The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14 doesn't threaten to unseat our Editors' Choice 2-in-1 picks, but it gets a lot right for its price. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and made for high-end PCs to strut their stuff. For our performance tests, I matched the IdeaPad against four other 14-inch convertibles. The Good Following the form of Lenovo's slimmer, smaller Yoga two-in-ones, the Flex 5's 15.6-inch display gives you more room for work and, complemented by its speakers, makes it very … If you want a more powerful laptop for work, then try the Dell XPS 13 Windows Laptop. MacBook Pro vs. MacBook Air: Which 13-Inch Apple Laptop Is Best for 2020? I found listings as low as $460, which makes it one of the least expensive laptops in this … It's certainly capable of image-editing work, but it's not an ideal pick if you do lots of it and value your time. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, Web browsing, and videoconferencing. Lenovo Ideapad Flex 5 (14) review – the optional GeForce MX330 has its perks and drawbacks. You won't find a Thunderbolt 3 port, but that's no deal-breaker at this price. Aggressively priced. The keyboard and screen are great and it has … The Lenovo Flex 14 (known as Yoga 530 outside the US) is a good choice if you're in the market for a 2-in-1 laptop, but don't necessarily have the budget for its larger sibling, the Yoga 730. He also loves cars, listening to music, driving, and his dog Chewie. Still, it's bearable in a case or backpack. In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the Blender Foundation short film Tears of Steel—with screen brightness set at 50 percent and volume at 100 percent until the system conks out. The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 punches far above its weight. Two-minute review Lenovo’s ‘Flex’ series of laptops are affordable 2-in-1 convertible systems that offer claimed all-day battery life. Another slim and light laptop that you should check out is the Acer Aspire 5 Slim Windows Laptop. This review is part of our ongoing roundup of the best laptops.Go there for information on competing products and how we tested them. Required fields are marked *, Is this a review? PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a Storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the laptop's boot drive. We time each operation and, at the end, add up the total execution time (lower times are better). And using the machine outdoors will be problematic if there's much sun. The Flex's bottom-mounted speakers pump out enough sound to fill a midsize room, slightly hollow at top volume but not tinny or distorted. reviews and buyers guides. The Lenovo Flex 5 is a 14-inch 2-in-1 convertible that delivers strong performance, a brilliant display, comfortable keyboard and speedy SSD, making it an affordable way to enjoy the … But what if you have less than $1,000 to spend? This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. The Flex will get you through a tablet-mode Netflix movie or easel- or kiosk-mode presentation with no problem. Except for being slow to start up (45 seconds from pressing the power button to the Windows desktop), the Flex proved a reasonably peppy performer—unsuitable for gaming, but that's true of every laptop with integrated as opposed to discrete graphics. © 1996-2020 Ziff Davis, LLC. Instead, the laptop's left side holds a USB 3.1 Type-C port, an HDMI video output, an audio jack, and a connector for the AC adapter. Next up is another synthetic graphics test, this time from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene and measures how the system copes. The $449.99 (Pentium Gold) and $539.99 (Core i3) models at Lenovo.com have much weaker configurations, with 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid-state drives, lowly 1,366-by-768-pixel displays, and installations of Windows 10 Home in S mode, which only lets you install apps from the Windows Store. PCI Express NVMe SSDs these days, now spreading into mainstream laptops, typically score around 5,000. This is what allows us to offer our content free of charge or without a paywall. Essentially a budget version of Lenovo's Yoga line, the Flex strips out features and dials down specs in an effort to keep pricing as low as possible; These machines start at $400, but my … The Flex 14 will cost $599.99, the 13-inch Lenovo Yoga 730 will cost $879.99, and the 15-inch Yoga 730 will cost $899.99. Your subscription has been confirmed. Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning. Lenovo supplied Windows Central with a review unit of the IdeaPad Flex 14. For the price, the build is great, the display is fine, the speakers are good, … As we've seen a thousand times, Intel's integrated graphics restrict players to casual and browser-based games. Lenovo Ideapad Flex 5i is a laptop that is meant for normal users but it is having a twist in its formation because you are getting some extra features from it and you have to use that to get the … Spotted at Rakuten, my $899.99 Windows 10 Home test unit had a 1.6GHz (3.9GHz turbo) Core i5-8265U processor, 16GB of memory, a 256GB Samsung NVMe solid-state drive, Intel UHD 620 integrated graphics, and a 1,920-by-1,080-pixel IPS touch screen. Tech specs. If its display were a bit brighter, and if it came with a pen or stylus for sketching and scribbling, it would earn an enthusiastic recommendation. PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. Too many are simply trying to capitalize on affiliate revenue. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. 3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. The Flex 5 laptop is … The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is a very competent budget laptop that shows off the strength of AMD processors. It's not a face-recognition camera, but you can use Windows Hello to bypass passwords via a fingerprint reader in the keyboard deck. No Your email address will not be published. We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark. Email him at, How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad, How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill, How to Find Free Tools to Optimize Your Small Business, How to Get Started With Project Management, Read Dell Inspiron 14 5000 2-in-1 (5482) Review. The Lenovo Flex 5 comes in several … Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. There's no volume rocker for use in tablet or tent mode. On the right are two USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a full-size SD card slot (it leaves cards sticking out to snag in your briefcase), the power button, and a reset pinhole. Buy it at Lenovo - http://lon.tv/z7ey (affiliate link) - The Flex 14 is Lenovo's entry level 2-in-1 PC. It is also an excellent laptop for professionals and students who seek portability. This laptop can be used as a tablet thanks to its convertible design and the touch screen display. After fully recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) where available and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video rundown test. The backlit keyboard commits the HP-style sin of arranging the cursor arrow keys in a row (with half-height up and down arrows sandwiched between full-height left and right) instead of an inverted T. Otherwise, it gets decent marks, with a shallow and pillowy rather than snappy typing feel but good feedback and keys that aren't too puny. Another is the business-oriented Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1, whose luxuries, among them a proximity sensor that wakes the system when you approach, can push it well past $2,000. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. Supplied Dolby Audio software offers music, movie, game, and voice presets, as well as an equalizer. If you drop down to 8GB … The Ideapad Flex 14 is great value for money, especially with its ability to act as a tablet and a laptop. They take money from brands to skew results. Read honest and unbiased product reviews … Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. And their solid-state drives had no trouble with PCMark 8's Storage test. The laptop gets 12GB of DDR4 RAM and 256GB NVMe SSD storage. You can also configure this laptop with up to Intel Core i7 and Intel UHD graphics. Those are all base model prices, of course, and they can be leveled … I was looking for a laptop that was capable of processing multiple programs quickly, and I have found this with the LeNovo. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image. Four frames per second across the board? The Latitude 7400 2-in-1 delivered a truly exceptional result here, but the Flex's 12 hours and 40 minutes is nothing to sneeze at, although the screen did look rather shady at only 50 percent brightness. The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 checks all the boxes of what an essential 2-in-1 can do. Compared to the frontrunners, the Flex took only a few seconds more to complete each filter or operation, but the differences added up. This $600 2-in-1 convertible laptop offers better computing performance than many competitors that cost more than twice as … With this screen, things get dark quickly when you turn down the backlight to save battery power, so you'll need to keep the level cranked up high. Having dedicated over eight years on writing about consumer electronics and enlightening the readers on every new gadget on the block, Sid has traced the evolution of smartphones. At this writing, slight variants were being sold from other e-tailers and retailers such as Amazon and Best Buy. PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The Lenovo Ideapad Flex 14 is an excellent laptop for students as well as professionals who’re on the lookout for something light and powerful. Keep an eye on your inbox! Gadget Review works with a variety of eCommerce partners and vendors to