Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 (2020) Laptop Review

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is a 2-in-1 laptop with a clean, unassuming look that doesn't look out of place in a professional or business setting. The bezels are thin, and the screen opens a full 360 degrees so you can use it as a tablet. The exhausts are on the rear, while the upward-facing speakers sit on either side of the keyboard.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 2-in-1 feels decently well-built. It's made entirely of plastic, but it doesn't feel cheap, and there's very little give if you push on the keyboard deck. The top of the display flexes when you twist it, and the corners of the outer bezels pop out slightly, but there shouldn't be any risk of long-term damage if this happens. If you want a Chromebook with better build quality, check out the Google Pixelbook Go (2019).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5's hinge is excellent. You can bring the screen all the way around to use the laptop in tablet mode if you prefer. There's a bit of play to it, but there's very little wobble when typing. The screen is easy to lift with one finger, but the keyboard begins to lift once you push it past 120 degrees.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 2-in-1 laptop has great portability. It's lightweight, and its charger is small and easy to bring around.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5's serviceability is okay overall. Although we had some very minor difficulties opening it, accessing the internals is easy. You need to remove the screws from the panel on the underside, then use a prying tool to open up the edges. Opening the laptop and making changes to the hardware may void the manufacturer's warranty.

If you want a similarly portable laptop with room for a 2.5 inch storage drive, as well as an accessible RAM slot, check out the Acer Aspire 5 (2020).

• Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 inch laptop
• Lenovo Pen
• USB-A Lenovo Pen holder
• 65W USB-C power adapter
• Manual

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14's screen is on the smaller side, but it's still fine for multitasking with multiple windows or watching content. The side bezels are thin, helping maximize screen space while keeping the laptop compact. If you're looking for a 2-in-1 laptop for business use but want a taller 3:2 aspect ratio, check out the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (2020).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5's screen only comes in a 60Hz configuration with no variable refresh rate technology. This is typical of most productivity-focused laptops. As you can tell by the amount of ghosting in the motion blur photo, the response time is slow, so fast-moving content may not look very good.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5's contrast ratio is alright, typical of most IPS panels. As a result, blacks look grayish in the dark. The contrast ratio may vary between individual units.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14's screen brightness is reasonable. It's fine for indoor use but is too dim to use in sunny environments. It gets very dim at the lowest setting, which is great for viewing media in a dark room. If you want a laptop with a brighter screen, the HP ENVY x360 (2020) has a 1000 cd/m² display option.

The screen on the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 has passable reflection handling. Direct reflections are visible even with the screen at full brightness and can be very distracting when viewing dark scenes.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 has mediocre black uniformity, with a heavy presence of backlight bleed and a little IPS glow. Black uniformity may vary between units.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 has adequate horizontal viewing angles. Image and color accuracy drop off quickly when viewing the screen at an angle, which isn't ideal for sharing content with people around you.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5's vertical viewing angles are okay. Colors quickly become washed out if you're looking even slightly from above or below, so you have to look at the screen almost straight on to get the most accurate image.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 displays reasonably accurate colors. Most inaccuracies are due mainly to the narrow color gamut, which isn't an issue for productivity use but may be a problem for media consumption and creative professionals, as content will look washed out. The gamma is quite bad, with most scenes being too bright. However, the color temperature is practically at the 6500K target, which gives scenes a neutral tone. Color accuracy may vary between units. If you want a laptop with better color accuracy out of the box, check out the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 15 (2019).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 has a poor color gamut. Its sRGB coverage is poor, meaning it can't display many of the colors used in standard web content. This isn't an issue for casual, everyday use, but because it's only capable of displaying a narrow range of colors, it isn't ideal for any content creation, including for those working in Adobe RGB. As a result, it isn't suitable for viewing HDR content as its DCI P3 coverage is bad, and its Rec. 2020 coverage is even worse. If you want a Chromebook with a better color gamut, check out the Lenovo Chromebook Duet (2020).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 uses a completely flicker-free backlight, which can help reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to it.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14's keyboard feels great to type on. The size is good, and there's decent spacing between the keys, so it doesn't feel cramped. There are two backlight levels for better use in darker environments. The key travel is relatively short, but you need to apply a fair amount of force to actuate the keys, which might cause some strain if typing for very long periods. If you need a keyboard with a numpad, check out the Dell Inspiron 15 3000 (2020).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14's touchpad is okay. It's adequately sized, but since it isn't as smooth as a glass touchpad, your fingers might occasionally get stuck when dragging and dropping. Although palm rejection is good overall, it occasionally registers unwanted touches if you're near the top corners. Like most other touchpads, it's hard to click near the top third.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5's speakers are good. There's almost no bass whatsoever, but this is typical of most laptop speakers. There's minimal compression at maximum volume, so content still sounds rich. That said, they don't get very loud.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5's webcam and microphone are mediocre. Colors are washed out, and it's hard to make out most of the writing in the video. The microphone is loud and clear, but there's a lot of static, and voices sound hollow.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 has a good selection of ports. All the USB ports support USB 3.2 Gen 1 with a maximum data transfer rate of 5Gbps. Unfortunately, the HDMI port only supports up to 4k video at 30fps, and you can't use the USB-C port to output to an external display. If you need a laptop with Thunderbolt support, check out the Acer Swift 3 14 (2020).

