CES 2023 | Lenovo presents the ThinkPhone by Motorola - inspired by ThinkPad laptops

Smartphones have turned the B2B market for phones upside down within the last decade. Together, Android and iOS phones have ended the era of specialized business smartphones, an era exemplified by Research in Motion (RIM) and the Blackberry brand. Smartphones for enterprise usage are just the regular consumer smartphone models by this point.

One company apparently still believes that doing a more targeted enterprise smartphone has some worth. Lenovo is certainly a manufacturer with deep knowledge of that market sector, considering the long running ThinkPad brand of laptops made specifically for large insitutional customers. In the time period since Lenovo took over the IBM PC division, the brand was also brought over to desktop PCs (ThinkCenter), workstations (ThinkStation) and server (ThinkSystem). Missing in this list: Smartphones. Until now.

At CES, Lenovo is announcing a further expansion of the Think brand with the new Lenovo ThinkPhone - or rather, more accurately, the Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola. Lenovo is of course leveraging the fact that it owns Motorola Mobility, making the ThinkPhone as much a Lenovo as a Motorola phone.

For its first enterprise smartphone outing, Lenovo chooses a high end platform in form of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 - though in doing so, a last year chip is being chosen. This CPU is accompanied by up to 512 GB UFS 3.1 memory, 128 and 256 GB are also available. There are also RAM options, as there will be both a 8 and 12 GB version.

All of this sits inside a tough IP68 frame made out of aircraft grade aluminum and a Aramid polymer back with a Carbon fiber look - together with the ThinkPhone logo, this gives the Motorola ThinkPhone a look similar to Lenovo's ThinkPad line. The same goes for the red button on the left side - which looks like a ThinkPad TrackPoint, though here, this red button just functions as a customizeable key. The frame also houses the 6.6 inch pOLED screen with an FHD+ resolution. This is one aspect where the ThinkPhone seemingly lacks the competition; Lenovo also does not mention if the screen supports a higher refresh than 60 Hz.

In terms of the battery, the ThinkPhone sports a 5000 mAh capacity. It also comes with a 68 W TurboPower charger, which according to Lenovo can even charge a typical ThinkPad laptop like the new X1 Carbon G11. When it comes to the cameras, the ThinkPhone by Motorola has three: A 50 MP main, a 13 MP ultra-wide and a 32 MP front camera. The main camera does have Optical Image Stabilization, but there is no optical zoom.

Slightly disappointing for a Think device: There is no microSD port, and no 3.5mm Audio either. Also, the single USB C port supports only "USB 3.1". At least the ThinkPhone does support the WiFi 6E.

The ThinkPhone by Motorola will ship with Android 13 and it will be outfitted with a suit of enterprise and productivity functions. Lenovo has not given us a concrete release date for the ThinkPhone by Motorola. What was announced was that the Lenovo ThinkPhone will be released in the USA, in Europe, in Latin America, the Near East, Australia and selected Asian countries, including China, in the coming months. No local pricing has been announced yet either.