A solid-value 2-in-1 for budget buyers

I've been a computer-tech writer and editor for several decades, and a photographer who writes about photo techniques and equipment for over a decade. My first job in the tech press was as a writer for Compute! magazine, where we used Commodore 64s from Circuit City as word processors. I next became the editor of Computer Dealer, offering advice to computer retailers, then moved on to Personal Computing as an executive editor, where I developed the magazine's benchmark suite. I held several positions at the massive Computer Shopper magazine before becoming editor in chief. While at Computer Shopper (owned by CNET Networks at the time), I edited bi-annual issues of Technology Review as a joint project with Fortune magazine.

The panel and battery could use some tweaks, but Lenovo’s IdeaPad Flex 5i 14-inch is a solid-value budget convertible laptop with a nice keyboard and decent performance for the money.

The 2-in-1 convertible laptop is no longer, by default, a premium piece of hardware. You can find low-cost ones in the same way you can find budget classic clamshells. Take the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i: Its modest 3.31-pound weight makes it easy to switch quickly between touch-tablet and ordinary laptop modes. That light weight is coupled with redesigned, sturdier hinges and a responsive, 14-inch touch display—with 14 inches being an increasingly favored screen size for convertibles. Some aspects, notably the panel brightness and the battery life, could use some work, but at $799 in our test unit (models start at $669), this is a solid, if not award-winning, pick among popularly priced 2-in-1s.

For that $669 starting price, the Flex 5i includes that bright, 1,920-by-1,200-pixel display, an excellent keyboard, a 12th Generation Intel ("Alder Lake") Core i5-1235U processor with Intel Xe graphics, a 512GB SSD, and 8GB of memory. This base configuration is a slightly different model from our $799 test unit, which has 16GB of RAM and is sold through retailers, not available directly from Lenovo. The base configuration comes in Storm Blue, while the retail version is in Storm Gray.

From this jumping off point, the touch screen and its multiple alignment options (including tablet, laptop, and “tent” mode) offer lots of versatility.

Despite growing acceptance for 2-in-1 convertibles, the key choice is whether you actually need tablet mode or a touch screen. Since the pen is an optional extra, Lenovo is hedging its bets somewhat. However, that’s also true with Dell’s Inspiron 2-in-1 series and others that don’t include their supported stylus pens, either.

To the question of “needing” a 2-in-1 laptop, I can attest that—although I’m plenty comfortable with non-touch laptops—pressing an onscreen button or link in laptop mode is just plain simpler than with a touchpad or mouse. Likewise, it’s handy to flip into tent or tablet mode when sharing information.

Lenovo's trademark excellent keyboard has crisp, tactile feedback, and the keys are raised slightly higher than on many budget laptops. That said, the action is not up to that of HP's Spectre x360 13.5 or Lenovo’s ThinkPad series.

The ThinkPad’s concave keys are raised even more than those of the Flex 5i, with a longer travel distance. That said, the IdeaPad has a spill-resistant, backlit keyboard and a buttonless, Mylar-coated, multi-touch touchpad that is quite responsive. The keyboard and touchpad offer sufficient room for fast typing, and the touchpad has been enlarged from last year’s model (from 4.13 by 2.76 inches to 4.72 by 2.95 inches).

There’s also a fingerprint reader and a pair of stereo 2-watt speakers with Dolby audio. Audio quality is adequate for general use, and certainly for webcam sessions. However, when listening to music at volume, you’ll get some distortion, as with many budget portables.

The webcam offers full 1080p HD resolution (1,920 by 1,080 pixels), although the image appears softer than that on the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 7420. Still, it’s plenty sharp for a Zoom chat. An unobtrusive slider next to the camera can ensure privacy when you aren’t using the webcam.

The Flex 5i case feels solid, with practically no give in the top half, since that’s held firm by the aluminum frame and the glass of the display. The bottom half is made of a combination of polycarbonate and glass fiber (for stiffening). While it feels sturdy, there is a slight flex at the center of the keyboard, if you press your thumbs there.

As noted, the two hinges offer little play, and the laptop swings easily from closed position through 360 degrees to tablet mode (with the display facing up and the keyboard beneath). The thin bezels framing the display help it seem roomy. The laptop also features a larger ventilation grille on the bottom compared to the 2021 model.

Along the left side of the laptop are the power port, an HDMI 1.4b port, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2/Thunderbolt 4 port, and the headphone/microphone combo jack (3.5mm). On the right side are two USB 3.2 Type-A Gen 1 ports (one of them "always on" for charging items), and an SD card reader. This reader causes the card to stick out over halfway—so the card should be removed before carrying the unit.

The Flex 5i supports Intel Wi-Fi 6 (2x2/160) Gig+, allowing optional 160MHz channels capable of 1,680Mbps Wi-Fi speeds—twice as fast as the 840Mbps on standard 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 80MHz. The laptop also offers Bluetooth 5.2, which supports wireless headphones, game controllers, and smart home devices within 800 feet, at speeds up to 50Mbps—plus LE Power Control (LEPC), allowing the transmitter to adjust transmission power by itself or as requested by a peer device.

