Efficiency is lackluster however on par with the Asus ProArt, the one different Snapdragon Plus machine I’ve examined up to now. Compared to Snapdragon Elite techniques, on normal functions and net work, anticipate a couple of 20 % efficiency drop and considerably extra on graphics-related duties, the place the IdeaPad runs at about half the framerate. Some Copilot+ PC options struggled, reminiscent of translated Stay Captions, although the Cocreator AI picture creation system was moderately expedient.
I figured there could be a silver lining to the laptop computer’s sluggishness in that the IdeaPad will surely show to have excellent battery life, however that sadly wasn’t the case. Whereas the ProArt pulled down a near-record 19+ hours of working time, the IdeaPad mustered barely over 9 hours in my full-screen YouTube take a look at and below 12 hours on a second run-through. Which may be positive for entertaining the children for the day, nevertheless it pales compared to most different Snapdragon machines.
One other problem: At 3.3 kilos and 22 mm thick, the IdeaPad 5x is moderately gargantuan for its display dimension. I needed to scroll again to 2016 in my testing information to search out one thing with a 14-inch display that was heavier. (That stated, some 14.4-inch techniques launched since have additionally been on the beefy aspect.) The load is noticeable, each on the lap and when you’re attempting to make use of it as a pill—although on the plus aspect, the system is useless quiet both approach. I couldn’t get the fan to register a lot as a hum, even below a stress-test load.
The value nonetheless makes this laptop computer a minimum of vaguely interesting, and on a price-performance stage, the numbers don’t look all that dangerous. Nevertheless, some base stage of efficiency remains to be a requirement given how power-hungry trendy functions are usually, even on a funds machine, and at $850 the IdeaPad 5x isn’t so extremely low-cost as to permit its drawbacks to be simply neglected.