Lenovo Flex 5G – Review 2020

Few laptops sold in the U.S. come with cellular connectivity as an option, and nearly all that do connect only to LTE networks, not the new 5G ones. But 2020 has seen the introduction of notebooks that can connect to 5G, like the Lenovo Flex 5G. It’s a 2-in-1 convertible PC that promises gigabit speeds on Verizon’s LTE and 5G networks, and its power-sipping Qualcomm Snapdragon processor helps ensure extraordinary battery life at the expense of occasionally sluggish performance. However, at $1,499, the Flex 5G is expensive for what it offers, relegating it to a niche: people with basic computing needs and deep pockets who travel in cities that have 5G coverage.

A Handsome Hybrid

Like most convertible laptops from Lenovo, the Flex 5G is slick-looking and solidly built. The chassis is made from aluminum and magnesium, and the interior surfaces feature a soft-touch finish that’s pleasing to fingertips. The Iron Gray color scheme is restrained and professional-looking, if not particularly distinctive.

With a 360-degree hinge, the Flex 5G can be used as a conventional laptop or propped up like an easel or a tent on your desk. You can even fold the laptop completely flat, with the keyboard and touch-enabled screen facing away from each other, and use the Flex 5G as a tablet. 

Most people in the market for a cellular modem-equipped laptop plan to travel frequently with it. The Flex 5G’s slim, lightweight chassis ensures it won’t be a burden in your briefcase or handbag. It measures 0.58 by 12.7 by 8.5 inches and weighs 2.97 pounds, which is about average for an ultraportable laptop with a 14-inch screen. It’s slightly smaller and lighter than Lenovo’s flagship consumer 2-in-1, the 14-inch Yoga C940, though it’s not the lightest ultraportable out there. The 13.3-inch HP Elite Dragonfly, for instance, has a slightly narrower chassis and starts at just 2.2 pounds. It will also be available with an optional 5G modem starting later this year.

5G Connectivity, Snapdragon Inside

Inside, the Flex 5G has a Qualcomm X55 modem, which can access nearly every cellular network available in the U.S. and many other countries, from 2G to 5G. The laptop can connect to millimeter-wave 5G signals, which are most common in large cities. It can also connect to other lower-band spectrum, which carriers are currently using to roll out 5G coverage in less densely populated areas of the country. 

A unique advantage of the X55 modem is its ability to support both 4G LTE and 5G signals simultaneously. This means if you’re in an area with weaker 5G coverage, the Flex 5G can combine 4G and 5G together for speeds up to 7Gbps, according to Qualcomm. On 4G LTE networks alone, the maximum speed is 2.5Gbps. The Flex 5G likely won’t deliver speeds anywhere close to this in real life, of course, since multiple factors conspire to affect signal quality and download speeds.

The Flex 5G supports either eSIM or a physical nanoSIM card, and while the X55 modem is technically compatible with all carriers, the laptop is currently exclusive to Verizon’s network. 

The Flex 5G uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor to handle computing and graphics acceleration, instead of the more common Intel Core and AMD Ryzen chips. The Snapdragon 8cx compute platform is an improvement over older Snapdragon laptop parts, consuming 60 percent less power than the previous-generation Snapdragon 850, according to the chip maker. A built-in Adreno 680 GPU takes care of graphics output, while an eight-core Kyro 495 chip handles the rest of the processing tasks. 

With no cooling fan, all of this processing happens silently, a major advantage over nearly every Intel- and AMD-powered laptop, most of which require active cooling fans. 

The Snapdragon 8cx also powers the Samsung Galaxy Book S. A slightly modified version of the chip is also found in the Microsoft Surface Pro X detachable tablet PC. Both the Surface Pro X and the Galaxy Book S offer 4G LTE but not 5G. These are the two most comparable models to the Flex 5G, at least as far as computing components and wireless connectivity are concerned.

The Flex 5G comes with 8GB of memory and a 256GB solid-state drive, which is quite stingy for such an expensive laptop. At this price, we expect at least 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. 

A Protruding Camera Notch

Opening the Flex 5G’s lid with one hand is easy, thanks to a slightly protruding camera notch that is also present on the Yoga C940. The Flex 5G’s notch is etched with the words “Lenovo 5G,” one of two unobtrusive but clearly obvious reminders of its 5G prowess. The other, which features Verizon’s 5G logo, is located below the keyboard and apparent as soon as you open the display lid. 

The Flex 5G’s screen is a 14-inch 1080p panel, with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels and support for in-plane switching (IPS) panel technology to widen viewing angles. Its maximum brightness level of 400 nits is viewable in nearly any indoor lighting condition, although I found it difficult to see outdoors on a partly cloudy day. That’s a key concern to keep in mind for a roving-about laptop.

In the notch above the display, there’s a camera that captures 720p video. The image quality is average for laptop webcams and produces acceptable if slightly noisy images. Thanks to the additional space that the notch affords, the Flex 5G also has IR sensors that can recognize your face and log you into your Windows 10 account without typing a password. There’s also a fingerprint reader that can accomplish the same thing with one of your digits.

The backlit keyboard shares many similarities with the Yoga C940’s. Its keycaps are flat, not scalloped like the ones on most ThinkPad laptops, but they’re still quite comfortable to type on. I find the half-height up and down cursor arrow keys to be a little cramped, however. The touchpad offers reasonably accurate cursor movements and satisfying clicks, though it lacks dedicated left- and right-click buttons. 

