Lenovo Flex 6 11 - Review 2022

The Flex 6 11 ($329.99) is the least-expensive Windows-based 2-in-one convertible laptop that Lenovo makes. Its principal competition is the Acer Spin 1, our reigning Editors' Choice laurels winner for this class of tiny, versatile, and cheap laptop. Despite sharing the same price and screen size, every bit well as similar skillful looks and Intel Celeron processors, the ii models have dissimilar roads on their style to budget-convertible excellence. On the outside, the Flex 6 11 loses points for its plastic chassis and low-resolution screen; the Spin one delivers a metal enclosure and 1080p sharpness. Both models avowal touch on support, only the Flex 6 lacks the Spin 1'south pen back up and active pen. In the stop, the Acer Spin 1 retains its chugalug, just the Lenovo Flex 6 11 doesn't become down without a fight.

Classy Looks in a Budget 2-in-one

The Flex 6 11 I tested is built around a Celeron processor that I'll get into in more than detail subsequently, but it's backed by just 2GB of memory to the Spin i's 4GB of RAM. On the storage front end, this test configuration tops the Spin 1; the Flex half-dozen 11 has 64GB of eMMC wink storage to the Spin 1's barely acceptable 32GB. Note that this is the $329.99 configuration, and there is i other model in Lenovo'southward Flex 6 11 line to note: A $399.99 configuration steps you up to a slightly improved Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. (Note that that's a true SSD, as opposed to slower eMMC flash.) That's a pretty major crash-land in core specs for about $70.

Lenovo as well offers a broadly like Chromebook version of this car, more a cousin than a sibling to the Flex six 11 models. The Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook has a slightly different design and runs Chrome Bone. The guts are a MediaTek 8173C processor, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of eMMC wink storage.

Unlike past upkeep two-in-i convertible efforts, such as the Asus VivoBook W202, that ended upward looking like cheap netbooks (remember those?), the Lenovo Spin 6 eleven masks its budget condition underneath an upscale facade. It features a compact, fairly firm plastic chassis with a two-tone color scheme Lenovo calls Onyx Black. The lid and bottom panel are a deep charcoal gray, and the keyboard deck is a shade lighter.

The narrow, beveled edges of the keyboard deck and touchpad feature a cool chrome emphasis, and a thick piano-blackness bezel frames the brandish. On the whole, it adds up to an attractive package, simply I prefer the solid, metallic-dominant feel and looks of the Acer Spin i.

The Flex 6 11 is a hair lighter than the metal Spin ane, weighing 2.7 pounds to the Spin one'due south ii.8 pounds, but it is likewise bigger and thicker. The Flex half dozen xi measures 0.vii past 11.6 by 8 inches. It's past no means a chore to tote it around, and it feels comfortable and natural in its primary purpose as a laptop.

Like other non-detachable convertibles, the Flex vi 11 screen rotates all the way around, so yous can utilize information technology as a role-time tablet. In addition to laptop and tablet modes, y'all can apply the Flex 6 11 in tent mode (with the screen tilted back 270 degrees and the automobile resting on the top edge of its lid and front edge of the chassis) or stand way (screen tilted dorsum, keyboard face down). Note that the Flex half-dozen xi is a total 360-degree-rotating car; early on Lenovo Flex models from years dorsum had hinges that rotated through merely function of the range, differentiating the Flex machines from Lenovo's total-rotation Yoga models. No more.

That said, while these Flex hinges rotate the whole way, Lenovo's chassis design on the Flex vi 11 makes opening the hat a bit of a chore. The seam between the 2 halves of the system is slight, and the slanted edges of each half are angled the same way, making it tricky to grab the border of the brandish to raise it. An Apple MacBook-like cut-out or notch on the front edge of the keyboard deck would help your finger find purchase. Alas, y'all'll take to dig a thumbnail in that seam to pry open up the hat.

Quiet Keys, Clacky Touchpad

Once y'all manage to open the Flex 6 11, you'll become your fingers on its roomy, full-size keyboard. Despite the trim dimensions of this 11.half-dozen-inch laptop, the keyboard doesn't feel cramped, and the keys offer a firm feel with the right corporeality of travel. They are likewise supremely serenity and don't suffer from whatsoever of the cheap, clacky feel that plagues other budget laptops.

The only complaint we have virtually the Flex 6 xi's keyboard isn't with the keys themselves just the keyboard deck. It—ahem—flexed a bit when nosotros were typing. As well, given the aggressive price, keyboard backlighting is not an option, which is a bummer only fully understandable in a budget auto like this.

The touchpad offers enough space and a friction-free matte surface to make mousing around it comfy. Different the quiet keys, though, the touchpad offers too much vertical travel, and you'll hear a loud click when it is pressed.

