We thought laptop computer makers had all of their idea PCs out of the way in which for some time after CES 2025, however Lenovo held a bunch of surprises in retailer for Cell World Congress in Barcelona. Along with the mega-2-in-1 ThinkBook Flip AI and a few nifty snap-on Magic Bay second-screen prototypes, the corporate confirmed off its Yoga Photo voltaic PC Idea, which I had an opportunity to take a look at firsthand earlier than its announcement, at a demo in New York Metropolis.
This experimental laptop computer could also be exactly what you anticipate from the title: a solar-powered PC. A grid of small photo voltaic panels that may flip gentle into battery life populates the display screen lid, and whereas it will not be coming to market anytime quickly, I nonetheless loved seeing it perform firsthand. The video above demonstrates the way it works, with extra particulars under.
A Laptop computer That Harnesses the Solar (or Your Workplace Lamp)
Along with the plain potential comfort for discipline staff and laptop computer customers far off the grid, Lenovo developed the Yoga Photo voltaic PC Idea with a watch towards sustainability and environmental consciousness. Drawing in renewable photo voltaic vitality slightly than counting on electrical energy is extra inexperienced on paper, although it may be troublesome to implement photo voltaic charging in a means that works effectively and successfully at small scale. Let’s see how the laptop computer’s bodily design accomplishes this.
(Credit score: Weston Almond)
The lid is roofed by 84 small photo voltaic cells, and past the truth that that’s distinctive for a laptop computer, full cease, the kind of panels that Lenovo deployed right here is fascinating. Lenovo deployed Again Contact Cell (BCC) expertise to unravel for each vitality conversion and becoming as many panels as potential onto a laptop computer lid.
What does that imply? We’re used to seeing photo voltaic panels with metallic gridlines operating between every panel, a necessity of mounting the panels in lots of photo voltaic setups. The Yoga lid’s BCCs transfer the mounting brackets and gridlines to the underside of the panel, maximizing their uncovered, light-collecting floor space. A dynamic photo voltaic monitoring system consistently measures the present and voltage, designed to regulate the charger’s settings to distribute the gathered vitality most successfully.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
When you have already got so little room to work with on a laptop computer lid, it is a vital profit, if not outright wanted to attract in sufficient gentle to be workable. With the panel design, Lenovo achieved simply over a 24% “photo voltaic conversion fee”—that’s, the proportion of daylight changed into usable vitality. That will not sound like a excessive proportion, however our Lenovo consultant defined that that is towards the upper finish of at present out there panels, and solely these pushing the envelope in testing have achieved a considerably higher fee. It’s a variety of work to transform gentle into usable vitality, and any daylight above 0.3 watts can be absorbed. (The panels can even work with ambient gentle.)
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
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The laptop computer itself and its specs are secondary to this design, since it is a idea laptop computer not supposed on the market because it stands. Lenovo shared, regardless, that this technique runs on Intel’s high-efficiency “Lunar Lake” Core Extremely 200 platform. The display screen is a 14-inch OLED panel, and the chassis is a super-slim Yoga-style shell measuring 0.59 inch thick and weighing 2.68 kilos.
Placing Your Photo voltaic Panels to Work
How did it work in follow? Lenovo pulled up some customized software program that confirmed the facility draw and photo voltaic vitality enter, and handed us the machine for a hands-on session. The software program tracked the quantity of sunshine coming into the system, and certainly, placing the laptop computer up towards the window, versus beneath the conference-room lights, would enhance the facility draw fee. The utility supplies a real-time readout of the wattage per minute coming into the system.
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(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Naturally, the sunshine’s angle, the solar’s power, and purposes operating on the laptop computer will all impression the vitality draw and vitality conversion ratio. As such, gauging the metrics is a reasonably nebulous objective, however Lenovo estimates that 20 minutes of direct daylight will translate to roughly one hour of video playback. It’s a fuzzy conversion fee, to make certain, however that summarizes the workforce’s expertise in testing, to date, within the early lifetime of this proof-of-concept machine.
We could not take the laptop computer again to our lab or have a protracted sufficient session to cook dinner up our personal sunlight-to-battery-life components, and any exhausting claims would wish checking if this laptop computer was coming to market as a full retail product. But it surely does look to work as supposed, drawing in energy from the sunny window in our assembly room and slowly changing a portion of that into battery life. Whether or not the charging fee might outpace your workflow stays to be seen, and naturally, you’ll have to have the ability to keep close to a strong-enough gentle supply for long-term use and not using a wired charger.
We gained’t be getting this one in for actual lab testing anytime quickly, except Lenovo decides to convey this technique to market in spite of everything, however it’s a enjoyable concept and a cool prototype. It might be extra sensible than different idea PCs we have seen over time, so who is aware of what’s going to occur sooner or later? It will all be all the way down to advances within the solar-panel tech, we suspect. Within the meantime, we’ll proceed carrying our clunky wired chargers and attempt to, um, maintain it gentle.
About Matthew Buzzi
Lead Analyst, {Hardware}
