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Lenovo has a habit of designing weird laptop concepts as a way to push the boundaries of what you can do with a mobile computer. Sometimes the company even brings its weird laptops to market. And the new Lenovo Yoga Solar PC Concept is probably less weird than some.
That said, I can’t help but wonder how practical use you’d get out of a laptop with a solar panel on the lid… where it won’t really be exposed to the sun when you’re actually using the notebook. That said, its just one of several solar power concepts Lenovo is showing off at MWC in Barcelona this week.
So here’s the basic pitch for the Yoga Solar PC Concept: it’s a thin and light laptop that measures 15mm (0.59 inches) thick and weighs 1.22 kg (2.68 pounds). And it has a solar panel that offers a 24% conversion rate on the lid. Lenovo says it’s efficient enough that “even in low-light conditions, the panel can still generate power, sustaining battery charge when the PC is idle.”
Of course, it’ll work better in bright light. Lenovo says setting the laptop in bright sunlight for about 20 minutes will generate enough power to let you watch videos on the PC for about an hour. But I’m assuming the lid will have to be closed, or at least angled downward to collect the sun’s rays, which makes it difficult to actually use the laptop while it’s converting solar energy into power.
While that could come in handy if you don’t mind taking a break from time to time to top up your laptop battery, it could be inconvenient if you run out of juice before you finish your current task and don’t have an opportunity to plug into a wall jack or portable battery pack.
For that reason, Lenovo’s new Solar Power Kit for Yoga proof-of-concept may be more useful for folks that want to keep their laptops charged when going off-grid. This portable solar panel uses the same technology as the one in the Yoga Solar PC, but instead of being permanently attached to a laptop, it connects to your computer with a USB-C cable and features a kickstand that allows you to angle the solar panel upward toward the sun. Lenovo says it can also “be attached to a bag, backpack, tent, or tree.”
While Lenovo is hardly the first company to introduce solar panels for charging your gadgets on the go, it’s one of the major PC makers I’m aware of to do so (unless you count Samsung, which briefly offered a netbook with a solar panel on the lid more than a decade ago). It’s not clear whether the Lenovo will ever actually sell its new solar-powered laptop or solar panels though.
