Lenovo – 2022 – IdeaPad Flex 5i – 2-in-1 Chromebook Laptop Computer – Intel Core i3-1115G4 – 13.3′ FHD Touch Display – 8GB Memory – 128GB Storage – Chrome OS

Man, i really like this chromebook. I’ve had this model for a couple years, gave one as a gift and the recipient loves it. It looks like lenovo might be moving on from this model, that’s too bad. It’s a great buy if you get it on sale. A decent one at full price, especially if you get 8gb/128gb. Remember it’s just a chromebook, so there are a few limitations. Think of it as a bigger phone or tablet that’s easier to type on. I also enjoy the transition on andriod from chromebook to phone.

This lenova is just as stated on reviews

This computer has changed my life, i was trying to write on my phone using the swipe keyboard and it was obnoxious. Now i can much more easily express my thoughts and ideas, without all the typos, sore fingers and frustration.

So far a great computer for my daughter (5th grade) she loves it!

I have seen some very nice premium chromebooks. They always felt like they were too expensive for what you got. This chromebook surprised me. It is not just well made–it actually offers powerful features all around, and it costs much less than the so-called ‘premium’ chromebooks.

The chromebook is a little on the heavier side of what you might expect. The weighty feel is in no way excessive or bulky. The form factor of this chromebook is compact, and it has a solid build, but if you are familiar with what chromebooks normally weigh, you may be thrown off a bit. To me, it feels like this chromebook was made from the components of a standard windows laptop, but with chrome os in mind as the operating system.

When you open the laptop, you will see the 13.3′ glass touchscreen. The top bezel of the display has a camera built-in that also has a privacy cover. The keyboard has chiclet-style keys that are backlit. On either side of the keyboard, you get the speaker grills. The chromebook features wave maxxaudio support for better sound than you normally get on a laptop. Underneath the keyboard is the touchpad. It is the ideal size for the form factor. It is not too big or little. It does not have buttons; it is click style, as in you click the touchpad itself rather than use separate buttons.

There are two usb-c ports, and one usb-a port. In addition to that, you get a 3.5mm combo mic/headphone port. You also get a micro sd port for expanding storage. The chromebook comes with 128gb of emmc storage, which is a lot for a chromebook. You will also get 8gb of ram. The chromebook has an intel core i3 processor which offers snappy performance.

Then there is chrome os. It is the lightweight android and chrome based operating system. It is very easy to use and supports both the chrome web store and the google play store. It has been optimized for the touchscreen so that is easy to use in both tablet form and laptop form. Yes, this is a 2-in-1 form factor, so you can flip the screen around and use it as a tablet in addition to using it as a laptop. Chrome os offers note-taking apps that work great with the screen to extend the functionality that this chromebook offers. You get several trial offers with this chromebook, like google one, squid, youtube premium, and more.

I have used much more expensive chromebooks that felt somewhat disappointing. If you are going to pay upwards of $700 for a chromebook it should not feel cheap. This one is in the mid-range price for portables, but it feels like it should be more. It has great construction without sacrificing the lightweight feel. You get much better audio, more ports, better specs, and better performance for the price. I have seen some chromebooks in the higher price range that have qualcomm chipsets. Yes, qualcomm, like a mobile phone. Here you are getting an intel i3 processor with uhd graphics.

This chromebook is worth the extra cost, especially if you need to use a chromebook for school or work. If you are going to be using a chromebook, you will want to use one that has the best performance possible. I would highly recommend this, as you get the most features for the least price.

The funny thing is that you can’t call this a laptop without referring to it as a tablet at times, so ideapad is a very fitting term for it.

The lenovo ideapad flex comes with a much faster processor than you will find in your typical chromebook and this was evident to me almost immediately. Eight gb of memory and a 128 gb ssd further enhance the fluid performance experience.

I use the ideapad mostly as a laptop by day, in which i take full advantage of my google office apps. Quick response and fluid graphics transform my ideapad at night into a video streaming platform. The screen is perfect for tabletop, on the go or to take along while travelling as it is not very heavy and small enough to easily fit into my backpack. I love the satisfaction that comes along with a touch screen and this one is quite responsive.

