I purchased this Lenovo Flex 5i laptop for around $420 on sale, and based on pricing history and current market prices for similarly-spec’d laptops, I would assume this would be available for well under $500 most of the time (at least, as of the time of writing). I bought it as a work laptop after trying out multiple similarly-priced models.

The Flex 5i, in my opinion, has the best combination of functionality and design at this price. There are definitely other options (including from Lenovo) that provide more powerful hardware, but at the expense of design. The Flex 5i is surprisingly heavy but feels substantial, with a metallic lid and plastic body. The beefy metal hinges that allow the screen to rotate 360 degrees for use as a tablet feel very solid and do not wobble nearly as much as other competitors. There’s little flex to the body, although there is some under the keyboard. The upward-firing speakers are a nice touch, even if they aren’t particularly loud or full-sounding. There’s also a fingerprint scanner, which is a nice touch.

The display is a Goldilocks-sized 14” gloss IPS touchscreen with a resolution of 1920×1200 (16:10 widescreen-plus). It has good contrast, sharpness, and viewing angles, and the 300-nit brightness is plenty for most well-lit settings. However, the glossy panel may make it difficult to use in direct sunlight outdoors, but you’d be hard pressed to find anything brighter in this price category. Compared to competitors by HP and ASUS, the Lenovo’s display is relatively sharper and brighter. The color gamut is narrow, leading to some washout, but this is also true of almost everything in its price range, so don’t expect a professional video-editing display. It works fine for most work and content-consumption uses.

As is typical for Lenovo devices, the keyboard is one of the best in class. I type a lot at my job, so this was a huge factor. While the “O” key did lack smoothness in the travel initially, the keys have loosened up with some use. I prefer the stiffness and clickiness as compared to some of HP’s and Dell’s lower-end devices, which have a soft, gummy keypress that does not feel great to use. Larger, cheaper Ideapads tend to also have great keys, but a lot of flex to the body under the keyboard. The trackpad is responsive enough, but I use a wireless mouse most of the time. I don’t have an opinion on the touchscreen’s responsiveness, as I always use the device as a laptop. Overall, a great input experience for the price.

The hardware specs are well matched to the design and price – while it’s unfortunate that 8GB of non-upgradable RAM is still standard at a time where Windows and a Chrome window will eat almost 75% of it, the 12th gen Core i5 and Iris Xe graphics do a great job of keeping the user experience snappy. While the palm rest will get a little warm during a heavy workload, the heat is nowhere near as bad as my 2020 MacBook Pro, which will become almost impossible to use on a lap when multitasking.

I dual-boot Linux when I’m not at work for casual use, and have used Steam and Proton to try out the laptop’s gaming performance. If you are willing to play older or lighter titles at 720p or at low graphical settings, you can play a few things. Just don’t expect to play any AAA titles released in the last 5 years or so – the combined system and video RAM of 8GB is just not enough for demanding titles. You should be able to get something like Fortnite or Valorant running at playable frame rates, at lower settings.

Battery life is decent – I rarely use all of it at once but it appears to be good for about 6 hours with the power efficiency mode turned on and the screen brightness turned down slightly while doing real-world work.

IO is also good – you get a barrel-style charger, which leaves you a powered USB-C port, 2 USB-A ports, an HDMI, a headphone/mic jack, and an SD slot open while charging. The webcam (which is a very standard, low resolution camera good for conferencing and not much else) has a physical privacy shutter on it, which is nice.

There is some unnecessary Lenovo bloatware installed by default, all of which heavily pushes Norton antivirus software subscriptions (which is worse on the system resources than most actual malware, and does little that Windows Defender is able to do by default). I recommend uninstalling most of it on first setup (Lenovo Now and Lenovo Vantage being the major annoyances).

Overall, a very nice basic/office/web surfing laptop for the price. If it’s at $450 or less, there’s not much else that’s cheaper where you won’t be making significant compromises on build quality or specifications. If your needs are for school, office applications, web surfing, and maybe the occasional Rocket League match, this is a great option.

