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

Within our household, three children are gamers alongside two adult gamers. It's getting a little expensive now tbh lol. Over Thanksgiving break we all landed on Stardew Valley as a video game we enjoy playing together as a family, but our youngest sons' 12 yr old entry-level gaming laptop is dying, even with upgrading ram and a reset on that machine it can't handle most games anymore. So he wasn't able to play with us on his own rig. We took turns, but it just wasn't as fun. Enter the Lenovo Flex 5i. I took the time to enable the Linux Beta, went through the process of getting steam set to 32-bit, and downloaded Stardew Valley. It runs smoothly, with no glitching/lag. I did make the Linux portion of the HD take more of a share than was suggested, 30 Gb vs 10 Gb to accommodate adding more demanding games. It runs Terraria and other similar titles beautifully. But this Chromebook doesn't stop there for us, we've been using it for web surfing, streaming movies, and as an extra device for homework when the school Chromebooks are slow/acting up. It's filling a niche that we truly didn't realize we needed in our home. Overall: If you are looking to play some low-demand (side scrollers, dungeon crawling 32-bit games) steam games via Linux, then this is a great option. If you just need something to watch movies/youtube/surf the web it's more than powerful enough to handle that with ease. This Chromebook is sleek, peppy, and feels expensive even though we got it for under $300. My only minor complaint so far is the matte finish is prone to showing every fingerprint on the outside of the case, but at the same time, it lets us see how often it is being used and reminds us to clean it often. But as a final note, for us, this Chromebook is a stop-gap/multi-purpose item to fill in when we need it. In late winter/early spring, our son will probably get a mini gaming PC since he isn't as big of a gamer as the rest of his siblings but may want to play more robust games. This Chromebook gives us some breathing room over the winter to research & shop for his future rig while allowing us all to play games together as a family.

You don't expect much from a $300 chromebook in terms of quality, but this things is very impressive. The all metal build feels very sturdy, as do the hinges. The keyboard is higher quality than most $1000 laptops, and the screen and speakers are much higher quality than I would expect from this price range (you can hear actual bass and get pretty good contrast of dark colors!). The battery lasts for like 8 straight hours of streaming, and the fan noise is usually quiet enough that it isn't noticeable. The only real problems I've had with it is that it for some reason disagrees with some streaming services, notably Hulu and HBOMax. It behaves weirdly on those sites and playback will fail every few days, forcing a restart. This hasn't happened on any of my other devices, but the same behavior happened on two of these laptops (I got a replacement to check). Don't know what's going on there, but otherwise it's great.

I got this as a replacement for an earlier model, the Lenovo 330c (which I still use after 4 years). The 330c had two issues: 1) The case was plastic, and the lid developed several large cracks from hinge stress, and 2) It struggled to play videos, especially from facebook and news sites. This newer model has a metal lid which should solve the cracking problem. It is also notably faster and has no problem so far playing any videos. One the downside, the battery life seems to be much less, and it is slow to wake up from sleep mode, including that it seems slower to reconnect to the wifi than the older model. UPDATE: Today, less than 30 days in, the unit would not start up. The white light on the power button just kept blinking after I closed the lid to move from the kitchen to the living room. I couldn't find any official Lenovo support online, but I did find a YouTube which sent me to try recovery mode (esc+circle-arrow fcn key+ power button) and I was able to power off. Powered up again OK. Worrisome. This unit does not sleep well. The lighted keyboard is a nice new feature. I also like that the power cord can be attached from either side, since the nearest outlet always seemed to be on the 'wrong' side (and the left-side plug on the old model was always a bit in the way for left-handed folk like me). There's no HDMI port, but I only used that occasionally and it's addressable with a dongle. Most things synch up pretty well making for an easy setup. I'm a bit old school and keep a lot on the machine memory rather than the cloud. This has plenty of storage for that, but of course that stuff doesn't synch and needs to be transferred. This won't open my Open Office files unless I upload them to the cloud, convert them, and download them back down. A bit of a hassle but not a deal killer. A good purchase overall, and good enough to become my only computer. I'm going to shed my old desktop tower.

