Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7 review: A budget laptop that comes with few regrets

What do you call a Windows laptop that’s cheaper and faster than some of the best Chromebooks? A unicorn, my friend. A unicorn.

Even with a three-year-old processor, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 doesn’t feel like an ancient laptop. For the basic needs of a college English major, high school student, teacher, or grandparent, this laptop is still a snappy performer. It’s not for heavy multitaskers, musicians, and visual creatives, but for those who don’t plan on running their laptop into the ground (and have a limited budget), the Flex is a solid purchase.

It reminds me of the laptop I had in college. I was an English major, so I needed a laptop that handled the basics — browsing the internet, sending emails, and writing short stories — reasonably fast. It was also a budget-conscious machine. While the IdeaPad Flex isn’t one of the best laptops under $1,000, it’s one of the few affordable Windows laptops I’d consider over a Chromebook if I were in college today.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Specs and benchmarks

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Price and configurations

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i is a 2-in-1 laptop available in two configurations. I reviewed the $679 model (though I’ve seen it go on sale for $500) with an Intel Core i5-1235U, Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB M.2 SSD, and a 14-inch, 1920 x 1200, IPS touchscreen display.

The $549 base model is configured with a Core i3-1215U, Intel UHD integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB M.2 SSD, and the same 14-inch, 1080p IPS touchscreen display.

This particular IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 is much easier to find than the 13th-Gen Intel model (and Laptop Mag wasn’t fond of that one). It’s also cheaper than the newer Intel Core 5 120U model, but if price isn’t a concern, check out the best laptops as fantastic alternatives with newer processors.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Design

For a plain-looking laptop, the IdeaPad Flex sure is pretty.

Its chassis is understated, yet lovely. It’s not so light that it appears silver in the sun, but it’s not so dark that it reminds me of dreary storm clouds. The laptop’s rounded corners enhance its soft gray. The display’s dual hinges are aggressively shaped, but they are flush with the back of the laptop. There’s one slim vent on the backside and a much larger vent that spans almost the entire width of the bottom. Those design choices keep the Flex’s vibe intact.

The touchpad is 3.0 x 4.9 inches and spans from the left Alt key to the right Alt key, putting it center to the Spacebar but off-center in the space below the keyboard by about a half inch. The display’s top bezel protrudes slightly, leaving just enough space for the webcam and manual privacy shutter switch.

The laptop’s display hinges are overly firm, but I didn’t struggle rotating it back and forth a full 360 degrees. However, it did tend to tilt backward on its own if I moved the laptop around too fast as I picked it up. Every keypress made the display wobble like a bobblehead on a car dashboard. Hitting the Backspace key made it jiggle the most, especially when I hit the key several times in quick succession. It wasn’t enough to blur the letters and words I typed, but it was distracting.

It seems like this issue is caused by the amount of flex in the display itself (no pun intended). With my thumbs on either side of the display panel and my fingers around the back on the lid, I easily bent it into an elongated U-shape. I felt the middle of the display edges popout of the lid. My left index and middle fingers created ripples in the display, even though they weren’t directly pressing on the display itself, and when I let go the display made a brief creaking sound as everything fell back into place. Not the ideal feature for a 2-in-1 laptop.

At 12.3 x 8.9 x 0.69 inches and weighing 3.7 pounds, I do wish the IdeaPad Flex was thinner and lighter. But for a budget laptop, it’s not something that would keep me from buying it. I’m just used to using (and reviewing) lighter and thinner laptops.

Here’s how it compares to some of its competitors:

• Acer Swift Go 14: 12.32 x 8.58 x 0.68 inches, 2.91 pounds
• Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: 12.3 x 8.67 x 0.59 inches, 3.0 pounds
• Apple MacBook Air M2: 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches, 2.7 pounds

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Ports

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The laptop’s generous port selection helps elevate its overall value:

• 1x HDMI
• 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (Thunderbolt 4) with pass-through charging and DisplayPort support
• 1x Headphone/mic jack
• 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (one supports USB charging)
• 1x 4-in-1 SD card reader

If you need more ports, check out Laptop Mag’s favorite USB-C hubs and laptop docking stations.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Battery life

Battery life is sometimes an unfortunate compromise in budget laptops. For $500, I can deal with the IdeaPad Flex’s wobbly display and awful speakers, but its short battery life makes me sigh and mumble, “Aw, man…”

It lasted 7 hours and 32 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, less than the ideal 9-plus hours. Some of Lenovo’s newer models released in the last year with Intel Core Ultra and Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips last between 14 and 21 hours! So if you have the budget to upgrade, this would be the reason why.

Otherwise, you’ll have to make sure the Flex is fully charged before you stumble out of your dorm room 10 minutes before your 8 a.m. class — or buy a more expensive laptop. Here’s how the Flex’s battery life compares to its competitors:

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Display

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The Flex’s glossy 14-inch, 1920 x 1200, 60Hz IPS touch display is a miracle of science. Compared to the standard matte finish, an IPS display with some sheen can make colors appear more vibrant, and that’s exactly what I perceived — so I was shocked to see just how little of the DCI-P3 color gamut the IdeaPad Flex covered.

