You can, however, use a stylus to doodle or take down important messages in OneNote. A little caution would be advisable, however: While I liked how responsive those stylus strokes were and how it felt as I dragged it across the screen's glass, the button on the barrel that toggles the eraser is pretty easy to hold down accidentally. (Hopefully, that gets fixed before this thing goes on sale.)

Beyond that, a bevy of built-in far-field microphones means the ThinkBook also sort of doubles as a monochrome Echo Show. It's a neat idea in theory, tempered somewhat by the fact that you have to launch Alexa on that E-Ink screen before you can start talking to it. This early demo model didn't offer the same sort of audio feedback Alexa users are used to either, though Lenovo says the final retail version should talk back to you just fine.

If you really -- and I mean really -- wanted to, you could also use that E-Ink screen to plow through books in your Kindle library. To be clear, you're not meant to hold the laptop in both hands the way you would one of Amazon's tablets; it doesn't support auto-rotation. Frankly, a little software customization would've gone a long way here.