One of the more interesting devices to be shown at CES 2020 is Lenovo"s ThinkPad X1 Fold. It"s a PC with a foldable OLED display, and when I first got to play with it, it was running Windows 10 Pro, which is what it will ship with when it comes out this summer. However, once Windows 10X is ready, there"s going to be a variant with that as well.
I was able to check out the Windows 10X version earlier this week, and I published a hands on article with photos. I also wanted to prepare a video, so you can actually see the OS in action. You"ll also be able to take a look at the demo that Lenovo had set up, which is what Windows 10X should look like when it"s actually complete.
One of the more interesting things that I learned during the demo is that this is actually going to be running a custom version of Windows 10X, which is made for dual-screen devices. I"m not sure why I thought that 10X was supposed to be for dual-screen and foldable devices, but it might have been because we knew that there were foldable PCs coming.
The UI is pretty heavily focused on swipe gestures, as you can swipe up to launch the Start Menu, swipe in from the bottom-right for an Action Center flyout, swipe down to close apps, and so on. In this version, the only way to view more than one app at once is to snap them side-by-side, as it can"t run windowed apps at this time.
Since the ThinkPad X1 Fold can be used as a full 13.3-inch display, hopefully this would change. As we"ve learned from the Windows 8 era, people don"t want to only be able to run fullscreen and split-screen apps.
The version of Windows 10X that I got to play with was very incomplete, which is why I included some footage of Lenovo"s demo in the video. Microsoft is promising the Surface Neo for this holiday season, so that"s when Windows 10X should be ready. Hopefully, the custom version for foldable PCs is on the same timeline.