Since this Flex 5i is a retail unit, it can be serviced by either Lenovo or the reseller. Lenovo offers coverage for one year, with phone customer support and full coverage on labor, parts, and system repair for all manufacturer defects or common issues. An extended warranty for up to three years, and up to three years of accidental damage protection, are also available.

The IdeaPad Flex 5i preinstalls 30-day trial versions of McAfee antivirus software and Microsoft Office 365. Likewise, the Flex 5i comes with Lenovo Vantage, basically an interface to let you tune your system’s performance, update drivers, personalize audio and display settings, and request remote support.

Of the comparison convertibles we match against the Flex 5i, three have the Intel Core i7-1255U and one the Intel Core i7-1255P, which outperform the Core i5-1235U on the Flex 5i. The fifth system has an 11th Generation Intel Core i5-1135G7, with only 8GB of RAM. Interestingly, a Flex 5i available from Walmart with the Core i7-1255U likewise comes with only 8GB RAM.

The 12th Generation Core i5-1235U (U for ultraportable) Intel Core i5 CPU is energy efficient, at some cost to performance, compared to Intel P-series CPUs (not to mention even higher-end Core H chips). Like many of the 12th Generation Alder Lake CPUs, the 1235U is a hybrid architecture combining Performance-cores (P-cores) and Efficient-cores (E-cores).

The two P-cores in the 1235U are capable of multi-threading and can run at a maximum turbo power of 4.4GHz. The eight E-cores are capable of a maximum 3.3GHz. The CPU’s base power is 15 watts, while the maximum turbo power is 55 watts. The Flex 5i also supports Rapid Charge Boost, regaining two hours of use from the 52.5Wh battery on just a 15-minute charge.

Given the i7 competition, our test model offered decent performance for a convertible and relative efficiency to its price—its battery drove more than 10 hours of life.

The only i5 competitor here is the Asus VivoBook S14 (S433), with its 11th Generation Intel Core i5-1135G7 and 8GB of RAM—all the others have 16GB. These laptops all have Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, so you won’t be using any as a dedicated gaming laptop.

The other convertibles, except the midrange Acer Spin 5, include the i7-1255U. The Acer Spin 5, which costs $1,379 as tested, has the i7-1255P processor, plus a 1TB SSD. The P-series CPU is the most advanced of the convertibles we tested, and as you’d expect, it pretty much led the field in benchmarks.

However, both the IdeaPad Flex 5i and the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 outperformed it on the PCMark 10 Storage test, and the Inspiron 14 ran through the Handbrake video conversion 1 minute and 21 seconds faster. The Asus VivoBook S14 (S433), meanwhile, was both the least expensive ($499 at Amazon) and least powerful on benchmarks—although it did manage to edge out the IdeaPad Flex 5i on both 3DMark graphics tests.

Our final comparison system is the Lenovo Yoga 7i 14 (Gen 7), which earned an Editors' Choice award when we reviewed it in August 2022. It costs $200 more than the IdeaPad Flex 5i, and for that you get an Intel i7-1255U.

The Yoga 7i generally came in second on our benchmarks, but by no means blew the Flex 5i out of the water. If you lean toward the Flex but prefer an Intel i7, Lenovo will sell you one in the same configuration, but with only 8GB of RAM. Good news: It costs only $699, direct from Lenovo.

The main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage. 

Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). 

Our final productivity test is Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

All comparison systems, except the Asus VivoBook S 14 (S433), scored above 5,000 on the PCMark 10 Full Productivity Test Suite, indicating a laptop fully capable of performing standard office tasks. In fact, 4,000 is the cutoff for that, so all of these units can hold their own with productivity tasks.

As noted, the IdeaPad Flex 5i and the Inspiron 14 were best on the PCMark 10 storage test. The Yoga 7i did not complete the test, and the VivoBook S14 came in last. While the Inspiron 14 far exceeded the others on HandBrake, not surprisingly, the Acer Spin 5 pulled the highest scores on Cinebench, Geekbench, and Adobe/PudgetBench.

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics), and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). 

We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.

In most cases, the graphics results were in line with the hardware specs of each convertible—except for the IdeaPad Flex 5i, which came in last on all but one of the tests it completed. The Flex 5i came in ahead of the Asus VivoBook on 3DMark’s Time Spy, the more demanding 3DMark test, but was last on Night Raid, which is supposed to be easier on laptops with integrated graphics.

The Flex 5i did not complete the 1440p Aztec Ruins test and was last on the 1080p Car Chase test. The Acer Spin 5 came in first on all graphics tests—since, to some degree, you get what you pay for. The Spin 5 costs $230 more than the Inspiron 14 and $430 more than the Yoga 7i.