help monetize the site’s traffic – instead of advertisers. The laptop offers up to 8 hours of battery life and uses a travel friendly charging brick. Overview. If you’re looking for something even more sleek and portable, try the Microsoft Surface Windows Laptop. The IdeaPad Flex 5 15 (just Flex 5 from here on out) we reviewed falls in the middle of the spectrum, listing for a hair over $1,200 and featuring an Intel Core i7-8550U processor, integrated Intel HD 620 graphics, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 512GB PCIe SSD, and a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS touch display.It’s worth noting this is the to… He works in a catful home office in Bradenton, Florida. Lenovo rates the screen at 250 nits. Sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly recommendations about seasonal and trending products. It's not a top choice for workstation-style 3D rendering or video editing, but it's undaunted by spreadsheet and database analysis. Those are all base model prices, of course, and they can be leveled … The backlit keyboard has good travel and the touch screen works well. The Ideapad Flex 14 from Lenovo is the best Windows laptop for those who want the best of both worlds. The Acer Spin 3 and Dell Inspiron 14 5000 2-in-1 are roughly comparable, especially the Inspiron—it costs the same as the Lenovo with a quicker CPU (Core i7 versus Core i5) but less RAM (8GB versus 16GB). Lenovo starts the Flex 14 at $630, but, as always, you’re sure to find better deals elsewhere. HP’s New 2014 Envy 15 + Envy 17 (Updated 4th of July Deals), Convertible 2-in-1 design with tablet mode. You get two USB ports, a card reader, a USB Type C port, an HDMI port, and an Audio jack. I came from a Sony Vaio which was always really slow to start-up programs and had … Those are all base model prices, of course, and they can be leveled … Lenovo pioneered the 2-in-1 concept, and some of the excellent design from its more expensive models is apparent on the Flex 3. The 300-degree hinge gives you a second … Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 – Verdict. The test generates a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better. The only gripe is that the USB C port on the laptop cannot be used for charging. The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. It finished more or less in the middle of the pack in most benchmarks. PCMag Digital Group. My only wish for improvement would be a shade more brightness. The hinge is sturdy, with very little bouncing when you tap … A Flex 5 14 with Intel Core i3-1005G1 with four less cores, a quarter of the RAM, and half the storage space compared to my review model costs only about $175 less. The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, but it can also take advantage of most GPUs to speed up the process of applying filters, so systems with powerful graphics chips or cards may see a boost. The buttonless touchpad glides and taps easily and takes a nice light touch to click. Most of these systems fell just a bit short, but they have more than ample power for Microsoft Office or Google Docs. Contrast is good, and viewing angles are wide. If you don't mind cranking up the screen brightness, you'll find Lenovo's IdeaPad Flex 14 an attractive convertible laptop for $899.99—a Core i5 2-in-1 that competes well with more costly Core i7s. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/lenovo-ideapad-flex-14-2019, Formerly editor-in-chief of Home Office Computing, Eric Grevstad is a contributing editor for PCMag, where he earlier served as lead laptop analyst. We consider 4,000 points an excellent score in PCMark 10. Next is Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. The Good The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14 is inexpensive for a fourth-gen Core i5 laptop, with a good keyboard and touch pad, and excellent battery life. That’s our promise and our commitment.. Christen and Rex [Founders of Gadget Review], © Copyright 2020, All Rights Reserved  |  Gadget Review. At 3.7 pounds, it's a little lighter than the Inspiron but heavier than the Latitude (3 pounds) and the LG Gram 14 2-in-1 (a remarkable 2.5 pounds). It is also light weight and well designed without sacrificing on the number of connectivity options. Looking for a 14-inch convertible laptop? Colors are perky and well saturated. Lenovo’s lineup of 2-in-1 devices is truly sprawling, encompassing multiple sub-brands and a broad range of prices. The camera's images aren't too grainy or noisy but are somewhat dim and soft-focus. There's not much bass, but drums are strong, and it's possible to make out overlapping tracks. Touch operations are smooth and precise, though the glass overlay is reflective, as touch panels usually are. The Flex 14 is powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 3500U processor, which performs better than the Intel Core i5 chipsets. 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