Sometimes a product comes along that's so outside the box you have to double take. The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus, launched at CES 2020, was one such product - a dual-screen laptop with a black-and-white E Ink display on its exterior.

One year on and it's back for round two as part of CES 2021, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 i bringing an enlarged E Ink display - it now covers 68 per cent of the exterior, increased over the original's 48 per cent.

On the inside the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 i is a relatively normal laptop, featuring a 13.3-inch IPC LCD main display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. The exterior E Ink display is a 12-inch panel - but both interior and exterior screens offer 2.5K resolution (2560 by 1600 pixels), so there's no shortage of pixels.

So why dual screen?

Just as we said of the original model: "E Ink is a low refresh-rate monochrome display technology, just like you have in an Amazon Kindle. It's designed to be super low-energy in use, to negate battery drain, without the backlight causing eye stress. For reading, therefore, it's a very comfortable experience".

The ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 i integrates with Microsoft OneNote, so any scrawls you make on the exterior will auto-sync with the application proper once opened, so you can access and adapt your note-taking as you see fit and with ease.

The ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 i has also shed some 200g over its predecessor, now weighing in at 1.2kg in a 13.9mm thick chassis. That's barely any different to many 13.3-inch laptops, and how many of those have two screens?

It's certainly a specialist and somewhat out-there product, but if the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 i appeals then you can get your hands on one from "Q1 2021", with prices starting at $1549.