That leaves the Flex 5i in an interesting position versus the Yoga 7i, which costs $200 more. Since you can get the Flex 5i with an i7 CPU for $699 (with only 8GB of RAM), it would be a bargain if it could hold its own with 8GB less memory.

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. 

We perform the display tests using a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and 100% brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The Lenovo Flex 5i was disappointing on the battery rundown test, coming in last with 10 hours and 36 minutes. Not that 10-plus hours is terrible, but the longer the better. All the others lasted for between 12 and 13 hours, with the Yoga 7i coming in just one minute shy of 14 hours.

You could make the case that Lenovo might have done better with a larger battery than the 52.5Wh one it used, even at a modest weight gain. The slightly more power-hungry processor in the Acer Spin 5 didn’t prevent the system from scoring right in the middle on battery life, at 12 hours and 38 minutes.

The Yoga 7i and Acer Spin 5 were best on the display tests, scoring 100% of the gamut on the sRGB test. The Flex 5i, Asus VivoBook and Inspiron 14 came in at 69%, 65%, and 64% respectively on the same test. Those three scores in the 60s are a giveaway that these displays are budget products. On the DCI-P3 gamut, likewise, the Acer Spin 5 (85%) and Yoga 7i (80%) showed decent quality with their scores. The other three were in the high 40s or low 50s on the same test, with the Flex 5i coming in third with 52%.

Results for the 100% brightness test was a bit of an anomaly, since the Flex 5i came in second with 400.8 nits, an impressive score. The Acer Spin 5 was best, with 552.8 nits. The Yoga 7i brought in a respectable 324 nits.

The anomaly is that Lenovo rates the Flex 5i at 300 nits. So, what gives? It could be that the Lenovo displays on this model are actually brighter than promised, but can you count on that? Actually no, because budget displays tend to vary in performance. If you like the Flex 5i and prefer a bright screen, you could order one and test the brightness yourself. The unit is returnable. Otherwise, consider the Yoga 7i, which might be less bright, but has better gamut coverage for more pleasing, saturated colors.

Interestingly, both the Flex 5i and the Yoga 7i showed great variance between 100% and 50% brightness, with the Flex 5i shifting from 400.8 nits at 100% all the way down to 47.6 nits at 50%. The Yoga 7i had 324 nits at 100% and 39 nits at 50%. The Acer Spin 5 had a more expected variance, 552.8 nits at 100% brightness to 223.3 nits at 50%.

Overall, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14-inch is well-built, easily handled with a comfortable keyboard and a bright screen, and relatively capable for its price. You certainly wouldn’t use it as a PC gamer—but for general office work, it offers enough performance. The screen is a bit of a wild card, since we tested 400 nits, while Lenovo only promises 300, and the color coverage could use a boost. Still, if you’re a general student or at-home worker (who isn’t these days?), this could be a smart pick. If you want a better display for a couple hundred dollars more, check out the Lenovo Yoga 7i. If you yearn for faster performance as well as a better screen, consider the Acer Spin 5. But, for someone who just wants a modestly priced, versatile, and easily moved convertible for office tasks, internet browsing and webcam sessions, look to the Flex 5i retail version.

The panel and battery could use some tweaks, but Lenovo’s IdeaPad Flex 5i 14-inch is a solid-value budget convertible laptop with a nice keyboard and decent performance for the money.

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I've been a computer-tech writer and editor for several decades, and a photographer who writes about photo techniques and equipment for over a decade. My first job in the tech press was as a writer for Compute! magazine, where we used Commodore 64s from Circuit City as word processors. I next became the editor of Computer Dealer, offering advice to computer retailers, then moved on to Personal Computing as an executive editor, where I developed the magazine's benchmark suite. I held several positions at the massive Computer Shopper magazine before becoming editor in chief. While at Computer Shopper (owned by CNET Networks at the time), I edited bi-annual issues of Technology Review as a joint project with Fortune magazine.

My first computer was an Atari 400 with a membrane keyboard, which I upgraded with an actual keyboard and soldered in enough RAM to get it to a usable 48K. It's somewhere in the garage and still works, along with two Atari 800s, a Coleco, a couple of Commodore 64s, and many Windows desktop PCs, plus two early Lenovo ThinkPads (I believe in redundancy) and several lethargic laptops. I'm also fond of my Lenovo Duet, a tablet/laptop hybrid with a nice (but diminutive) keyboard. Somewhere in the black-hole garage are the half-dozen cell phones I've owned, plus tablets and a couple of Amazon Kindles. They all, last I checked, still work, too.

On the photography front, I've owned a host of 35mm cameras, both film and digital, as well as a Mamiya 645 medium format, a Toyo 4x5, and a Graflex 6x7cm. The last I modified to provide full swings and tilts (allowing you to avoid converging parallel lines, as when you photograph a tall building from ground level). I'm proud of this project, which I wrote about in View Camera magazine.

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