Lenovo Flex 14 2-in-1 Convertible Laptop, 14 Inch FHD Touchscreen Display, AMD Ryzen 5 3500U Processor, 12GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD, Windows 10, 81SS000DUS, Black, Pen Included

La mejor laptop para estudiantes universitarios. Duradera y rápida

**GNU/Linux distribution notes at the end of this review.A very nice laptop and it feels premium. The material is mostly plastic but I appreciate that for the reduced weight. This is my first Ryzen machine, and I am mainly using it to run a Citrix environment (cloud-based VM). Today will be the first full 8+-hour day using it. The power brick is not excessively huge. About the width and height of a standard post-it note, and 1" thick. The cable is over 5' (my measuring tape only goes to 60") closer to 6'. It has a barrel connector so unfortunately, it is not easily replaceable with a USB C cable (next model, pretty please?)The keyboard is backlit, which is nice for the darker surrounding often found in my home office. Typing is okay, but there is a noticeably shorter key travel than other laptops/Chromebooks I have used. I'm getting used to it, but like with any new keyboard, there will be a small learning curve. I keep missing the home row and using the Caps Lock as the A key for some reason. I'm using it on a small folding table at the moment so that could be the reason.The screen is nice, it is a 16:9 full HD screen, and for me, I prefer 16:9 to the new standard of 2:3 (more of a square). It is not bright though. Not at all. Even with the curtains open, there are times when I am still trying to get more brightness out of this display. It's not unusable, but forget trying to use it outdoors.The touch is fine and works. I did not buy this to use as a tablet though but Windows 10 has some processing going on in the background that makes it easy to hit small buttons in applications without being terribly accurate. The pen is interesting to me as it is roughly the size of a real pen [*cough* Samsung*cough*] which makes it easier to draw/write without immediately cramping my hand.The Dolby Audio on the speakers leaves a lot to be desired. Some tweaking was needed to get the overblown sounds to subside. During the initial setup, it was hard to listen to. Turning Dolby Audio off though somehow reduces the speaker volume by 2/3... Not the actual volume percentage, but the actual sound. Dolby is using some sort of gain control so 20% volume sounds more like 40%.4k video on YouTube looks great and only dropped 3 frames in a 2:44 video (Borderlands 3 FL4K FTW!) but that could have been from me trying to make it full-screen. I have not tried any games yet, but I did install Diablo 3, and World of Warcraft Classic. If anyone is interested, I will update this when I try them.With the Vega graphics, there is an automatic 2GB reduction in RAM availability. Couple this with the 8GB model and you are left with 6GB to run Windows 10 and any applications. Budget for the 12 GB model unless you are A) skilled with laptop hardware, and B) don’t care about the warranty. I’ve seen the tear-downs, and there is an open RAM slot. I usually don’t tear open electronics until a year after I own it (unless there is a reason to do so).The WiFi issue that is detailed on the 8GB model is non-existent for me. I feel like I may be more qualified to test that as Citrix requires a constant network connection and gives an immediate alert if connectivity drops for more than a couple seconds. No issues here, running the latest Windows updates.Overall I’m happy with this laptop, It is much lighter than my 15” Acer Predator and looks a lot more professional when traveling for work.EDIT 8/31/2020: I've been experimenting with GNU/Linux/Ubuntu distributions and I have a small list of what is NOT working with no additional modifications/installs. All of the images were flashed via Etcher (with verification) onto a PNY Elite Turbo Attache 4 and ran in live mode (no install).Tails OS 4.10 - I was not able to connect a Bluetooth mouse (only Bluetooth device I had available) and it did not appear to allow Bluetooth to remain on after moving to another settings screen. The dual mapped function keys worked for brightness and sound.Debian 10.5.0 (Cinnamon) - I was not able to see any network, or even manually connect to one. The brightness function keys (F11 and F12) display the icon as if it is changing the display brightness, but the actual brightness of the display remains at 100%Linux Mint 20 (Cinnamon) - Probably the most compatible distribution with this laptop without any additional modifications. My Bluetooth mouse connected without issue (MUCH quicker than on Windows) and the dual mapped FN keys work as expected with the exception of the built-in webcam disable (F8)

First Impressions:I bought this laptop for high school. My last laptop was a big, clunky, heavy Lenovo laptop. I never noticed how slow it became before it was too late, and I had an assignment ruined because it took 5 minutes for the laptop to start up. So, you can imagine my excitement when I opened the computer and signed in and opened a browser in less than 1 minute. The pen took some getting used to, but I can reliably use it as a whiteboard when studying. The specs looked intriguing to me, with an SSD and 12gb of ram. It's leagues faster than my old laptop.A couple of weeks in:I am satisfied with this purchase, and I probably won't buy another laptop until halfway through college. As a student, this fits my needs perfectly. The battery lasts a full day at school, the 360-degree rotation is useful, and the fast start-up times makes keeping up with a teacher easy.Price:I'm a high school kid working a minimum wage job who's exceptionally cheap, so keep that in mind. I bought this laptop used for around 430$. It said there would be a scratch, but I don't see it. For that price, I would call this a steal, but for 531$ plus tax, I would say it's what you pay for.Likes:The pen is a useful inclusion. I did not expect myself to be using it. I like studying for the SAT around night time, and I used to use a whiteboard. I can use the laptop as a whiteboard in both tablet and tent mode. Yeah, the USB holding port is in an inconvient spot, but I just carry the pen in my backpack. However, there are disappointments that I'll talk about below.It works for light- ish gaming. Minecraft runs around 60FPS and usually higher in vanilla; CSGO runs smoothly as usual. I haven't tried it for newer, extreme games, and I doubt it will run them well.It's fast. The ram and SSD rarely have me waiting for anything not involving slow internet. I can boot it up in seconds, and signing in with my finger is a nice touch, although I don't know if it's incredibly useful after that.The keyboard feels great to type on for a laptop. I like the tactile feedback that it gives.Dislikes:The screen is crisp, but I didn't think it would be that small. Everything on the computer is zoomed in 150%, and if you zoom out to 100%, it looks tiny. Words are easy enough to read normally but forget about using two windows side by side if you do that a lot. A lot of programs don't know what to do when zoomed in and have terrible zoomed-in quality.The glare is sort of obnoxious. It's fine most of the time, but when the laptop has a dimmed screen, you could use it kind of like a mirror. At least you can see when teachers are behind you? If you don't work around windows and natural lighting, you probably won't notice, though. Max brightness mostly solves it.The pen feature is great but only shines when used as a pure whiteboard and not a computer with it. I use it as a board and have my desktop in front of me, answering questions on Khan Academy. I tried using it on the laptop, but never got used to it. Some ads show off how easy it is to draw on the screen, but in reality, you actually draw on it either using Microsoft Edge (meh) or using the screen capture annotation thing. Edge would have worked well, except every time you start drawing, you no longer can interact with the webpage itself. The page refreshes after, which sort of defeats the purpose. The screen capture is useful enough, but switching back and forth constantly is kind of annoying when you're already annoyed about doing homework.Conclusion:Overall, I would buy this laptop if it were on sale. At full price, it is a decent pick up if you have the money and an affinity for what this laptop has to offer. As a student, it fits all my needs. There are problems with the screen, glare, and pen feature. The screen issues come with having a touchscreen laptop, but the annotating feature works well enough, and definitely can be improved. I'd give a solid 4/5.