To make sure I wasn’t losing my mind (and honestly, I still don’t know if I am or not), I watched the same scene from Arcane as I did when I reviewed the Acer Swift 14 AI, which also had a glossy IPS display. Neon colors, well-lit pastels, and earth tones looked the same. Anything underlit, especially white clothing and objects, appeared duller, but not so dull to make me utter an audible “ew.” None of that would have made it obvious the Flex’s display covered a measly 47.8% of the DCI-P3 color gamut according to Laptop Mag’s test results.

What I am sure of is that the display’s max 330 nits of brightness isn’t enough to combat the glare it reflects in a well-lit room. It’s less of an issue against lighter colors, but against darks and blacks, my eyes automatically focused on my reflection. Parts of season 1 episode 3 of Pantheon were particularly problematic. The natural light in my office easily overtook Caspian’s dark bedroom, obscuring details that weren’t illuminated by his desktop monitors.

Here’s how the IdeaPad Flex’s display compares to its rivals:

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Keyboard and touchpad

Laptop Mag generally holds Lenovo laptop keyboards in high regard for their responsiveness, actuation force and distance, and tactile feel and gentle clicky sound. I found most of those things to be true for the IdeaPad Flex’s keyboard as well — just of lower quality compared to its Yoga line. If you’ve ever wondered how much a sight difference in key height can affect your typing speed, the difference between my Flex and my (personal) Yoga Book 9i MonkeyType scores is a great example.

I averaged 88 words per minute (WPM) with 98% accuracy on the IdeaPad Flex but averaged 97 WPM with 96% accuracy on the Yoga Book.

The Flex’s keys are taller and have more key travel than the detachable keyboard on my Yoga Book 9i, but the keys are the same size and spaced the same distance apart. They feel softer to press by comparison because of that extra travel distance, but they’re still springy. I like typing on the Flex’s keyboard, but I can’t type as fast on it.

The Flex’s 3.0 x 4.9-inch touchpad is about what I expected: generic plastic that felt neither amazing nor horrible under my fingertips, but unlike other laptop touchpads I’ve used in the past, this one wasn’t so rough that my fingers caught on it mid-gesture.

My main issue with it is that it’s centered between the Alt keys instead of centered on the bottom chassis. This caused my left hand to overlap with the top left corner more than my right, and the pad of my thumb would sometimes touch it hard enough to make the laptop think I wanted to scroll through whatever page I was on. The only way to get around that was to tilt my left wrist to the side and raise my thumb up, which contributed to my slower typing speed.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Audio

I don’t expect much out of laptop speakers — and even less out-of-budget laptops like the IdeaPad Flex. In my experience, high frequencies tend to sound tinny, low frequencies sound washed out, but the mid-range is decent. This laptop has the opposite issue.

The Flex’s top-firing speakers handled the low-range okay in bass-heavy songs like “Alpha & Omega” by Swarm and “Hellfire” by Fever 333. The sound didn’t feel “weighty,” but there was some force behind it. The vocals came through clearly, though. I normally have a hard time deciphering electronic vocals in industrial songs like Swarm’s, but the Flex’s speakers made it easier for me to understand the lyrics without taking away from the digitally warped sound.

But the speakers turned these songs’ delicately layered beats into a mush pot of white noise. There wasn’t a noticeable separation between them like I normally hear through my Yoga Book 9i speakers, so after about a minute of listening to those songs I started to feel overwhelmed and had to stop the music. I had an easier time listening to my go-to “Dragula” by Rob Zombie and “First Date” by Blink 182, but the speakers didn’t handle those songs any better.

Golden oldies, like “Day O” by Harry Belafonte — really anything without wailing guitars or electronic beats — don’t push the speakers past their limit.

You might want to grab one of the best headphones if you don’t already have a pair.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Performance and heat

I forgot there was a three-year-old Intel Core i5-1235U inside this laptop — its processing performance was so snappy under a light workload! My massive wedding planning Google Sheet was incredibly responsive (when it was the only tab in my browser), and I didn’t notice any lag when I Alt-Tabbed between it and a few other open applications, like Outlook mail and Spotify.

But once I loaded up the browser with all the Etsy, venue, photographer, retail, and YouTube pages I’ve saved over the last two weeks (over 50 tabs), its age started to show. My spreadsheet took longer to load. Sometimes it took a whole second for a cell to appear highlighted after I clicked on it. Opening and reloading tabs also took longer, and so did switching between applications.

A mere 8GB of RAM doesn’t do the Flex any favors, either. Even with just Microsoft Word and one tab open in Microsoft Edge, I used 80% of the system’s available memory, according to Windows Task Manager.

This probably won’t be an issue for light multitaskers, but heavy multitaskers and tab hoarders who expect instantaneous responses (I’m talking milliseconds) will get frustrated by this older chip’s limitations and lack of RAM.