Battery performance is decent. I can go a day without needing to recharge the battery, so i can go out without the need to carry the power supply if i want to stay light.

Overall impressions, i like the size and the speed in which the ideapad reacts to my actions. Streaming is quite acceptable and the display looks great in fhd! The lenovo ideapad is in the middle between a chromebook and surface. It has power and handles the applications well, while also maintaining a full tablet experience!

+ small. The bezel adds some size but is manageable, laptop is overall very portable
+ quiet and backlit chiclet keyboard that is easy to type on, and contains all the frequent hotkeys. Keyboard automatically disables in tablet mode.
+ very smooth streaming youtube video at 4k60, downscaled to the 1080p screen
glossy screen helps with vivid video in darker environments but is not very nice in bright light, even with the screen at maximum brightness. The laptop’s body is in matte though.
– no battery limiter included. If you have frequent opportunities to charge and don’t need the full 10 hours of battery life, the chromebook lacks a battery limiter to limit charge to 80% and extend longevity. This is unfortunate as some of lenovo’s windows laptops do include a battery management utility.
– if the laptop is shut down or sleeping, sometimes the power button has to be held down for 20s for the laptop to start
touchscreen works fine. The difference in power draw between minimum and maximum brightness is about 5w.
37w max power draw through the charger when the battery is charging and the laptop is running a demanding task. After the battery is fully charged and if just browsing websites, the power draw is between about 12w.
+ can be charged by power banks through usb-c
+ fanless and quiet
+ includes a micro sd card slot, which some laptop manufacturers are starting to omit
+ the usb c and a ports provide full bandwidth for high speed peripherals, i was able to max out the speed of an external hard drive, copying from it to the chromebook’s internal storage
i wanted to use this chromebook to copy hundreds of gb of files from my camera to my portable hard disk while on the road. For this purpose it is possible but difficult.
Getting the folder size is a multi step process of clicking the file icon to select one or more folders and then pressing space for get info. Unfortunately get info does not summarize the total file size of all folders selected, instead i have to use the arrow keys to scroll between the summary of each selected folder and mentally add them up.
Once a copy is initiated, the chomebook does not show copy speed or remaining gb, only copy eta.

This was my first experience with a chromebook & i am pleasantly surprised.

Set up was simplicity itself. I did not use the voice assistant thing at setup. …really, it’s not much more than a few choices & then just sign in to your google account & bam, your ready to go. …unless you don’t have a google account, if not, you’ll need to make one, but, you needed one anyway right? 🙂 …afterwards you just sign into the chromebook with your google account.

This particular model has a really fast newer intel core i3 processor, 8gb ddr4 ram, and 13.3′ touch screen & smooth, sleek backlit keyboard & nice long battery life.

I like having a touchscreen and or a keyboard & mouse when that is better suited to the job at hand.

The folding deal to set up as an ‘a frame’ type of display is neat. Never need a stand!

This would be ideal i think for a college student who is going to be mostly online for things anyway.
Worked a treat for youtube & youtube tv & streaming video platforms & of course browsing & shopping etc. Etc.

I did plug in a dongle & 2.4ghz wireless mouse to try & it worked instantly with no issues.

Memory can be expanded with a usb drive or sd cards etc. Very easily.

This is very intuitive to run & would also be great for someone who’s not as skilled or comfortable with with windows or linux. It’s very compact & versatile.

Since i’ve used chromebooks for several years the speed of turning on, getting to work is much faster so you’re focused upon actual work and less distractions. This ideapad flex 5i has an intel i3 1115g4 which is fast so multitasking in chromeos is very smooth, the 8gb of memory will allow you plenty of room for running android and optional linux application support. 13.3′ screen makes this chromebook a perfect travel sized device. Keyboard on this chromebook is really comfortable, my typing accuracy & speed seemed to have improved from the feedback of the keys. The large trackpad is very nice, felt it was the most responsive trackpad i’ve used on a chromebook.

