Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14 takes the concept Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga Headed to 11S ($ 999) and Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, and gives us a 75% version: screen does not swing all the way around. Price shift getting us a bigger battery pack with more battery life, but there are other tradeoffs. The IdeaPad Flex 14 acts as a second or third laptop at home, especially if you have children who are to draw on the screen with their finger, but in general there are other more traditional laptop touch screen to make it more relevant for most users.

Design and Features
Until you flip the screen around, the Flex looks like an average 14, if flashy, laptop. The system comes either in black with silver gray side (like our test system) or in black with bright orange edges. The system measures about 0.84 by 13.5 by 10 inches (WHD) and weighs 4.03 pounds. These days pretty bulky compared to the recent crop of premium ultrabooks like two-pound Acer Aspire S7-191-6640, but relatively light compared to some other midrange desktop replacement laptop like Edtiors' Choice-winning Asus N550JV-DB72T ($ 1,079), which weighs about six pounds.

The Flex 14 screen swings 300 degrees around its unique hinge. It is similar in concept to the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 ($ 999) we consider the previous year, although the Flex 14 is not completely flip around in tablet mode. The two modes that the Flex 14 concentrates on the traditional laptop mode and the aptly named stand mode, where the bottom of the laptop is thus swung around a table facing the keyboard and screen facing the user. The Flex 14 is designed swing and the top surface of laptop mechanism to ensure that the keyboard and trackpad do not rest on the table while you are using the system in stand mode. The net effect of stand mode the screen closer to the user touching the screen, and no keyboard surface distracting you when you're watching videos or viewing pictures. In summary, the stand mode works fine when you have a table or desk in front of you. Works better traditional laptop mode when you use the laptop on your lap.

The screen is a 14-inch, 1366-by-768 resolution 10-point touch screen. This means that you will be able to use touch-based UI Windows 8 is relatively easy, although a bit tight screen resolution means you can not view 1080p HD video natively (instead shrunk them down), and you might miss the extra screen room when you are in desktop mode or working with large documents such as spreadsheets. Because of this, the screen is good sized for drawing and painting program, especially if you do not mind I'm working on small, detailed sections of larger works.

The 128GB SSD is pre-partitioned into a C: drive and D: drive. The D: drive is about 25GB, and almost 100GB C: drive is about 45GB free only when you take the system out of the box. This begs the question: Why bother with the data drive? While you can Argue that the 25GB drive data is safe in case you need to reinstall Windows 8, it is a smallish partition data can be replaced by a 32GB SD card anyway.

In addition to the SD card reader, the Flex 14 has a pair of USB 2.0 ports and a single USB 3.0 port for external peripherals such as hard drives. The Flex 14 has a HDMI port and Widi compatible in case you have a need to use an external display such as an HDTV. Other connectivity includes an Ethernet port, 802.11 b / g / n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. With 8Gb of system memory, you should be fine multi-tasking and keeping more than a dozen browser tabs open.

The Flex 14 has several programs pre-installed, such as McAfee Security Advisor, Accuweather, Kindle, rara.com, Evernote, Skype, Encycolpedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster dictionary, Zinio, Movies on TV, eBay, SugarSync , Office, and Dragon Assistant. You can use the Dragon Assistant to issue voice commands to Flex 14, but on the whole you are probably better off using the touch screen, especially in a noisy environment such as a coffee shop. Speaking of coffee shop, if you are often away from home, you'll appreciate the fact that the Flex 14 has a removable battery, so you can swap out for a fully charged spare (available separately).