The Lenovo Flex 5 is our favorite laptop for working from home this year. As a result of the Ryzen 4000 processor, you receive superior performance and an amazing battery life. The convertible form factor enables a swift transition between work mode and entertainment mode. In addition, a privacy shutter, fingerprint scanner, front-firing speakers, and rapid charging are included.
1. Design
Lenovo is not a new name in the laptop market, nor is it a new name in the 2-in-1 market. The Yoga series from Lenovo is renowned for its design(opens in new tab). The Lenovo Flex 5 is an attempt to bring the benefits of the Yoga series, a 2-in-1 form factor, to a more affordable market segment. Let’s begin with the color in this case. Graphite Grey is the only available hue for the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5. This color looks sophisticated and expensive at first glance.
It has a metallic covering with a soft-touch surface on the front, with a little Lenovo logo located to the right, while the rest of the area is blank. As you open the laptop, you will find a 14-inch display, keyboard, and trackpad, as well as two front-firing speakers. The fingerprint scanner is situated directly underneath the keyboard. The machine is equipped with a hinge that can rotate 360 degrees and is made of a durable material. The laptop weighs 1.5 kilograms and has a thickness of 17.9 millimeters, making it a lightweight and thin device. While we agree that this device is light as a laptop, it feels very weighty as a tablet. So, it is preferable to utilize it in tent mode, as I did.
The high mechanism is quite smooth, and I experienced no problems. Lenovo claims that the hinge can withstand up to 25,000 opening and shutting motions over four years, or an average of 17 per day. A barrel charging port, HDMI 1.4b connector, USB-C port with power supply certification, and microphone combo jack are located on the left side of the laptop. There are two USB 3.1 (Gen 1) ports, an SD card reader, and the power button on the right side. The power button functions similarly to the power button on cellphones. It functions in both laptop and tablet modes. The bottom of the shoe features an air vent and rubberized grip pads.
Even though the laptop is constructed of plastic, Lenovo has done an excellent job with its appearance. It does seem strong and refined, and the graphite grey color gives it an upscale appearance. The Lenovo Flex 5 furthermore includes a Graphite Grey Lenovo digital pen with two programmable buttons. It has 4,096 pressure sensitivity levels and uses a AAAA battery.
2. Display
The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 sports a 14-inch front display with a Full HD resolution (1920×1080). Its display has an 88% screen-to-body ratio and is glossy. The display supports 10-point Multi-touch and has tiny bezels on the sides, while the top and bottom have notable amounts of bezel. The maximum resolution of the screen is 250 nits. The touch response is fairly decent, but I primarily used the keyboard because utilizing the touchscreen required extra care to maintain the display spotless.
I had no problems using the laptop screen indoors; it was sufficiently bright. Outside, however, the display’s 250 nits of brightness are insufficient to read the screen, and the glossy reflecting screen makes it even more difficult to see the screen’s content. Due to the 250nits reflecting glossy display, the display is nearly unusable when used outdoors. I wish Lenovo had included a panel with a matte finish, as we’ve seen on other computers, or a greater brightness value.
3. Efficiency
As a gadget designed to provide long-lasting, steady performance, the Lenovo Flex 5 performs admirably. It outperforms Intel competitors by a considerable margin. And as a device for business or even for watching movies or television, the Lenovo Flex 5 will not let you down.
Internally, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U processor, making it one of the most affordable laptops in India with a Ryzen 5 4000 series chipset. It’s a six-core processor with a base clock speed of 2.3GHz and a maximum turbo clock speed of 4GHz. Graphics are handled by an inbuilt AMD Radeon R5 GPU, which is adequate for light to moderate tasks.
The laptop’s day-to-day performance was seamless and enjoyable. There were no delays or screen freezing at any time. My usage consisted of at least 15 chrome tabs, including Google docs, sheets, the Slack application, a bit of photoshop, attending a few meetings, downloading a few images, and watching internet videos. Throughout my time with the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5, I had no problems with any of these tasks.
4. Batteries
For the past few years, Lenovo has maintained the excellent battery life of its laptops across all market groups. To be honest, I was initially really suspicious. I anticipated the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 to last between 4 and 5 hours, given its physical factor. Nonetheless, the eventual result surprised me.
Once completely charged at 9 a.m., the 52.5Wh battery pack can easily survive until 5 p.m. in the evening, and in some cases even longer. Due to the fact that we were working on the TechRadar India Awards, my work involved opening many docs, sheets, a bit of Photoshop, multiple chrome tabs, and Slack for constant team communication. Always, the brightness was set to 100%. Over the course of three weeks, I consistently logged over eight hours of screen time. Occasionally, I surpass the nine-hour threshold. I was genuinely surprised by the battery life of this device. The Flex 5’s battery life is enhanced by the display’s lack of brightness and the Ryzen 4000 processor’s power and efficiency.
All View
The Lenovo Flex 5 is a beast in terms of sheer performance, capable of handling Chrome tabs, Photoshop modifications, and the use of many applications simultaneously.