I consider myself an experienced (but not especially advanced) chromebook user. I've owned chromebooks from Toshiba, HP, Asus, Acer, and now this Lenovo Flex 5i. My family uses our chromebooks mostly for general web browsing and video streaming (youtube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.). We usually take at least one chromebook on vacations. I've owned the 5i for a several days, and my initial impressions are all good. It feels solid, audio, backlit keyboard, screen, and touchpad are fine, and there is nothing that stands out as a flaw. Battery life seems ok so far. Web pages load fast enough, and speedtest.net shows it maxing out our 500Mb/sec internet connection. Weight is 3lb 1oz as measured on our kitchen scale. I like the dark-blue color. Overall I'd say the Flex 5i is on a par with our Acer spin 713 (CP713-3W), altho I do slightly prefer the Acer's 3x2 screen. On the other hand, the Flex 5i is slightly smaller, which is a bit more convenient. Both have a quality feel, and the 5i was significantly less expensive. I paid $375 for the 5i. As mentioned, this review is about initial impressions, and if my opinion changes, I'll update this review.

I've only had this for a day but it's a great little Chromebook for getting lite work done. I've yet to try the touchscreen out as I've been using it strictly as a laptop. The battery life is mediocre, depending on what you do. For Google doc editing and article reading with Spotify in the background I was getting about 7 hours. Not bad for a laptop but not great for a Chromebook. It's a bit heavier than other Chromebooks I've tried but still perfectly manageable. The little i3 is pulling its weight in this Chromebook. Everything feels very responsive and I've yet to have any hangups, even when trying it out with multiple 1080p YouTube videos going and several chrome tabs for research. I'm thoroughly impressed. Overall I would still personally give it 5 stars. Note: I did order this through Amazon. UPS was very slow to get it from Amazon to my town. They then delivered it to an unknown address and neither UPS or Amazon were helpful at all and the package was never recovered. Amazon did, however, issue a refund and I picked one up locally, albeit at a slightly higher price. Better than dealing with UPS, though.

It looks great, it feels great, its well priced. I was so excited when I first unbox this device. After 7 months of use - I can say almost each work + entertainment session has been frustrating on this chromebook. The app store is completely broken. It doesn't upon EVER and is stuck in a spinning circle. I have to restart my laptop 1-2x every single time I want to open the playstore. Even more - this same issue is present on EVERY SINGLE app I have used on this chromebook. I click Spotify, amazon video, netflix - the app doesn't open and spins incessantly unless I hard restart my chromebook once or twice. The netflix app maxes out at 480p standard definition - HD is not compatible with this chromebook. I try viewing Netflix, amazon, HBO shows from the browser because the apps are so broken - i receive "playback" error messages in the middle of tv shows, movies every 15-20 minutes that also requires a hard restart to fix. Literally nothing on this chromebook functions as it should and when it does - I'm extremely surprised. I can't even return this junk at this point and instead gifted it to a 11 year old niece for her school activities since she is not allowed to watch shows anyways. If you're looking for a work/play hybrid laptop - this one ABSOLUTELY STINKS AND FAILS MISERABLY FOR PLAYING MUSIC, TV SHOWS, and MOVIES. Its dysfunctional video/app functionablity is so bad I won't even complain about the horrible battery life, the super low speakers, and cheap feeling plastic base compared to the heavy, metallic screen. Normally I would be complacent as "you get what you pay for" but my 200$ lenovo laptop functions 10x better than this garbage and is 10x as reliable. Using this laptop to watch my favorite show or movie feels like using a 1998 Windows laptop to run complex video games - you don't know when it will/wont work, and the few times it does work feels like a blessing. But over time, you just give up after how many times this laptop has given up on you.

Looked for quite some time at laptop options for light/moderate personal use. Web surfing, resume updating, job searching - my immediate uses/needs. And I’ve been super happy. It’s battery life is impressive. It’s quick - knew I wanted a good processor, used to at least an i5 core - but the i3 has been totally enough, happy to save a bit of money there. It’s just the right size - compact but 13in provides comfortable usability. I’m telling you, I’m a person that digs into articles and reviews on big purchases like this - especially with so many options. Chromebook was just what I needed for now, and this Lenovo is just the right fit for such a good price. Excellent looking computer, nice deep blue, with just the right capabilities for a steal of a price! You’ll be happy!

I switched from PC to Macbook about 10 yrs ago and I really like my Mac. I've been wanting to replace my Galaxy tab A with a chromebook and decided on the Lenovo after a lot of searching various sites. After using this laptop for a month now, I am very pleased with its performance. A quality machine which has exceeded my expectations and in some ways, exceeds or equals my Mac. It was easy to set up and transfer data from my Mac and my android phone. It is very fast and has more features than I ever imagined. It is well built and weighs about the same as my Mac. Battery life isn't bad and some would say could be better, but I am happy. I wish the charging cable wasn't so cumbersome for travel but it's not a big deal. I highly recommend this laptop.