For a brand as ubiquitous in the business world as ThinkPad, it’s truly astounding that Lenovo (and, I suppose, IBM before it) never attempted to move into the mobile world. It’s all too easy to assume that there must’ve been a failed ThinkPhone in the early 2010s — it got stuck on Gingerbread, right? — or, even before that, a BlackBerry clone that a couple of Fortune 500 companies adopted and forgot about just as soon after.
Instead, it’s 2023, and despite an ever-shrinking smartphone selection, it’s only just now that a Think-branded smartphone is arriving on the scene. The ThinkPhone istechnicallya Motorola device, but considering its parent company, it’s easier than ever to mistake this for a Lenovo product. Can the ThinkPhone make a splash inside the business world this late in the game? That remains to be seen, but I’m happy to report that what is here is one of Motorola’sbest smartphones in quite some time.
Motorola ThinkPhone
You don’t need a ThinkPad to appreciate Motorola’s business-focused smartphone. With speedy performance, long-lasting battery life, and a clean (if imperfect) design, the ThinkPhone offers plenty to interest consumers in 2023. And at $700, it manages to hold its own against two of our favorite budget flagship phones of the last six months: the Google Pixel 7 and the OnePlus 11.
Availability and network
As you’d probably expect, the ThinkPhone (by Motorola, as the branding on the boxandthe phone’s back make clear) is focused primarily on B2B and enterprise markets. This phone is meant to pair with your company-issued laptop, not to compete head-on with theGalaxy S23 Ultraon carrier shelves. That said, Motorola is offering it as an unlocked model for non-business customers online starting Saturday, April 28th, and with an MSRP of $700, the price feels pretty fair. Throw in some potential future sales throughout the summer, and you could score a competent performer for $500 or less.
As with most Motorola smartphones, the ThinkPhone works on all three major carriers in the US, in addition to their respective MVNOs, though you’ll want to verify its bands before you pick one up for your network.
Design and display
How you feel about the ThinkPhone’s look and feel will really come down to how you feel about Lenovo’s laptops. As expected, Motorola found inspiration in its parent company’s PC lineup when designing this device, which feels like a mix between a mid-range ThinkPad andthe company’s own Moto Edge.
The back is decked out in a familiar rubberized carbon fiber finish. It feels good in the hand — grippy in all the right ways — but I can’t say I love its look. Carbon fiber, to me, feelsvery2014, like I’m permanently decked out in a Dbrand skin from a decade ago. Again, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and if you’re a die-hard ThinkPad fan, you might love the matching aesthetic here.
Likewise, while I appreciate the lack of visible fingerprints, this finish shows oil from your hands like nothing else. Cleaning this phone after the gym was a nightmare, as was picking it up while eating anything with your hands. And after less than two weeks of use, the back has already started showing off small imperfections and scratches. I’m not sure this phone will age particularly well without some help from a case, and that’s a bummer.
But I don’t want to sound too down on a device I otherwise like. The squared edges look sharp without feeling so in the hand — a nice, modern touch, though a recent drop did scratch the anodized metal. The slim camera bump keeps the ThinkPhone from rocking too much on a table, and the red shortcut button really stands out.
Oh, and as gaudy as some might find it, I kind of love the ThinkPhone logo adorned at a 45-degree angle on the back of the phone. It feels right at home here.
It gathers lint and pet hair like nothing else, though.
On the front is a 6.6" P-OLED panel that, despite its FHD+ resolution, I think looks pretty fantastic. It’s bright and vivid, albeit maybe just a tad oversaturated by default, and at 144Hz, it’s plenty fast. It’s been pretty gloomy in Buffalo as of late, but the bit of sun we have seen didn’t prevent me from using the phone outside. Truthfully, I didn’t even notice the screen wasn’t higher resolution until I looked at the actual specs sheet — if you had asked me to guess, I’d have said 1440p. If that’s not high praise, I don’t know what is.
Aside from my own personal misgivings about the build materials here — which, again, are meant to match ThinkPad laptops — I’m pretty positive about the ThinkPhone. It’s relatively thin and light, it’s comfortable in my hand, and I never once felt annoyed when pulling it out of my pocket. What more can you ask for, really?
Other hardware and what’s in the box
I’m pretty impressed with the fit and finish of the ThinkPhone. The power and volume buttons — individual buttons, not a rocker — feel super tactile and are, frankly, fun to click. The haptics are surprisingly good, too; perhaps not quite up to par with the best from Samsung or Google, but not too far behind, either. The same goes for the speakers; you’ll still want Bluetooth speakers when listening to music, but podcasts and YouTube videos are loud and clear here. And hey, IP68 water and dust resistance — you truly love to see it.
