CES 2024: This wacky laptop lets you snap on a tablet … or a fan … or a robot companion
Lenovo brought the heat at CES 2024 with a new-ish snap-on technology that lets you attach useful gadgets onto the lid. “New-ish” is the operative word here because Magic Bay — the name of the attachable tech — is already in the market, allowing you to snap-on a 4K webcam to a laptop like this year’s ThinkBook 16p Gen 4 with ease.
However, Lenovo took it one step further this year, testing out wacky new Magic Bay concepts that had us scratching our heads.
‘Snap on’ a small tablet
The upcoming ThinkBook 13x Gen 14, featuring Magic Bay, is the laptop I used to test these swappable accessories inside Lenovo’s CES 2024 suite.
The Magic Bay tech uses pogo pins that power its snap-on gadgets with USB-C 3.0. As such, Lenovo has been experimenting with “add-ons” that users may find to be useful for their workflow, including this bizarre tiny tablet that humorously looks like a parasite that latched onto its laptop host.
Again, this is just a concept, so it didn’t work smoothly. After snapping it on, the laptop took several seconds too long to “recognize” the tablet as its secondary monitor. However, even if the kinks were ironed out, and this Magic Bay tablet accessory rolled out to market, how could this be useful?
‘Snap on’ a robot companion
Funnily enough, the robot companion may be more practical than the tablet.
When I snapped on the robofriend to the 13x Gen 14, it didn’t do much but smile and wink. However, I’d imagine that a more polished variant would be more interactive, giving me the extra nudge I need to plow through tedious work.
‘Snap on’ a fan
Hear me out. A snap-on fan makes sense.
You can plop a fan in front of you without worrying about your laptop obstructing your air flow — you’re getting cool wind delivered directly to you, from your laptop’s lid to your face.
‘Snap on’ a mirror and mini ring light
Another concept I played about with is the snap-on mirror. On top of giving you the option to look at yourself every now and then, it emanates a small ring light, too. This is a dream come true for vainglorious users.
Other bizarre concepts Lenovo is ruminating over is an aromatherapy snap-on, allowing you to put essential oils into a cartridge that can dispense healthful fumes. I’m not sure if that’s for me, but perhaps it may appease the wellness, new-agey crowd.
The ThinkBook 13x Gen 14, packed with its Magic Bay tech, should be available in Q1. It’s set to come with up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU, up to 32GB of RAM, and up to a 2TB SSD.