Lenovo Flex 5 Laptop Ryzen 5 4500U Processor 81X20005US
Pros
- Very low price for what it features
- 16GB of RAM which is double than what most laptops offer and replaceable SSD
- Comes with a USB-C Power Deliver charger and a pen
Cons
- Screen is dim even at its highest setting
- RAM is soldered on and not replaceable
One of the most important factors when it comes to doing school, or job work, and in my case, working on this website, you’re going to need a computer. Well, I’ve purchased a new laptop because it was time to move on from my rather dated Dell Inspiron 15R-5521, and I upgraded to the new Lenovo Flex 5 14” Ryen 5 4500U 81X20005US laptop.
My budget for getting a new laptop was $1,000, and I was looking at more expensive Dell XPS 13 and XPS 15 laptops as they were lightweight and had great screens. However, I realized that I don’t need all that, I need a faster laptop, definitely, but paying for a premium product was more of a want rather than a need. Then I stumbled upon this Flex 5 14″ laptop which had some great specs, and of course, it does have a few flaws and I’d like to go over those aspects in this review of the laptop.
What’s in the Box
When purchasing the Flex 5 you get the Lenovo Flex 5 laptop, of course, and you also get a USB-C Power Delivery charging brick and a drawing pen with a USB holder. There is also a Set-up guide and directions on how to register the laptop with Lenovo.
Design, Size Build
Alright, so this is a pretty small laptop when it comes to its general size. It has a length of 12.6 inches, a width of 8.5 inches and a thickness of 0.8 inches. The weight of the Flex 5 is 3.6 pounds. Alright, so two things are quite different from this Lenovo laptop in comparison to more expensive laptops and that would be the thickness and the weight.
It’s not exactly a slim laptop and it’s quite close to being an inch thick when closed, but when you open it up you’ll forget about the thickness altogether. I sure did. The weight of 3.6 pounds could be a deal-breaker to some, which is understandable, but for me, coming from a laptop that weighed 5.5 pounds, this Lenovo laptop is super lightweight to me. I place it on my lap for long periods (1-2 hours) and don’t get tired nearly as quickly.
Will it feel as lightweight and portable as a Dell XPS 13 that is a slimmer and weighs 2.6 pounds? No, but it’s just enough that you’ll be able to be portable with this laptop to take it anywhere without feeling like it’s a burden. At least, this is my experience. I can just close it, move from my Home Office to the living room, or place the laptop in the car and take it with me wherever I’m going.
The Flex 5 14” laptop, as far as I know, comes in this dark Silver color and it looks okay. There is no sheen and the entire casing has a matte finish. I’m gonna call it a minimal, no-nonsense look and it’s something I appreciate. There is a Lenovo logo off to the side when the laptop is closed.
Build
Speaking of the look of the Flex laptop, the build quality is pretty good, but this may be another place where short-cuts had to be taken to reach the price point of this laptop. The entirety of this Lenovo laptop is plastic and in a world where the flagships are made of Aluminum, slimmer, and weigh less, this laptop may come off as out of date.
Screen
While we’re on the topic of build quality, I should talk about the screen, keyboard, and trackpad. The Touch screen is is a 14” inch FHD IPS display that has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and has a max brightness of 250 nits. The size of the screen isn’t a problem and the resolution is great for the size. However, I highly recommend changing the Scale and Layout to 125% in the Display Settings as everything appears too large at the 150% default setting.
Alright, so the main flaw with this screen is the brightness. 250 nits is not that bright and I was warned by other users from Reddit.com that the screen would be mediocre and they’re correct. At its highest setting, or a little lower, the screen is great to use indoors, but if you’re trying to use this laptop outside then you may have a problem even at the highest brightness setting. In addition to the low brightness, it’s a glossy screen and not a matte one, so you may get reflections galore in certain environments.
Again, for me, someone that stays indoors 90% of the time when using this laptop, the screen is not that bad.
Keyboard and Trackpad
The keyboard of the Lenovo Flex 14 is pretty good. There is a good amount of spacing with them, but the travel is not too long and I found that I was able to type as fast as a usually do. There is a bit of a “click” to the keys which is satisfying to have as it gives certain feedback while you’re typing. The keys themselves are also quite large, too.
To top it all off, the keyboard is backlit so you’re able to turn on the backlight by holding down the Function (Fn) key and pressing the space bar. The backlight for the keyboard has two levels of brightness, and the low setting is a bit too low and the higher setting is just right, but just like the screen, the backlight is going to be dimmer than the competition.
I will say that one of the main flaws with the keyboard is the up and down arrow keys because they’re not full-sized and are quite small.
The trackpad is a good size, but once again it’s a plastic trackpad that that may feel cheap to some. The most notable thing is the click sound when you either click right or left on the trackpad as it’s pretty loud, while there are higher-end laptops that barely make any noise at all. It’s a responsive trackpad though and it gets the job done daily.
Power
Alright, coming from my old Dell laptop, this was a serious upgrade in terms of performance, and at the surface what you’re getting with this Lenovo Flex 5 with a Ryzen 5 4500U processor, 16GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM (soldered) and a 256GB SK Hynix NVMe SSD (upgradeable). The RAM on this laptop is not upgradeable as it’s soldered on, however, the SSD on the Flex 5 is upgradeable, and many people such as myself will likely do so because 256GB is not a lot of memory at all.
