Lenovo made a franken laptop with modular ports and a second screen

One of Lenovo’s big laptop concepts for MWC 2026 is a modular ThinkBook with two displays. Officially called the ThinkBook Modular AI PC Concept, the concept is a 14-inch productivity machine with two interchangeable plug-and-play ports and a second 14-inch display magnetically attached to the back of its lid. The second screen is removable, can be propped up on a magnetic kickstand (stored underneath the laptop) and connected via USB-C.

But this PC has another trick up its sleeve: remove the keyboard/trackpad and replace it with the second screen, turning the whole thing into a dual-screen laptop that you use with the keyboard and trackpad connected via Bluetooth — like Asus ZenBook Duo.

This whole concept got me into the standard outlets. The options Lenovo showed off for this concept included USB-C, USB-A, and HDMI options — not nearly the expansive ecosystem created by the Framework. But, if this ever comes to market, this will at least be a start. Unlike Framework, hotswap ports use the M.2 interface to connect to the laptop, instead of USB-C. But it was very easy to pull out and put back in, and Lenovo also showed off a nice little carrying case for bringing two ports with you. Aside from the two standard ports, the ThinkBook concept has a permanent USB-C port for charging or connecting a second monitor.

The ports looked nice enough, but Lenovo pulled a Lenovo and went foolish with all these second-screen theatrics, too. Both displays are touch-compatible OLED displays with 16:10 4K resolution (3840 x 2400), 120Hz refresh rate, and 500 nits. Other possible specifications include an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H Arrow Lake processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.

Who knows if this will be implemented or not, but I have one idea why it won’t: the battery. The ThinkBook Modular has just a 33 WHr battery to power all of this. That’s much smaller than the 13-inch MacBook Air, and it doesn’t have one yet two Power-hungry, high-resolution OLED displays. I’m concerned that this laptop’s battery life is poor, at least in this current thin-and-light incarnation (it weighs just 2.54 lbs/1.15 kg with one display, and 3.11 lbs/1.41 kg with both displays). But maybe Lenovo can surprise us in another year or so and release one with a larger battery or power-hungry chip.

Even if you ditched the second OLED, it would still be interesting – because who doesn’t want to choose their own ports?

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto/The Verge