But slower processing speed can mean cooler surface temperatures. Not always, but the Flex passed the lap test! Its touchpad stayed a cool 71.5 degrees, while the G and H keys peaked at 86.5 degrees. Both temperatures fall below Laptop Mag’s 95-degree comfort threshold.

The laptop’s underside did get a tad warmer, 98.8 degrees, but I was able to leave it on my bare skin while I watched a 15-minute YouTube video. I don’t think I’d do the same during the summer, but now that it’s nearly winter, the extra warmth felt cozy.

The chart below illustrates how the Flex’s performance and surface temperature compare to its rivals. (Spoiler alert: its pricier competitors can handle heavy multitasking and other CPU-intensive tasks like video transcoding much better.)

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Gaming and graphics

Its Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics performance rows the same boat: fast enough to handle some light photo or video editing, even some point-and-click or visual novel games, but not much else — which is totally fine for a budget laptop!

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator, a point-and-click game with minimal animations, ran flawlessly, as did Norco and A Normal Lost Phone. Older, 3D first-person games like The Stanley Parable ran smoothly, but I did see a little flickering around the filing cabinets as I ran past them.

I figured I’d try Control as well, since that game is optimized to run on integrated graphics. To help it run as smoothly as possible, I turned every graphics setting to Low, turned off all features that help improve image quality, and kept the resolution set to 1200p. The game dipped to 17 fps during chaotic gun battles but ran lag-free at 35 fps when I was running between empty offices. This game runs way better on newer integrated graphics chips in my experience. (For context, the playable threshold is 30 fps.)

Again, not surprising. (Intel’s Arc graphics are a major improvement over Iris Xe.) Also not surprising: The Flex’s performance in our Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark, where it averaged 21 frames per second.

Here’s how this laptop’s graphics performance compares to the competition:

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: AI features

For a laptop to be labeled an AI PC it has to have an NPU (neural processing unit), a special part of the processor that helps speed up AI workloads. The Intel Core i5-1235U precedes the era of AI PCs by a few years, so it doesn’t have one. It can still process AI tasks, but it will be much slower — and you probably shouldn't try running them if patience isn’t one of your virtues.

You might have seen that Qualcomm AI PCs are also known as Copilot+ PCs. That just means the laptop comes with Microsoft’s more advanced AI features: Cocreator, Image Creator, Windows Studio Effects, and live AI-generated captions. These laptops also have a dedicated Copilot key on the keyboard, which the IdeaPad Flex also lacks.

The Flex’s only pre-installed AI app is Copilot, Microsoft’s AI chatbot that is now a standard Windows 11 feature.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Webcam

Looking your best through the lens of this laptop’s 1080p webcam involves having the right lighting conditions — especially important if your college professor wants you to have your camera on during your remote class!

My house is generally well-lit in the afternoon, especially the living room, so it’s an ideal location to test webcams. My Kalax shelves filled with board and card games also tested its ability to pick up fine background details. As you can see in the photo, a lot is going on, but the webcam handled it well.

Many of the board games’ stylized fonts are legible, and the colors are a good representation of what they look like in real life. I can see the separation between individual needles on my Yule tree, and even some strands of hair sticking out of the top of my bun.

Direct light is the webcam’s kryptonite. Anything it touches appears completely washed out. Some sunlight made it through my closed blinds and blew out a small portion of one of my stockings and part of the board game box beside it. It did the same to my face, but I’m too mortified to post that picture on the internet.

Still, as nice as everything looked in the right lighting, it’s no match for the best webcams.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14 Gen 7: Software and warranty

Thankfully, this laptop doesn’t come with a lot of bloatware — outside of the usual slew of Microsoft Office apps and Dolby Audio for tweaking the sound. It ships with Windows 11 Home in S mode. There are a few proprietary Lenovo apps that you may or may not want, but they can be useful.

The main app, Lenovo Vantage, is a one-stop shop for monitoring the laptop’s overall health, viewing system information, and adjusting power, display, and other Windows settings. There’s a built-in benchmark suite that tests the performance of the laptop’s various hardware components. The app will also tell you how much time you have left on the laptop’s one-year, limited warranty.

Another good app to keep around if you see yourself using this laptop as a digital notebook is Lenovo Pen Settings. Here you can customize what buttons do what, change the pen tip and tilt sensitivity, and monitor the battery life of your Lenovo stylus. (But unfortunately, it doesn’t come with one.)

Bottom line

If you’re beholden to the Windows ecosystem but want the best experience possible out of a $500 laptop, check out the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14. For the light multitasking performance it offers alongside a snappy keyboard, a decent display, a good webcam, and a host of connectivity ports, it’s an attractive deal.

Its short battery life is the only thing I can see being a dealbreaker for some people. If it is for you, and you have more wiggle room in your budget, the Acer Swift Go 14 (2023) is the next best option. In addition to longer battery life, it's better for heavy multitasking.

But for the cost and versatility — the IdeaPad Flex’s 2-in-1 form factor and the fact that Windows can run many more programs than ChromeOS — I’d steer any high school or college student toward the Flex instead of a Chromebook.