Some 11.half dozen-inch-screened models, such as the Spin i, boast a 1080p (1,920-by-one,080-pixel) display, but most brand you lot get by with a 1,366-by-768-pixel native screen resolution. The Flex half-dozen xi is, indeed, similar most. The display is fairly bright, with accurate colors, but despite Lenovo's claims that it has an anti-glare finish, I institute the display to have a glossy coating decumbent to glare and reflections. Too, note that a college-resolution display would non only offering a crisper image, but also give you more effective screen real estate in which to juggle windows.

Above the brandish sits a 720p webcam, which is a class better than the VGA cam y'all get with the Spin 1 and many other upkeep notebooks and 2-in-1 models. It suffices for workaday apply; the audio, though, only barely. The Flex 6 eleven features two downwards-firing speakers that offer simply muddy, tinny sound.

For a tiny, cheap laptop, the Flex 6 11 offers in a higher place-boilerplate connectivity. On the left border, you'll find the power jack, a USB two.0 port, a total-size SD-card reader, and a headphone jack. On the right sits an HDMI port, an e'er-on USB 3.0 port, a USB Blazon-C port, and the ability button.

A Celeron's Struggle for Respect

Both the Lenovo Flex half dozen 11 and the Acer Spin one characteristic Intel Celeron processors. The Flex vi 11 uses the newer Celeron N4000, which was released at the end of 2022, while the Spin 1 features the Celeron N3350 that was released a year earlier. Both chips are low-power dual-core chips with a base frequency of 1.1GHz, but the N4000 can ramp upward to 2.6GHz, while the N3350 is rated to go only to ii.4GHz.

Maybe more significantly, the Celeron N4000 has double the cache, at 4MB, versus the N3350. The Flex 6 11'southward processor advantage helped it overcome its disadvantage in overall arrangement retentiveness (2GB of RAM, as we mentioned, to the Spin i'due south 4GB). Even the Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook has 4GB of memory, and Chrome Bone requires a fraction of the system resources that Windows does to run smoothly. So I'd think twice about that 4GB RAM/128GB SSD $399 configuration, given the risk.

Despite its modest specs, the Flex vi xi performed well enough for the price on our PCMark 8 benchmark...

Where the Acer Spin 1 failed to consummate the test, the Flex vi 11 not only finished the test (never a given amid entry-level laptops), but also bested pricier models in the Acer Spin 3 and the Dell Latitude 3189.

Also, on our media-crunching trials, the Flex six 11 was able to go along pace with the Spin 3 and Latitude 3189 on Cinebench and Photoshop. (It fell back a chip on Handbrake.) Information technology topped the Spin 1 on all four tests with ease.

The battery life was admirable, if not exceptional. The Flex 6 and its 3-jail cell, 36-watt-hr battery finished in the middle of the pack on our video-rundown battery-drain examination, with an impressive fourth dimension of 11 minutes and 10 minutes. That's enough juice to become through fifty-fifty the longest of work or school days. Secretly, I hoped it would be longer, given the 1,366-by-768-pixel native screen resolution. Low-res screens like this i tin deliver gaudy off-plug runtimes.

As with any depression-powered laptop with integrated graphics, the Flex six xi did not behave itself well on our 3D tests. Y'all'll need to stick to coincidental, browser-based games while also keeping your number of open up tabs reasonably small.

Now, benchmarking is all well and skillful, but this machine had just 2GB of RAM, then some extensive anecdotal testing was in social club, too. Alas, at times, the Flex 6 eleven felt similar it was either testing our patience or struggling to keep up with our demands. Don't confuse its respectable showing in labs testing for peppy responsiveness across the board; at times, the Flex half-dozen xi struggles to run Windows smoothly. Now and then, I noted a filibuster between giving a control and Windows responding to it. And that delay but grows longer the more windows and browser tabs you take open.

On the plus side, the Flex 6'southward hardware components are then depression-ability that they don't crave active cooling, allowing the machine to run in blissful silence.

A Decent Value, If You're Patient

How tin we however prefer the Acer Spin ane to the Lenovo Flex 6 xi when the latter outclassed the former in formal labs testing, you enquire? For the simple reason that, regardless of their differences in criterion results, both systems are upkeep models that suffice for running only basic Windows tasks, preferably ane program at a fourth dimension. Just because the Flex 6 xi was faster than the Acer Spin ane at editing photos in Photoshop and encoding a video in Handbrake doesn't hateful it's a good fit for media-creation and -editing work in anything but isolated situations.

With its minor, low-res display, low-end CPU, and small dollops of memory and storage, the Flex 6 11 is best suited for browsing the web and running Microsoft Function docs—and not a lot more. If you need a calorie-free-duty, Windows-based convertible laptop on the cheap, it will practise the job, but the Acer Spin 1 remains our become-to.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/laptops/27015/lenovo-flex-6-11

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