyboards, but nope), and larboard enactment (nope), nary of which truly made it to this phone. "Durability" would beryllium listed, too. Is this durable? The backmost isn't glass, but the beforehand is inactive regular Gorilla Glass, truthful I'm not definite that truly counts. ThinkPad is expected to beryllium a marque for business, which means being OK with plan decisions that boost concern uses astatine the disbursal of superficial user concerns similar "sleekness." A ThinkPad is not a rebranded Lenovo Slim laptop, truthful a ThinkPhone should not beryllium a rebranded Motorola device. This is simply a large idea—phones utilized to person antithetic features and were targeted astatine antithetic markets—I conscionable privation it to effect successful meaningful business-targeted hardware.

The ThinkPhone volition beryllium successful the "US, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, Australia and prime countries crossed Asia successful the coming months." There's nary connection connected the terms yet.