Two speaker grilles flank the keyboard, offering enough volume to fill a home office or small living room with sound. If you’re using the Flex 5G as an easel or propped up as a tent, the speakers’ positions mean they’ll be facing away from you, which can affect sound quality. This isn’t nearly as impressive as the Yoga C940’s audio system, which features a sound bar in the hinge with two tweeters that always face the user, as well as two downward-firing woofers beneath the laptop.

Along the Flex 5G’s left edge, you’ll find two USB Type-C ports which can be used to connect peripherals, including external displays if you’ve got a USB-to-HDMI or USB-to-DisplayPort adapter. The USB Type-C ports also accept the cable from the AC adapter to charge the system’s 60-watt-hour battery. The ports don’t have Thunderbolt 3 support, however, which is something we typically expect from a laptop in this price range.

The Flex 5G’s right edge has the power button and a headphone jack. Next to them, you’ll find a toggle switch to disable the wireless radios, which include 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5.0 in addition to the X55 5G modem. Curiously, there’s no support for the latest 801.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) standard. 

Lenovo supports the Flex 5G with a one-year warranty. 

Wireless Performance and Battery Life

In my testing indoors while connected to LTE, the Flex 5G achieved a download speed of 40MBps as measured by Ookla’s Speedtest. (Note: PCMag’s parent company owns Ookla.) Outdoors, while connected to a mix of LTE and 5G networks in northwest Chicago, the Flex 5G averaged 167MBps downloads across 10 different tests, though the peak speed I recorded was 575MBps. During my outdoor testing, I frequently noticed the Flex 5G switching between LTE and 5G even when I was standing still on the same street corner in an area of 5G coverage. 

Most people aren’t going to be standing outdoors on a street corner to use their laptop, however, and because of coronavirus-imposed social distancing requirements, most people who don’t live on streets with 5G coverage aren’t going to be able, anytime soon, to sit in coffee shops or libraries on a 5G street just to take advantage of the coverage.

Once such activities do become possible again, the Flex 5G’s extraordinary battery life is ideally suited for camping out in coffee shops with no power outlets. The lack of a cooling fan and a power-sipping processor promise all-day battery life and “several days” in standby mode, according to Lenovo.

Indeed, in our testing, the Flex 5G managed to last for 30 hours and 15 minutes before its battery was exhausted. This is one of the longest-lasting laptops we’ve tested, rivaling the record-setting Asus ExpertBook B9450‘s time of 30 hours and 36 minutes.

Our battery rundown test is fairly forgiving, since it involves playing a locally stored video file at 50 percent screen brightness with Wi-Fi and cellular networks disconnected. Still, our result suggests that the Flex 5G will easily last through a full eight or 10 hours of work, even if you’re doing more intensive tasks that drain the battery faster.

App Compatibility and Performance

Most common Windows apps should run reasonably well on the Flex 5G. These include Microsoft Office apps like Word and Excel, as well as the Microsoft Edge web browser. In my testing, the Flex 5G laptop took longer to boot up than comparable laptops like the Yoga C940, but ran common apps without any significant lag or sluggishness while browsing the web and typing part of this review. 

If you’re doing more complex activities, you might run into problems, though. The Flex 5G achieved a score of 4,702 on the PCMark 10 applications test, which simulates a wide variety of tasks that use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and the Edge web browser. These include adding text and pictures to a document, loading Excel sheets with large data sets and complicated formulas, and playing 4K web videos. Other ultraportable laptops with Core i5 or Core i7 processors can do much better on this test, including the Surface Book 3 (7,651) and the Dell Latitude 9410 2-in-1 (8,544). 

In addition to the PCMark 10 applications test, the 3DMark Night Raid test is also compatible with Snapdragon-powered Windows PCs. Night Raid lets us compare graphics performance between the Flex 5G and a few other ultraportable laptops we’ve tested recently, including the Surface Pro X, Yoga C940, and Dell XPS 13. 

The Flex 5G comes in at the bottom of the pack here, though its score is not far off from the comparably equipped Surface Pro X. 

Some apps, including most of the Adobe Creative Cloud software suite, do not run natively on Snapdragon processors, which use a different software instruction set than the x86 instructions employed by Intel and AMD chips. Some of these apps will run in an emulation layer built into the Windows operating system, rendering them quite sluggish, while others won’t run at all. 

Most of our typical laptop performance benchmarks, from our Photoshop image editing test to our Handbrake video rendering trial, fall into the latter category, so I was not able to run them. 

Is a 5G Laptop Worth the Price?

If you buy the Flex 5G directly from Verizon and can add the cost to your monthly bill, broken up into smaller payments, it may be worth it for a taste of how 5G will improve the future of mobile computing. Likewise, if Verizon’s 5G coverage has already arrived on your block, or you must travel frequently despite the pandemic, the Flex 5G could be a worthwhile purchase now. 

Otherwise, with 5G only available sporadically in major cities, the Flex 5G is currently difficult to justify at its full list price. During the pandemic, potential owners are unlikely to travel frequently enough to encounter significant pockets of 5G coverage. Unlike a 5G phone, which travels with you everywhere you go and is therefore more likely to take advantage of 5G networks when you encounter them, the Flex 5G is likely to stay at home on your desk for the foreseeable future. 

Not only is your desk likely in Wi-Fi range, but it’s also probably near a power outlet, which diminishes the value of the Flex 5G’s long battery life. 

So the Flex 5G has few advantages over similarly priced laptops that lack 5G but include more capable Intel processors, larger storage drives, Thunderbolt support, and other niceties. In the Flex 5G’s category and price range, the Elite Dragonfly and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 are our top choices. They have more well-rounded feature sets, including optional 5G on the Elite Dragonfly, and represent a much better value for money.

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