The wireless adapter is a Realtek 8822CE.

Our Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 model has a 6-core AMD Ryzen 4500U. There's also the quad-core Ryzen 3 4300U and the 8-core Ryzen 7 4700U. The IdeaPad Flex 5i variants have Intel processors, including a dual-core i3-1005G1, a quad-core i5-1035G1, and a quad-core i7-1065G7. Only the Intel CPUs have multithreading technology, which enables multiple processes to run on the same core. Having more physical cores provides better performance than multithreading since each core can work exclusively on a single process.

If you only need to browse the web or perform light productivity tasks, the Ryzen 3 and i3 models will be more than adequate. If you tend to have more windows open and want the system to run more smoothly, you'll be better off with the Ryzen 5 and i5 models. The Ryzen 7 and i7 models can handle heavier workloads like light 3D rendering or video editing and provide a smoother experience during heavy multitasking.

Our Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 unit has integrated Radeon Vega 6 Graphics. On the other hand, the Ryzen 3 4300U model uses integrated Radeon Vega 5 graphics, while the Ryzen 7 4700U model has integrated Radeon Vega 7 graphics. We expect all of these to perform similarly to one another for all practical purposes. The Intel i7-1065G7 uses integrated Intel Iris Plus graphics, which is reasonably faster than the Intel i3-1005G1 and i5-1035G1 models that have integrated Intel UHD graphics.

You can also get the Intel i7–equipped IdeaPad Flex 5i with dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX330 2GB graphics. It'll perform much better than integrated graphics for computationally intensive tasks.

You can get the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 with 4, 8, or 16GB of DDR4 memory running at 3200MHz. Only the AMD Ryzen 3 4300U and Intel Core i3-1005G1 models can be configured with 4GB of RAM, while you can configure the other models with 8GB or 16GB. If you want a smooth experience, we recommend getting at least 8GB. However, if you're someone who does a lot of multitasking or tends to have a lot of browser tabs open at once, you should opt for 16GB.

Every Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 model uses an NVMe SSD, which makes booting and launching applications very fast. There's a variant with 128GB, which should be fine if you plan to mainly use cloud storage, but you can upgrade to 512GB if you need to store large media files locally.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 with a 6-core, 6-thread Ryzen 5 4500U performs excellently in the single-thread synthetics benchmark, which makes it good for tasks like photo editing or light video editing. While performance for multi-thread workloads is decent, we don't expect it to score as well as CPUs with a similar core count that have multithreading technology enabled, such as the newer 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 5500U. Our model scores poorly in the GPU compute scenario, which is typical of integrated graphics.

If you want the highest performance, we expect the 8-core, 8-thread Ryzen 7 4700U to perform better than the quad-core, 8-thread Intel Core i7-1065G7. The Ryzen 7 also performs a lot better than the Ryzen 5 4500U in multitasking and CPU-intensive programs, as it has two more cores and threads and a slightly faster boost clock.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 with a Ryzen 5 4500U performs very well in CPU rendering tasks for creative workloads. If you want to reduce render times, you should opt for the Ryzen 7 4700U or Intel Core i7-1065G7 models, which have better multi-thread performance since they have more cores and threads.

