Currently out there for less than $400, the Lenovo Flex 5 Chromebook is a fairly dang whole lot. You get Intel’s succesful tenth Gen processors, a sturdy and nice-looking chassis, a touchscreen with stylus assist, a cushty backlit keyboard, and a passable port choice. While there’s no standout characteristic to enthusiastically reward, there’s not an excessive amount of to complain about. That’s sufficient, after all, to make the Flex 5 among the best midrange Chromebooks you should buy — so long as you’re conscious of the tradeoffs you’re making for the value.

First, the great. The Flex 5 has a a lot nicer chassis than many different Chromebooks you’ll see on this value vary — it’s really one of many better-built Chromebooks I’ve used this yr. Though the underside is product of plastic, it’s removed from the cheap-looking fare that’s commonplace amongst funds laptops. (No big plastic bezels across the display screen both.) The keyboard deck has a soft-touch texture that’s fairly clean and doesn’t choose up a ton of fingerprints regardless of its darkish coloration.

As a consequence, the system appears so much higher than your common laptop-cart Chromebook. It actually appears extra fashionable than Acer’s $699 Chromebook Spin 713, our present choose for the perfect Chromebook. And I wasn’t in any respect apprehensive about jostles and jolts — there was no flex within the display screen and little or no within the keyboard. In addition to the stable construct, the Flex 5 has an affordable port choice together with two USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 1, one USB 3.1 Type-A Gen 1, a combo audio jack, a microSD reader, and a Kensington lock. Bonus factors: there’s a USB-C port on all sides for handy charging.

It is, nevertheless, a bit on the big facet as 13-inch Chromebooks go, at 0.7 inches thick and a weight slightly below three kilos. (It’s simply barely lighter than the Spin 713.) That makes it a bit heavy to carry as a pill for lengthy intervals of time, and also you’ll need one thing smaller in the event you’re searching for a tool you gained’t discover in your backpack. Still, it’s fairly transportable, and much from something I’d describe as heavy.

The keyboard is a spotlight of this system for me. The keys are backlit (not a assure at this value level) and look smooth in opposition to the black deck. It’s comfy, with 1.4mm of journey, with out being too loud. The touchpad can be a straightforward click on and fairly correct, although it’s on the tough facet texture-wise.

The 1920 x 1080 show is crisp and vivid. It additionally has stylus assist, although a pen isn’t included. It is noticeably blurrier than the Spin 713’s higher-resolution panel, nevertheless. It’s additionally not the brightest display screen round, maxing out at 250 nits, and I did see glare right here and there whereas I used to be working through the day. And I’m not a fan of its 16:9 facet ratio — Chromebooks that use 3:2 or 16:10 shows are in a position to cram noticeably extra display screen actual property right into a smaller chassis.

The 720p webcam is surprisingly usable. It delivers an image that’s grainy however correct, even in low-light settings. There’s a bodily shutter, although it’s very tiny and laborious to see. I couldn’t make it out except I leaned very near the webcam, and customarily simply felt round for it.

If you’ll be making lots of video calls, although, it is best to notice that the audio isn’t nice. Sound comes from two 2W front-facing audio system on both facet of the keyboard. My songs acquired loud sufficient, however all the things except for vocals (and particularly the percussion) was skinny and tinny.

My Flex 5 evaluation unit has an Intel Core i3-10110U, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of eMMC storage. (Per Amazon, its MSRP is $429.99, nevertheless it’s at the moment listed at $341.95.) The base mannequin, at the moment listed at $334.99, has an Intel Celeron 5205U processor (which is prone to be gradual) and 32GB of storage, and the highest $564.99 mannequin has the Core i3 in addition to 128GB of PCIe SSD storage (which ought to be a lot sooner than eMMC).

I used to be stunned by how nicely my Flex 5 unit carried out. The Core i3 flies. I noticed no seen sluggishness or slowdown, even after I was operating a number of packages like Adobe Lightroom and Google Photos on high of a heavy load of Chrome tabs and Android apps. The expertise wasn’t noticeably totally different from that of utilizing the Spin 713 with a Core i5 and an SSD (although it might make a distinction for you in the event you’re operating Linux or utilizing heavier apps).

Chrome OS ran simply high quality on this system. Features like a number of sign-in (which lets you swap between two accounts with out signing out and in) and pill mode (which has Android-esque gestures for simply switching between home windows and apps when you’re utilizing the Flex as a pill) didn’t give me any hassle. Most of the apps I normally use (primarily Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Gmail, Spotify, and Notepad) are serviceable lately on Chrome OS, although they nonetheless don’t provide a ton of profit over their browser counterparts. Strangely, Slack — the Android app I complain about essentially the most — was not out there for this system.

The Flex 5’s followers have been normally operating throughout my ordinary multitasking work (usually using round a dozen Chrome tabs and an app or two). They have been quiet sufficient that it wasn’t bothersome, however I did hear them (alongside some tiny coil whine) if I put my ear to the keyboard. Fortunately, they succeeded in protecting the chassis cool — the underside was usually toasty, however by no means so sizzling that I couldn’t maintain the system on my lap.

Battery life, nevertheless, was a disappointment. I averaged simply over 5 and a half hours of constant work with the display screen at 50 % brightness, operating some trials with a bunch of Android apps and a few simply with Chrome. That’s the worst end result I’ve seen from any latest Chromebook — the Spin 713 averaged seven hours and 29 minutes, and that also wasn’t an excellent end result for the class. The Flex additionally took some time to cost. The 45W adapter took an hour to juice the laptop computer’s battery as much as simply 54 % with gentle Chrome use.

Many of the sentences on this evaluation have had “but” on the finish. That’s as a result of virtually all the things in regards to the Flex 5 is appropriate… with some caveats. And that’s a good technique to describe my emotions about this Chromebook: acceptable with caveats. For a most of $429.99, that’s sufficient to earn it my advice as a stable midrange buy — particularly because it handles my workload in addition to any premium Chromebook I’ve examined just lately with out frying itself.

To put into perspective how low that value is: the Core i3 mannequin of the Chromebook Spin 713 (with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage) prices $699.99 — a minimal of $270 extra. The most cost-effective mannequin of the HP Envy x360 13 (our high funds Windows laptop computer), with an AMD Ryzen 5 chip in addition to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, is at the moment listed for a similar quantity. Both of those gadgets have decisive benefits, after all. The Spin 713 has a higher-resolution 3:2 show and Thunderbolt 4 assist in addition to the additional storage, whereas the Envy x360 has an unbelievable processor with first rate audio and good battery life.

The most vital profit most individuals will get from the additional cash is additional battery life and storage — however higher shows (particularly the Spin’s 3:2 facet ratio), higher audio system, and higher ports shall be a giant assist to some customers as nicely. But in the event you’re wed to the sub-$500 value level, you’re unlikely to seek out higher construct high quality, with a greater keyboard and a greater port choice, than the Flex 5, in both the Chromebook or Windows spheres. Premium Chromebooks with chassis to rival these of premium Windows laptops have been on the rise for a couple of years now, and it’s good to see that development extending to lower-priced gadgets as nicely.

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge