Lenovo Ideapad Flex 6 (14 Zoll)

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Our verdict

The Lenovo Flex 6 is a fast, well-designed convertible at a reasonable price.

To the

Fast performance

Nvidia graphics

Attractive minimalist design

Snappy keyboard

Against

Short battery life

dim display

The 14-inch Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6 ($809 review; starting at $470) is a 2-in-1 that aims to offer a lot without breaking the bank. Featuring an Intel Core i5 CPU 8th gen and an NVIDIA GeForce MX130 GPU, this system offers enough speed to enable solid productivity and play some games. The keyboard and speakers are also convincing. Unfortunately, the Flex 6's screen reflects too much glare and the battery life is poor not exactly outstanding. Overall, however, this is one of the better convertibles for the money we've tested this year.

draft

Despite its affordable entry-level price, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6 is an attractive device that sports a matte onyx black shell with gunmetal gray hinges. These hinges allow the display to rotate 360 degrees and feel reliably firm. The Flex 6 feels sturdy, with a brushed aluminum deck and a polycarbonate/ABS plastic chassis with 40 percent fiberglass.

Weighing 3.6 pounds and measuring 0.7 inches, the IdeaPad Flex 6 is lighter than the 15-inch

HP Envy x360 15t

(4.7 pounds, 0.7 inches). It's also slimmer and heavier than either 13.3-inch

Acer Spin 5

(3.4 pounds, 0.6 inches) and the

13.3-inch Dell Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1

(3.4 pounds, 0.6 inches).

On the left side of the Flex 6 you'll find its first USB 3.0 port, as well as an HDMI, USB Type-C port and a headphone/mic combo jack.

The power button is on the right edge (for accessibility in non-laptop positions), next to a security lock slot, a second USB 3.0 port, and an SD memory reader.

The laptop's fingerprint reader supports Windows Hello and is located under the lower-right corner of the keyboard.

As I watched the Gorillaz music video "Humility" on the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6's 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 screen, I noticed a subtle blues in the sky over Venice Beach and the greens and browns of palm fronds. When I pressed pause , I could clearly read the signage of the nearby meeting points and the sprawling graffiti.

The display's reflective coating can be distracting when using the notebook in a room with a lot of overhead lighting - like our open plan office - as the light bounces off the screen. This created enough glare in the panel that I could see the texture of our ceiling when I had dark apps open.

According to our colorimeter, the IdeaPad Flex 6 produces 80 percent of the sRGB spectrum, below the premium notebook average (112 percent), the display in the Inspiron 13 7000 (110 percent), and the Spin 5 (126 percent). The Envy x360 scored lower (67 percent with an AMD CPU; 77 percent with an Intel CPU).

The IdeaPad Flex 6's screen emits up to 236 nits of brightness, which is below the 305 category average, as does the 274 nits Spin 5. The Inspiron 13 delivered a similar 227 nits, while the Envy x360 earned 15t less (186 on an Intel machine; 128 on an AMD machine).

Laptops with the most colorful screens

The Flex 6's touchscreen display allowed for accurate input while navigating the desktop. It also correctly registered Windows 10's edge swipe gestures to open the timeline view and action center.

Keyboard, touchpad and optional active pen

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6's keyboard offers a solid typing experience. When I evaluated it with the 10fastfingers.com typing test, I reached a rate of 74 words per minute, not far from my average of 80 wpm. The keys are only 1.3 millimeters Travel (below the 1.5 to 2mm we're hoping to find), but their mechanisms, which require 78 grams of force to actuate (we're looking for at least 60 grams), give the keys a natural feel to each click.

The Flex 6's 4.1 x 2.7-inch touchpad tracked my inputs closely while navigating the desktop and scrolling websites in Chrome. It also correctly recognized the navigation gestures for showing the desktop and switching between apps.

The $40 Lenovo Active Pen (included with purchase from Costco but not Amazon) provided a natural writing experience when I doodled in MS Paint. Although the pen offers 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, it doesn't recognize input at hard angles, so you cannot perform tilt shading.

Audio

The Lenovo Flex 6 produces enough sound to fill one of our larger private offices. When I listened to the Gorillaz song "Humility" on the laptop, virtual frontman 2D's vocals sounded sweet and guest George Benson's jazz guitar strings came through clearly.

I Spent Over $200 On Headphones: So Should You

The included Dolby Audio app is preset to use the Music option, which I think is balanced for music and movies. Of the other options, the Dynamic setting tends to get too warm and loud, causing distortion during movies , play and voice did not make the sound particularly noticeable.

perfomance

I tested a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6 with an 8th gen Intel Core i5-8250U CPU and 8GB of RAM, which offers enough speed for high-quality multitasking. I hardly noticed any stuttering or pausing after turning my screen to a dozen Chrome tabs (including TweetDeck, Slack, and Google Docs) and a 1080p YouTube video with Microsoft's Mail and Outlook apps running in the background.