However, the most notable thing is the 16GB of RAM. Yes, it’s not upgradeable, and most laptops don’t have upgradeable RAM in the first place. 16GB of RAM is double the 8GB that most laptops tend to have, so if you’re someone that has quite a few programs running at the same time, then this amount of RAM is perfect. This is because once you’re using all the RAM that your computer has to use, things slow down considerably, and one of the most important factors in my case is that things are running smoothly throughout the day and I’m not experiencing any slowdowns.
Can you have Photoshop running and a Google Chrome window open with a bunch of tabs open at the same time? Yes, you can. At the same time, there is the whole equivalent exchange factor that I want to remind you of and that would be the screen quality as it’s not that bright and the color accuracy is pretty bad. But, you have to ask yourself if you care about that stuff enough.
Also, another notable thing is the Ryzen 5 4500U processor with six cores and six threads. At its base clock speed the Ryzen processor runs at 2.3GHz and a max boost speed it runs 4.0GHz.
This Flex 5 81X20005US laptop does not have a dedicated graphics card though, but it does have integrated graphics and uses AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 Integrated graphics that can run at 1.500 MH.
These processors are powerful and rivaling Intel processors lately, and you may have heard about the Acer Swift 3 with a Ryzen 7 4700U which is an 8 core processor. Both great laptops but you’re looking at a 15% increase in performance at the most, and you can take a look at certain youtube videos for comparison. Swift 3 does have its other positives such as being slimmer and it weights lighter. It also has 512GB of RAM. At the same time, it only has 8GB of RAM (soldered) which is half of Flex 5.
I did run a CINEBENCH benchmark and Flex 5 was able to score a 2299 point and from the image above you can see how it competes with other processors.
Ports
Port selection is pretty good. On one side of the Flex 5 laptop is where you’ll find a DC charging port, an HDMI port, a USB-C Power Delivery port that can be used for connectivity, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
On the other side of the laptop is where you’ll find two USB 3.0 ports and an SD card reader.
Battery
The Flex 5 has a pretty good battery as the 52.5Wh battery was able to last me about 6-7 hours. Some reviews might give more hours of use from this Flex 5 laptop, however, in my case I always use the laptop at max brightness and that burns into more battery power. Why do I always place the screen at max brightness? As I mentioned before and as many other reviews may mention, the screen is that not that bright, and having it at full brightness is really what it takes to make it look good.
| Lenovo Flex 5 2-in-1 Laptop Ryzen 5 4500U Processor 81X20005US Specs | |
|---|---|
| Brand | Lenovo |
| Series | Flex 5 14" |
| Model Number | 81X20005US |
| Battery Life | 6-7 hours |
| Keyboard | Backlight |
| Storage | 256 GB (NVMe) SSD (Replaceable) |
| Display | 14-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS touchscreen 250 Nits |
| Memory | 16 GB DDR4 SDRAM (Soldered) |
| Processor Count | 6 |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 5 4500U |
| Laptop Dimensions | 12.66 x 8.56 x 0.82 inches |
| Laptop Weight | 3.6 Pounds |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
| Integrated Graphics | AMD Integrated AMD Integrated Radeon RX Vega 6 |
| Wireless | 802.11ac |
| Ports | -DC charging port -USB-C Power Delivery port / Connection -HDMI Port -3.5mm Headphone jack -Two USB 3.0 Ports -SD card reader |
| Finger Print Reader | Yes |
| Bluetooth | Yes |
| Warranty | 1 Year |
Conclusion:
This Lenovo Flex 5 81X20005US Ryzen 4500U processor is one of the best that you can get for the price. That’s what most others are going to feel, and that’s definitely what I believe. Sure, you can get higher-end laptops, but at what cost? I’ll tell you. It’s going to cost a lot more, and you’ll likely be paying for a small spec bump.
The build quality and the screen of this Lenovo Flex 5 are mediocre, but that’s what you get for such a low price that uses a 16GB of RAM and a great AMD Ryzen processor.
- Thin, light, and stylish – This 2-in-1 laptop weighs just 3.64 pounds and is only 0.82" thick. It's soft and comfortable to the touch, with a durable paint that creates a better user experience. Digital pen included
- The 10-point, 14-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS touchscreen allows the Lenovo Flex 5 14" 2-in-1 laptop to be comfortable, fun, and easy to use. It's also great to look at, with 4-side narrow bezels
- The 360⁰ hinge lets you use your 2-in-1 touchscreen laptop in whatever mode works best for you; Use it in 'Laptop' mode for everyday computing, 'Tent' mode for sharing things, 'Stand' mode for binge-watching, or 'Tablet' mode for more intuitive interaction
- Enjoy up to 10 hours of battery life, plus quick charge to 80% in just 1 hour
- Powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 4500U mobile processor with Radeon graphics, you have the performance to do more, from anywhere. With more cores, you'll experience responsiveness that leaps into action for productivity, gaming, and content creation
Since 2016, Usman has flourished as an independent tech journalist, reveling in the evaluation of diverse tech gadgets, with a particular fondness for charging technology to ascertain product performance. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he helms the Charger Harbor YouTube channel, where he extends his tech insights to a broader audience.