Our model of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 with a Ryzen 5 4500U takes a while to render 3D scenes. It's much faster with the CPU compared to its integrated Radeon Vega 6 graphics. We expect the NVIDIA GeForce MX330 in the highest-end IdeaPad Flex 5i models with i7 processors to render scenes about as quickly, if not a little faster, than the paired CPU; although there won't be a drastic benefit to render time, you can use the GPU to lighten the workload on the CPU which can help when multitasking. If you need a laptop with a discrete GPU for faster render times, check out the Acer Nitro 5 (2020).

The Radeon Vega 6 integrated graphics in our model of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 scores badly in the game scene benchmark, which is typical of an integrated graphics chip. We expect all the Intel and AMD options with integrated graphics to perform similarly to our unit, but the i7-1065G7 variant with integrated Intel Iris Plus graphics should perform a bit better overall. Additionally, the Intel i7-1065G7 models with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX330 2GB graphics card will perform better as it's a dedicated card, but we can't confirm by exactly how much. If you want a laptop with better GPU performance, check out the Dell Alienware m15 R3 (2020).

Our Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14's SSD performs excellently, with fast read/write speeds that help make the system feel quick and light overall. The SSD's speed may vary depending on the size, as larger SSDs tend to perform better.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 laptop's battery lasts almost as long as Lenovo's 10-hour claim in our video playback test and almost an hour and a half longer when surfing the web. It's more than enough to get you through a full workday of light or medium productivity on a full charge. There's also plenty of screen-on time for people who frequently watch media while on the go. However, your battery will run out much faster if you run CPU-intensive tasks like photo or video editing or 3D rendering. If you want a Chromebook with even longer battery life, check out the HP Chromebook 14 (Intel Celeron N4000, 2021).

Our model of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 runs Borderlands 3 terribly. On the "High" preset, it can't sustain a playable framerate, and even on the lowest graphical settings, it's barely playable. Because of the demanding nature of the game, we don't expect even the highest-end Intel Core i7 model with dedicated NVIDIA MX330 graphics to provide significantly improved performance.

Civilization VI runs poorly overall on our configuration of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5. The FPS drops noticeably when panning around the game world. However, the turn time is reasonable thanks to the CPU's decent multi-thread performance. You can get a much smoother playing experience by turning the graphical settings to the minimum.

CS:GO has disappointing performance on our model of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14, even though it's an older title. On high settings, it barely pushes out frames as quickly as the refresh rate of the screen, and there are a lot of stutters. However, you can get a significantly smoother experience by playing on the lowest settings. The highest-end IdeaPad Flex 5i model, with an i7 and dedicated NVIDIA MX330 graphics, won't stutter nearly as much.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider runs terribly on our configuration of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5. The sections on the graph with noticeably shorter frame times (higher FPS) correspond to intervals with mostly static scenery. The game runs much better on the lowest settings, but it isn't smooth enough to provide a great experience.

When idle, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 makes a mid-pitched whirring noise that doesn't sound bad at all. Under load, the noise is identical but louder, although it still isn't too bad. On the other hand, the keyboard already feels warm to the touch while the laptop is idle, and under load, the upper-left side gets very hot. If you want a laptop that doesn't get as hot under load, check out the ASUS X515 (2020).

The integrated Radeon Vega 6 graphics on the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 don't suffer from any measurable performance loss over time. The AMD Ryzen 5 4500U CPU on our unit experiences only a slight loss after thirty minutes running at full load, but it isn't even noticeable.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 comes with a few pieces of pre-installed software:

• Lenovo Pen Settings: Adjusts settings for the included pen.
• Lenovo Vantage: Checks for driver and BIOS updates, and keeps track of the system status and your warranty.
• Lenovo Utility: Related to technical support for the laptop, like when hardware and software information needs to be logged. It didn't seem to do very much during our testing.
• McAfee LiveSafe: Commonly pre-installed anti-virus software.

If you're looking for a similar-looking laptop with a 360-degree hinge but prefer to use Chrome OS, check out the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 (2020).

You can get the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 with a touch pen using WAES (Wacom Active Electrostatic) technology. It has a built-in battery and can be attached to the laptop using the USB pen holder. Some models have a fingerprint sensor at the bottom right corner of the keyboard, below the arrow keys, which you can use to log in quickly.