Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 Chromebook
Lenovo’s really flexing its budget Chromebooks right now.
Chromebooks are a great alternative to Windows 10 S for anyone looking to get all the functionality of a modern laptop without having to fork out thousands for a premium Ultrabook, and Lenovo seems to be dominating the space locally.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex i5 Chromebook is a 13.3-inch convertible laptop that uses Google Chrome OS based on Android 9. While not every app is perfectly optimised for the system – we much prefer to use the browser based Google Docs than the Chrome OS app, for example – it does at least have broad compatibility with anything you can get on the Google Play Store or as a Chrome browser extension.
The OS is built around the GSuite office apps which are a great free alternative to the pricey and less cloud focused Microsoft Office applications. And while the device only offers 128GB of onboard storage, the OS ties in nicely with Google One which costs just $2.49 per month for 100GB of cloud storage. You get a year of cloud storage for free with any Chromebook purchase that can be shared with your smartphone and accessed via any computer with an internet account.
The IdeaPad Flex i5 shares the same Intel Core i5-10210U CPU found on many 2020 Ultrabooks, which gives it more than enough power to run all the browser tabs you want. It’s also got a solid 8GB RAM allocation and a reasonably speedy (863MB/s read) 128GB PCIe SSD. This spec sheet puts it on par with many Ultrabooks and it’s almost identical to the Asus Chromebook Flip C436F which retails for $1,799.
Lenovo was somehow able to get the price point down to $999 (or $897 at some retailers), which puts it in direct competition with Microsoft’s Surface Go 2. When you consider the IdeaPad Flex i5 Chromebook’s got a larger screen and more than double the CPU processing power of a similarly priced Surface Go 2, it makes a pretty compelling argument for why you’d switch to Chrome OS.
It doesn’t even have to sacrifice too much on battery life since it can manage seven hours and eight minutes in 1080p battery life tests, which is just 52 minutes less than the Surface Go 2.
The device uses an integrated Intel UHD Graphics which was designed for running games on full-fat Windows 10, so there’s plenty of overhead when running the wide range of Android games available to it.
The backlit keyboard is nicely spaced and is comfortable to type on for long periods and the trackpad is also suitably smooth and easy to use. Google has done a good job of translating many of the trackpad gestures you’ll get on Windows and Mac to the Chromebooks so you won’t feel like you’re missing out on any productivity perks.
It’s also got a nice selection of interface options including two USB C, one USB Type-A, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD card reader, which you can use for budget friendly storage expansion down the track, if you need it.
A great cheap Windows alternative for anyone open to diving headfirst into Google’s ecosystem.