Touchscreen is the most important feature, the screen is really great for creative usage from drawing/sketching and using applications that take full advantage of a touchscreen. The screen is ips with a 250 nit brightness, for indoor usage its plenty bright enough but for outdoors your mileage is going to vary. Considering my previous chromebook had a tn screen, the ips screen provides a crisper display of color and detail.

Speakers are very good for the placement on the sides of the keyboard. Sound wise i felt for music it has a decent amount of lows, mids and highs range so if you enjoy some of the many music channels on youtube the speakers are very nice. As for playing music at max volume the speakers sounded very good, better than the typical laptop.

Battery life i found to be very long lasting for work usage, i got 8.5 hrs at 25% screen brightness and still had 10% battery remaining. If you’re a student or travel for work quite a bit, longer battery life of chromebooks are always a decision factor.

This is a chromebook i can recommend, running android apps/games were as fast as a phone, long battery life met my expectations, touchscreen provides many uses for work and the light weight is perfect when used in tablet mode. Overall this is a well rounded chromebook which can be perfect for work and home entertainment use of streaming services.

Product version reviewed

lenovo – ideapad flex 5i – chromebook – intel core i3-1115g4 – 13.3′ fhd touchscreen – 8gb lpddr4x ram – 128gb storage – intel uhd graphics – chrome os – abyss blue

quick review [tl;dr]

well made chromebook from lenovo – light but fast

overview:

i have 3 chromebooks (1-2 years old) and the lenovo – ideapad flex 5i is the lightest and fastest of them all. The keys have a good solid feel to them, but probably you would want an external keyboard for extended typing. There is a good amount of ram (8gb) and nice fast i3 processor (though 11th gen).
The ips touch screen is bright enough for individual use with good view angles. I prefer to use the lenovo – ideapad flex 5i flipped for touch screen use, while “couch surfing”.

The screen is not as glossy as my other chromebooks. It is slightly rough feeling vs glassy smooth. Not bad, just different.

At 13 inches, it is a little too small for a “desktop” or “laptop” replacement, but you can easily connect it to an external monitor / keyboard if you are so inclined.

The sound and video performance are good (perfectly fine), but you probably will want to pair it with some higher end headphones or earbuds.

Recommendation:

overall, i like the lenovo – ideapad flex 5i, it works well, feels good overall, and is plenty fast and portable. It makes a good chromebook.

This is my second chromebook (still like my 5 year-old 11.6 inch asus c202sa 4gb/16gb which is still going strong, but it has reached the end of its automatic os updates). This one is much faster, has a lot more memory 8gb and storage 128gb, but is also quite a lot heavier (and cost twice as much). I like the tablet mode, too, although i don’t have much need for android apps and haven’t installed linux. Nice screen (though 250 nits is a little low), terrific backlit keyboard. But the battery does not last me more than 5 hours, which is a shame, considering i am only using it for browsing and google docs. Turned off bluetooth, which helped a bit. I’m envious of those getting 10-hour battery life. But i’ll have to keep the unit because i’m in india and there is no easy way to return it to amazon in the us though i have had it for only one week.

The best bang for your buck. 8gb ram: 128gb of expandable storage. You could do a lot with these specs. I love the color and size. This is my first chrome book and i’m getting to know it’s operations quickly. The only two issue i see so far is that i have no access to netflix when i go to the play store. Tubi tv is there. The other issue is that sometimes it takes some time to wake up from sleep mode but it’s not a big issue, tapping on the power button on the right side helps. Oh! The auto updates are good until june of 2029! That’s 7 years from now. I love this cute little thing. I won’t be using my lenovo pc as much now. Get it before it’s gone.

My daughter needed laptop for college this says its a laptop and tablet in one…not exactly true it is more like a tablet/chromebook in one but it works for what she needed it for…just no game playing since it wont download the game she wanted…seems like a nice device so far