In the Geekbench 4 general performance test, the IdeaPad Flex 6 scored 12,130, which is above the average of 10,795 premium notebooks. This score also beats the 10,079 and 9,810 scores of the Intel (Core i7-8550U with 16GB RAM) and AMD (Ryzen 5 2500U CPU and 8GB RAM) versions of the Envy x360 15t. We saw 12,949 more on the Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 (Core i5-8250U with 8GB RAM) and on the Spin 5 (Core i5-8250U with 8GB RAM ) similar 11,588.

The 256GB PCIe SSD in the IdeaPad Flex 6 duplicates 4.97GB of multimedia files in 20 seconds at a speed of 254MB/s, which is slower than the category average of 290MB/s. The 256GB SSDs in the Spin 5 (182 Mb/s) and Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 (108 Mb/s) copied slower, while the 1TB 7200 RPM hard drives in the Envy x360 15t copied much slower (28 up to 32 inches). MBps) and reminds me never to buy a computer with non-SSD storage again.

The Flex 6 matched 60,000 names to addresses in 1 minute and 30 seconds in our Excel VLookup test, a time slightly below the 1:36 category average. The Envy x360 15t took less time (1:20 at AMD, 1:24 for Intel), as well as the Spin 5 (1:26).

Lenovo's laptop converted a 4K video to 1080p in 23 minutes and 24 seconds in our Handbrake test. That's a relatively long time and 1 minute and 10 seconds longer than the 22:14 category average. The Envy x360 15t (20: 23 for Intel, with 7:48 for AMD) and the Spin 5 (22:12) set shorter times.

The system we tested contains an integrated Intel HD Graphics 620 chip and a 2GB NVIDIA GeForce MX130 GPU, and the latter achieved its score of 107,728 on the 3DMark Icestorm Unlimited benchmark graphics test. That beats the category average of 86,847. It also provides the 73,701 (AMD) and 68,187 (Intel) of the Spin 5, the 80,845 of the Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1, and the 78,305 Acer Spin 5 in the shadows, all of which only contain the Intel HD Graphics 620 chip.

Laptops with the best productivity performance

The IdeaPad Flex 6 ran the Dirt 3 racing game (set to medium graphics at 1080p) at 62 frames per second (fps). That's below the average for the 73 fps category, between the results of the Envy x360 (54 fps by Intel , 91 fps on the AMD) and above the 52 fps rate of the Spin 5 and the 50 fps rate of the Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1.

battery life

On a day trip, you might have to think about the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6's power cord. The Flex 6 only lasted 6 hours and 41 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test (web surfing at 150 nits of brightness), which is well below the 8:16 Premium laptop average. The Envy x360 15t delivered shorter times (4:49 for AMD and 5:22 for Intel), while the Acer Spin 5 lasted longer at 7:15.

cam

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6's 0.9-megapixel webcam is pretty decent. Not only did it capture detail in my hair and glasses, but it also accurately reproduced the colors on my plaid shirt. Too bad all light sources were blown out, inclusive our ceiling lights and the daylight coming in from outside.

heat

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6 is one cool customer. After streaming 15 minutes of HD video on the convertible, our heat gun reached temperatures of 78.5 degrees Fahrenheit on the touchpad, 85.5 degrees on the keyboard, and 89 degrees on the bottom .All slipped below our 95 degree comfort threshold.

The Envy x360 ran cool, but the Spin 5 got hot on the bottom, measuring 100 degrees. The same goes for the Inspiron 13, which hits 98 degrees on the bottom left.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6 (14 inch)

software

Lenovo has given the IdeaPad Flex 6 a fairly standard set of apps. Lenovo Vantage gives you system health information and access to hardware settings and updates from the PC manufacturer itself (as opposed to those downloaded from Microsoft via Windows Update). Lenovo App Explorer, on the other hand, is an app store made redundant by the Windows Store.

setting options

We tested an $809 Amazon configuration of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6, which includes a Core i5-8250U CPU, 8GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce MX130 graphics card, and a 256GB SSD. It's currently on sale at Costco for Available for $700 (with Active Pen), but requires membership.

Lenovo sells the entry-level Flex 6 for $470, but that model packs a Pentium 4415U CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of SSD storage. While I'd personally consider the model we reviewed, I wouldn't recommend anyone Consider buying the Pentium model. Instead, I'd suggest the faster $600 Core i3 model, which has the same 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

bottom line

With its fast performance, powerful sound, and solid design, the $809 Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 6 is an attractive and affordable 2-in-1. Discrete graphics are another plus, since you're sitting on this 14-inch -Convertible can play some mainstream games (albeit on lower settings). However, the Flex 6 would be far more useful for travelling, with a brighter screen to combat glare and longer battery life.

For a brighter, more colorful display and longer lifespan, you can purchase a similarly configured

Acer Spin 5

for a cheaper $706 (although this machine does get a little hotter and is crammed with bloatware). But if you want a convertible that has almost everything for a reasonable price, check out the IdeaPad Flex 6.

Credit:

shaun

Lucas/Laptop Mag

Lenovo Ideapad Flex 6 (14 Zoll)

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