Lenovo ideapad 5 15.6 review

The Lenovo ideapad 5 15.6 is an ultraportable Windows laptop available with various Intel 11th Gen processors. It has a full-aluminum chassis that feels sturdy, and it's easy to carry around, thanks to its compact design. Its battery life is decent as it lasts a little over 8 hours of light productivity, so depending on your workload, you may have to plug it in for a quick charge to get through the workday. The screen gets bright enough for use in most settings, and the keyboard doesn't cause fatigue over extended periods. Its Intel Core i5 CPU provides a smooth experience in general productivity tasks like web browsing, text formatting, and spreadsheets, and it can even handle some heavier workloads like photo editing. However, its integrated GPU isn't powerful enough for demanding tasks like AAA gaming. Unfortunately, the screen produces washed-out colors, and the webcam's video quality is only okay as the image looks noisy and underexposed.

The tested Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15 has an Intel Core i5-1135G7 CPU, integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 8GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. You can also configure the laptop with a Core i3-1115G4, an i5-1155G7, an i7-1165G7, or an i7-1195G7. There isn't a huge performance difference between the Core i5s and Core i7s; however, the i3-1115G4 will perform significantly worse in multi-threaded applications because it has fewer cores and threads. There's a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX450 GPU option; however, it doesn't perform much better than the Core i7's Iris Xe Graphics, so it isn't worth it unless you need its 2GB of dedicated VRAM for specific applications. While you can configure the memory from 4GB up to 16GB, it's best to avoid the 4GB option as it can cause slowdowns or stutters when multitasking.