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I purchased this Lenovo Flex 5i laptop for around $420 on sale, and based on pricing history and current market prices for similarly-spec’d laptops, I would assume this would be available for well under $500 most of the time (at least, as of the time of writing). I bought it as a work laptop after trying out multiple similarly-priced models.

The Flex 5i, in my opinion, has the best combination of functionality and design at this price. There are definitely other options (including from Lenovo) that provide more powerful hardware, but at the expense of design. The Flex 5i is surprisingly heavy but feels substantial, with a metallic lid and plastic body. The beefy metal hinges that allow the screen to rotate 360 degrees for use as a tablet feel very solid and do not wobble nearly as much as other competitors. There’s little flex to the body, although there is some under the keyboard. The upward-firing speakers are a nice touch, even if they aren’t particularly loud or full-sounding. There’s also a fingerprint scanner, which is a nice touch.

The display is a Goldilocks-sized 14” gloss IPS touchscreen with a resolution of 1920×1200 (16:10 widescreen-plus). It has good contrast, sharpness, and viewing angles, and the 300-nit brightness is plenty for most well-lit settings. However, the glossy panel may make it difficult to use in direct sunlight outdoors, but you’d be hard pressed to find anything brighter in this price category. Compared to competitors by HP and ASUS, the Lenovo’s display is relatively sharper and brighter. The color gamut is narrow, leading to some washout, but this is also true of almost everything in its price range, so don’t expect a professional video-editing display. It works fine for most work and content-consumption uses.

As is typical for Lenovo devices, the keyboard is one of the best in class. I type a lot at my job, so this was a huge factor. While the “O” key did lack smoothness in the travel initially, the keys have loosened up with some use. I prefer the stiffness and clickiness as compared to some of HP’s and Dell’s lower-end devices, which have a soft, gummy keypress that does not feel great to use. Larger, cheaper Ideapads tend to also have great keys, but a lot of flex to the body under the keyboard. The trackpad is responsive enough, but I use a wireless mouse most of the time. I don’t have an opinion on the touchscreen’s responsiveness, as I always use the device as a laptop. Overall, a great input experience for the price.

The hardware specs are well matched to the design and price – while it’s unfortunate that 8GB of non-upgradable RAM is still standard at a time where Windows and a Chrome window will eat almost 75% of it, the 12th gen Core i5 and Iris Xe graphics do a great job of keeping the user experience snappy. While the palm rest will get a little warm during a heavy workload, the heat is nowhere near as bad as my 2020 MacBook Pro, which will become almost impossible to use on a lap when multitasking.

I dual-boot Linux when I’m not at work for casual use, and have used Steam and Proton to try out the laptop’s gaming performance. If you are willing to play older or lighter titles at 720p or at low graphical settings, you can play a few things. Just don’t expect to play any AAA titles released in the last 5 years or so – the combined system and video RAM of 8GB is just not enough for demanding titles. You should be able to get something like Fortnite or Valorant running at playable frame rates, at lower settings.

Battery life is decent – I rarely use all of it at once but it appears to be good for about 6 hours with the power efficiency mode turned on and the screen brightness turned down slightly while doing real-world work.

IO is also good – you get a barrel-style charger, which leaves you a powered USB-C port, 2 USB-A ports, an HDMI, a headphone/mic jack, and an SD slot open while charging. The webcam (which is a very standard, low resolution camera good for conferencing and not much else) has a physical privacy shutter on it, which is nice.

There is some unnecessary Lenovo bloatware installed by default, all of which heavily pushes Norton antivirus software subscriptions (which is worse on the system resources than most actual malware, and does little that Windows Defender is able to do by default). I recommend uninstalling most of it on first setup (Lenovo Now and Lenovo Vantage being the major annoyances).

Overall, a very nice basic/office/web surfing laptop for the price. If it’s at $450 or less, there’s not much else that’s cheaper where you won’t be making significant compromises on build quality or specifications. If your needs are for school, office applications, web surfing, and maybe the occasional Rocket League match, this is a great option.

Read More