Dave Johnson/Forbes
Lenovo's new Flex 5G is something of a contradiction. On one hand, it features what can only be considered bleeding edge technology—a 5G radio that lets you get your internet from a cellular network so new it's literally still being built.
On the other hand, the rest of the laptop is a fairly average 2-in-1 convertible, which is a laptop that lets you flip the screen all the way around to the back and use like a tablet. If only Lenovo had recognized the uniqueness of its laptop and gone all-in for the bleeding edge.
The Lenovo Flex 5G In a Nutshell
Pros:
- 5G connectivity
- Two-day battery life
- Highly portable design
Cons:
- Compatibility issues
- Limited 5G networks
- Mundane design and performance
Rating: 3 out of 5
Lenovo Flex 5G Technical Specifications
Price: $1,400 | CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx | OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 | Display: 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixels, touchscreen, 400 nits | Memory: 8GB LPDDR4X | Storage: 256 GB UFS 3.0 | Battery life: Up to 24 hours | Weight: 2.9 pounds
Dave Johnson/Forbes
The Flex is 5G-Ready
One can't help but start with what makes the Flex 5G remarkable: It includes a Qualcomm X55 modem that lets the laptop connect to both Verizon's LTE and 5G networks when there’s no Wi-Fi available. This is the first laptop to include 5G connectivity, and that’s pretty remarkable; if you're in a coverage area, you have a theoretical max download speed of about 10Gbps.
The devil's in the details, however; 5G connectivity is still pretty limited. Here in the greater LA area, I'd need to drive a half hour to find some of Verizon’s high-speed ultra-wideband 5G coverage. But the laptop works just great with 4G LTE too, though, and on a recent trip where I regularly switched between Wi-Fi and cellular at various destinations, it never skipped a beat.
My actual internet performance? Usually about 30 Mbps, which is underwhelming if you're expecting 5G speeds, but on par with what my iPhone pulls down in LTE mode. It's not the laptop's fault; it's simply a year or so too soon for 5G in most locales. But if you do happen to live in or travel to 5G coverage areas, your cellular speeds may blow you away.
Lenovo Flex 5G Design
The modem might be the star attraction, but the Flex 5G is otherwise a fairly typical 2-in-1 convertible. Some people might find the understated aluminum and magnesium chassis to be a bit bland, but I really liked the restrained aesthetics; it has simple lines and such a clean, smooth, utterly featureless body that it almost looks like an early prototype. There's barely any branding, save for a small Lenovo logo—almost resembling a tag on a pair of blue jeans—on the right side of both the lid and deck. There's a third logo on the front lip of the lid, but it's so subtle it's almost an Easter egg. The laptop is pretty small at 12.7 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches and weighs in at about 2.9 pounds — for comparison, think MacBook Air.
Dave Johnson/Forbes
The backlit keyboard is comfortable and the deck feels solid, with essentially no flex (and I tend to bang on the keys pretty hard). The touchpad is large and centered, and it easily recognized every swipe, click, and gesture.
Open the screen past 180 degrees and Windows thoughtfully asks if you want to switch to tablet mode. The Flex works both tented (handy for presentations or watching movies) and as a full-on tablet, and the display was responsive and accurate when I controlled it with my fingers.
Despite having a relatively narrow bezel all around, Lenovo manages to pack a Windows Hello-compatible 720p camera into the top. The camera lives in a very subtle notch that interrupts the slope of the lid, but doesn’t actually change its shape. If you didn't know this was where the camera was hidden, you'd think it was a design element for the aforementioned Lenovo logo.
Dave Johnson/Forbes
The upshot of all this is that you get a face recognition camera for logging into Windows, or if you prefer, you can use the fingerprint reader on the right side of the deck. As a webcam, the camera is perfectly adequate, but you'd be forgiven for adding an external webcam if you spend a lot of time in Zoom calls.
One of the design decisions that helps the Flex look clean and polished is the lack of ports cluttering up the sides. The industry trend these days is toward laptops with fewer ports, and the Flex 5G has just two: A pair of USB-C ports, one of which doubles as the charging port. That's all you'll find on the left; the right has a power button, headphone jack and a slider to activate Airplane Mode, which disables both Wi-Fi and the cellular radio.
Dave Johnson/Forbes
Lenovo Flex 5G Performance and Compatibility
As I mentioned at the outset, all this is about average for a 2-in-1. Unfortunately, the system has one Achilles’ Heel—its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx, an ARM-based chipset packing a CPU, GPU and data radios. Using an ARM processor rather than an Intel Core processor has benefits, but software compatibility isn't one of them. This is a situation in which your mileage will definitely vary. Some users will never encounter a problem installing and using software, ever. But most users, no doubt, will hit the occasional, frustrating snag.
On my second day with the laptop, for example, I tried setting up Dropbox and discovered that the standard app isn't compatible. Instead, Dropbox recommended installing Dropbox for S, which is a feature-limited version of the app designed for tablets running in Windows 10 S Mode.
How serious is this problem? Well, Snapdragon is designed to run ARM-optimized apps (of which there are many), as well as 32-bit apps x86 through an ARM emulator (which can affect performance, though generally not by much). But ARM can't run 64-bit x86 apps at all, which is what prevented me from installing Dropbox. Likewise, I could only get the 32-bit version of Photoshop, and this isn't much of a gaming system; between 64-bit-only games and somewhat slower emulation mode for everything else, gamers will want to invest in a laptop running an Intel Core or AMD Ryzen processor.
Compatibility issues aside, performance was adequate for the day-to-day tasks I needed to accomplish in Outlook, Word, Excel, and so on. Things began to crawl when I opened a large number of tabs in Chrome. Overall, it was fine, but I couldn’t help but think about the fact that a much cheaper 2-in-1, like the Intel Core-equipped HP Pavilion, runs circles around the Flex 5G.
Dave Johnson/Forbes
The 14-inch display has a full HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) and is quite bright for a laptops—it runs about 400 nits—but it was easily overwhelmed by sunlight. Don't plan to use the Flex outdoors much.
Lenovo Flex 5G Battery Life
Remember when I mentioned that using an ARM processor has its benefits? Atop that list is battery life. In my informal testing, the Flex ran for an impressive 19 hours, which is the longest battery life of any laptop I’ve ever used.
That’s not just an all-day battery—that’s a two-day battery. On a cross-country trip, I charged the Flex the night before and used it all day long, including leaning heavily on the cellular connection for internet service at the airports. I continued using it that evening and well into the next day before I even thought about charging it. When I eventually plugged the AC adapter into the USB-C port, it still had almost half the battery life remaining. You won’t often encounter that sort of freedom from tyrannical AC adapters.
Final Word on the Lenovo Flex 5G
Before long, there will be a handful of 5G-equipped laptops to choose from, but for the moment, Lenovo's Flex 5G stands alone. Combine that with an incredible two-day battery life, and this should, in principle, be a formidable portable.
But the rest of the package is just so-so, especially considering the heart-stopping $1,400 price tag. The Snapdragon processor's okay performance and compatibility issues might give you pause, and the overall design is competent, not superlative. If the small form factor, tight aluminum construction, long battery life and first-out-of-the-gate 5G appeals to you, it can be yours for $1,400. But given the price and processor issues, I'd be inclined to wait a while and see what the competition has to offer.
The Link LonkDecember 03, 2020 at 04:17AM
https://ift.tt/3qol5FG
Lenovo Flex 5G Review: A Swiss Army Laptop Ready For The Future - Forbes
https://ift.tt/2ZUAnWs
Lenovo
No comments:
Post a Comment