What if your laptop could get a full hour’s worth of charge simply by leaving it in sunlight for 20 minutes? That’s the promise of Lenovo’s latest concept laptop, a Yoga model featuring a photovoltaic solar panel on the rear of the screen, converting light into charge for the laptop’s battery.
I’ve seen a lot of great concept devices from Lenovo and other laptop makers at events like MWC 2025, and I’m usually pretty excited about them. So let me be absolutely, unequivocally clear about this one:
THIS RULES.
I’m serious. To be honest, I can’t believe it took this long for a tech company to strap a solar panel to the back of an ultrabook. We need more of this. It feels like such a straightforward idea; naturally, the Yoga Solar PC can be charged conventionally via a cable, but just being able to close the lid and let it soak in the solar rays is brilliant – and basically ensures that you’ll never be stranded without any charge again (unless it’s the middle of the night, I suppose).
The power of the sun, in the palm of my hand
I can’t be the only one who’s gone on a trip or even just off to work, only to find that I’ve forgotten my laptop charger. Thus begins that stressful game of watching the battery life tick down, turning on efficiency mode, lowering the brightness, and praying.
But with Lenovo’s Solar Yoga? I could just leave it on a windowsill for an hour while I have lunch, and come back to a freshly-charged battery.
It’s also just a general triumph of eco-friendly engineering. The solar panel on the rear of the display (which, incidentally, doesn’t appear to make the laptop noticeably thicker than Lenovo’s other Yoga ultrabooks) offers an energy conversion rate of more than 24%, which is among the very best you’ll see in any type of photovoltaic solar cells.
Lenovo also designed a ‘Dynamic Solar Tracking system’, which continually monitors the influx of electricity and adjusts the laptop’s battery consumption to prioritize the solar energy to better preserve your battery life.
Solar-powered devices aren’t a new thing, of course – fellow laptop manufacturer Acer sells a foldable 200W solar panel that you can hook up to a power bank, ideal for charging your devices when you’re out in nature (or in a Mad Max-style apocalypse). But the Yoga Solar PC is the first ultrabook in the world with a fully-integrated solar power solution – and even though it’s just a concept right now, it’s one that I seriously hope makes it beyond the prototyping phase.
Having handled the device in person at MWC, it certainly looks and feels like it could be retail-ready. I can practically picture myself taking this bad boy camping, or even just down to the cafe.
The downsides?
Alright, okay, as much as I love this, I will admit that there are some potential stumbling blocks to this sort of tech being widely implemented in our laptops. For starters, solar panels aren’t exactly the most durable things in the world – and I have to imagine that replacing an integrated panel like this would be a costly and difficult affair. Having a laptop with glass on the outside does feel a little bit like a recipe for disaster. Drop it once, and it might be game over.
Heat buildup also feels like a natural problem here. After all, you generally don’t want your laptop to be too hot. But surprisingly, Lenovo had the Yoga Solar PC sitting under a bright lamp on their stand at the expo (presumably for hours at a time), and while the back panel itself was a bit warm to the touch, the rest of the laptop didn’t feel hot at all. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that a metal exterior lid would probably cook your laptop more if you left it out in the sun.
Lastly, I suspect that if it were to make it to general production, the Yoga Solar PC would be very expensive. I’ve looked into getting solar panels installed on my house – and sure, this is just one solar panel, and it’s a lot smaller, but it’s also part of the laptop chassis rather than a standalone item – oh, and these Yoga laptops aren’t exactly bargain-basement hardware to begin with.
Still, as someone who enjoys a good foray into the great outdoors, I think this proof-of-concept is a fantastic idea and I’d gladly throw money at Lenovo to own one. A laptop that’s more eco-friendly and can save my bacon if I forget my charger? Sign me up.
