Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 15 review

The laptop’s integrated Intel HD Graphics 4400 just passed our Dirt Showdown benchmark as well, producing 20.5fps on High quality at a 1,280×720 resolution. This isn’t quite fast enough to play 3D games at a comfortable speed, but we managed a much smoother 35.1fps when we set the quality to Low at the same resolution. This will be welcome news for those who like to play games on the move, but don’t expect it to handle the very latest 3D titles without some serious compromises in graphical fidelity.

The most impressive part of the Flex 15 was its outstanding battery life. It lasted 10 hours and 34 minutes in our light use test with the screen set to half brightness, which is a full three hours longer than the original Yoga 13. This is easily one of the best scores we’ve seen for a laptop of this price, so you can sure the Flex 15 won’t let you down if you’re using on the move.

The keyboard was great to use for long word documents as its springy keys gave lots of tactile feedback. They’re sensibly spaced, too, and there’s enough room for a numeric keypad as well. The only thing we didn’t like was the hard plastic edge round the keyboard tray, as this had a tendency to dig into our wrists while we were typing.

This wasn’t too much of an issue compared to the all-in-one touchpad, though, as we found it quite fiddly to use when navigating the desktop. Occasionally it froze completely, but our biggest complaint was how little feedback we received when we tried clicking on files and icons. Multi-touch gestures also veered between being wildly sensitive and sluggishly stilted, with two-finger scrolling being particularly tricky to get right, as even small movements made the page scroll very quickly.

The Flex 15 has a good range of ports for such a slim laptop, including three USB ports, one of which is USB3, an HDMI video output for connecting the laptop to an external display, an SD and MMC card reader, a Fast Ethernet port and a combined headphone and microphone jack.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 15 isn’t without its problems, but it’s a fun alternative to the more expensive Yoga hybrids and its flexible hinge makes it stand out from other similarly priced touchscreen laptops. It’s also got the hardware to compete with more expensive Ultrabooks and it’s one of the cheapest two-in-one devices we’ve tested this year. If all you’re looking for is a powerful mid-range laptop, the £480 Toshiba Satellite C55-A-1N0 is the better buy, but for those who want a novel hybrid without breaking the bank, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 15 could be for you.