The red shortcut button doesn’t quite have the same pleasant feel as the other three, but I appreciated its textured pattern. In addition to syncing with Motorola’s Ready For software suite — more on that later — this key supports app shortcuts. The default examples include playing and pausing music, quickly opening up Recorder, or starting a screen record, but third-party apps also support a vast library of actions and shortcuts, including jumping to specific DMs or opening a new document in Google Docs,
Frankly, I never found a good use for this button. Camera and flashlight apps seem like obvious examples, but Motorola has built-in gesture shortcuts for both services, in addition to the standard double-tap on the power button to snap a photo. The same goes for Google Wallet, as it lives on the lock screen by default. In the end, I just used it to quickly jump into my podcasts library, showing a real lack of imagination on my part. I wish Motorola allowed me to toggle between sound modes — like the slider on OnePlus phones — but alas, no luck.
The optical under-display fingerprint sensor is speedy and accurate, but it’s in the same odd placement as the one in the Moto Edge. Motorola is almost assuredly placing these sensors low in order to optimize how they sync with Peek Display, but it still feels uncomfortable and unnatural to use.
In the box, you’ll find the ThinkPhone alongside a bundled 68W fast charger and USB-C cable. I cannot tell you how excited I was to see this in the box — more on it in the battery section.
There’s also a very basic case in the box alongside the paperwork and SIM tool, something I literally didn’t find until I was working on this review. It’ll likely protect the carbon fiber finish against those scrapes I brought up earlier, but if you tend to drop your phone, you’ll need something more durable from third parties.
Software and performance
The ThinkPhone branding might scream Lenovo, but the software is all Motorola, all the time. I’ve been using the company’s smartphones as my daily driver for about a month now, coming off of the Moto Edge to review this particular device, and in that time, my opinions on the company’s software — both good and bad — have really solidified.
Frankly, I’ve soured a bit on Peek Display — I’d prefer an always-on ambient screen, even one with less utility — while I continue to love twist and chop motions to access the camera and flashlight, respectively. Overall, though, Motorola’s experience continues to feel close to a stock experience, at a time when even Google has continued to add new customizations each year.
Unfortunately, Motorola’s software support remains a problem for the company. The ThinkPhone runs Android 13 out of the box, and even the security patches are up to date. But, as I mentioned, I’m coming from the Moto Edge, a smartphone launched last September that has yet to receive Android 13, and one that has fallen behind on monthly updates in both frequency and timeliness. A spokesperson told me users can expect three OS upgrades and four years of security patches, but with Motorola and Lenovo pushing this device as an IT-approved smartphone, they’ll need to prove to customers that they can match the likes of Samsung and Google when it comes to software support.
Let’s talk Ready For, which powers the “Think 2 Think” device sync experience here. Frankly, I’ve never paid much attention to Motorola’s wireless connection options, but the ThinkPhone puts a big emphasis on it. A double-tap on the red shortcut key automatically launches Ready For, and you can’t change that. It holds a ton of options, including app streaming, which allows you to select nearly any installed application to view as a window on your PC. Although most modern chat platforms now have a dedicated web app, I still found it pretty handy for keeping messages up in a smaller window.
Ready For also supports notification mirroring, simultaneously a blessing and a curse. While I was writing this review, duplicate Gmail notifications started pouring into both my personal and work inboxes. Because I have desktop notifications enabled, each unread message would ping my computer at least twice — sometimes more. After hitting the “block notification” optionfour times, these pings finally went away. Still, quite the annoyance.
Minor qualms aside, Ready For is pretty great. As far as I can tell, I’m not missing out on any features despite my lack of a ThinkPad. With just a couple of clicks, you’re able to wirelessly share files between your phone and computer, right within Explorer. Internet down? Connecting to your ThinkPhone’s network takes just two clicks, and you won’t even need to dive into either device settings. Theoretically, you can also use your phone as a webcam through Ready For, although after two fresh installs, I couldn’t get the feature to work.
As far as performance goes, I don’t think anyone considering this phone should be concerned about the year-old Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 powering it. This chipset improved on its predecessor in nearly every way, delivering speedy performance for apps and games alike while boosting battery life and keeping things much, much cooler. Aside from when I jumped into Genshin Impact — which performed as well as it does on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 — I didn’t feel this device get warm once. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 might be Qualcomm’s latest flagship SoC, but that hasn’t stopped the 8+ Gen 1 from being an excellent alternative.
At this point, it feels like predicting camera performance from a Motorola phone is far too easy. Like my recent time with the Moto Edge — which has a nearly identical lens lineup to the one here, with only a couple of small changes between the trio — I found the ThinkPhone adequate enough during daylight, and even in dimmer situations, you can capture some pretty solid shots. Indoor photos aren’t quite as impressive, but with enough light, they get the job done.
The ultra-wide camera is fine, though I noticed anything less than a still hand will net you some blurry shots. A photo of AP’s own Jules Wang (who was kind enough to visit me in Buffalo during his weeklong vacation) came out fine when taken with the main camera at dusk, but the same image captured with the ultra-wide sensor is a blurry mess. Someone call in Photo Unblur to clean this up.
Low-light performance was good enough for your Instagram stories and not much else. Motorola’s processing tools are powerful enough to boost the brightness enough to make out what’s in a scene, but in my experience, it goes way overboard. A night shot taken of a tree in my backyard looks simultaneously noisy and soft, and the pitch-black night sky registers as some kind of hazy overcast. Not a fan.
The selfie cam, thankfully, is more than good enough for some quick snaps, although the ultra-wide mode doesn’t add much more space for a larger group. Here you can see Jules laughing at how slight the difference between the two settings really was.
Battery life
I’ll keep this simple: the ThinkPhone is a battery champ. The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 was praised at launch for fixing the faults of its predecessor, and that long-lasting performance is on full display here. With the caveat that I spend much of my time on Wi-Fi networks (either at home or at various coffee shops and friends' apartments), I’ve been getting about a day and a half of mixed usage out of the ThinkPhone, with more than seven hours of screen-on time to boot.
Even in heavy usage and off of Wi-Fi, I’d expect most users should make it through at least a full day without breaking a sweat. If, for whatever reason, you do manage to kill this phone before heading back out on the town, Motorola’s bundled fast charger is about as capable as anything you’ll find stateside apart from OnePlus.
At 68W, the ThinkPhone is far from the fastest-charging smartphone on the market today, but I can’t imagine anyone complaining. I got from 3% to 37% in just fifteen minutes, and 30 minutes after that, I was nearly back to full charge. If you’ve got just a few minutes to top up before your Uber arrives, you can probably get through the night. If you’ve got an hour, you can get through another day and a half.
Competition
At $700, the ThinkPhone falls into my new favorite category of smartphone:the budget flagship. Sure, you’ll find a couple of cut corners — no 1440p display, a generation-old processor — but by and large, this should slash through any application with ease.
Right now, this space is occupied by two major players: theGoogle Pixel 7and theOnePlus 11. Unfortunately, Google continues to eat everyone’s lunch here. Although I think I prefer the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 over its Tensor G2 chipset — it’s just so cool and efficient in comparison — the ThinkPhone pales in comparison to the Pixel’s AI-powered smarts. The camera is leagues better, and aside from the glossy back glass panel, I think the Pixel 7’s design is better.
It’s $100 cheaper than the ThinkPhone at full price, but we’ve seen it drop as low as $450 unlocked (and $350 with activation). Google also provides faster updates, both for major Android releases and monthly security patches. But with a smaller screen, worse battery life, and far slower charging speeds, it’s not worth counting the ThinkPhone out for a certain set of power users.
The OnePlus 11, unfortunately, complicates things further. Not only is it rocking a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC — you know, a generation newer than the chip in the ThinkPhone — but it also sports better battery lifeandfaster charging. OnePlus isn’t up to Google’s standards when it comes to updates or camera quality, but I’d say the OnePlus 11 bests Motorola in both spaces. Really, it’s only OxygenOS that Motorola beats here. Qualms aside, I like the ThinkPhone’s light customization touch, and the same can’t be said for OnePlus.
Should you buy it?
For $700, you can do a lot worse than the ThinkPhone. It’s not perfect by any means, but it gets most of the basics right. Long-lasting battery life paired with excellent performance, a quality OLED panel that looks good indoors and out, and a solid design that feels good in the hand while avoiding some of the most frustrating modern design trends on the market — it feels like a complete package.
If Motorola can stick to its word on security updates, this device represents another exciting entry in the budget flagship space. Depending on your priorities, Google and OnePlus might offer better experiences for similar amounts of money. But, with the exception of low-light photography, the ThinkPhone manages to go head to head with its similarly-priced competition, and frankly, that’s not something I saw coming. After all, I certainly didn’t think that borrowing Lenovo’s most popular PC brand would result in one of my favorite Motorola phones in years.
Motorola and parent company Lenovo teamed up to build a business-friendly smartphone capable of fitting into your office lifestyle. The ThinkPhone is a flagship-level performer that syncs directly with any modern ThinkPad for advanced productivity.
