Lenovo’s Magic Bay ecosystem includes a series of modular add-ons that bring extra functionality to select Lenovo laptops. Thanks to a set of pogo pins on the lid of a notebook, you can attach a high-quality webcam, light, cellular radio, a small secondary screen, or other hardware.
So far this is a feature that’s been limited to Lenovo’s ThinkBook P series laptops. But now it looks like the company could bring Magic Bay support to the ThinkPad family as well.
The company hasn’t officially announced any plans for a ThinkPad with Magic Bay capabilities yet. But Lenovo recently won an IF Design Guide award for an unannounced laptop called the ThinkPad X14 Gen 1, and the awards page has a set of pictures that clearly shows Magic Bay support.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad-branded laptops are typically business-class mobile PCs, most of which have black bodies withe the company’s signature TrackPoint system featuring a red pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard as well as a touchpad with left and right buttons on top.
For the most part, the ThinkPad X14 looks a lot like other recent ThinkPad X series laptops, but the name makes it clear that this model will have a 14 inch display, while pictures show that there’s a small protrusion of the bezel above the center of the screen for a webcam.
That section also has pogo pins on the back for attaching Magic Bay modules including an 8 inch widescreen display, a 4K camera, a 150 lux light to make you look better on video calls, or a 4G LTE module.
Since Lenovo hasn’t acknowledged the laptop’s existence yet, there’s no word on specs, pricing, or availability. It’s possible that the notebook might never even see the light of day. But it’s a pretty logical extension of the company’s modular ecosystem, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it launch at some point in the future.