Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS model / 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
Appearance-wise, this 2-in-1 convertible laptop from Lenovo is slimmer than we expected. It’s lightweight, convertible, looks good, and has a touchscreen and stylus. Hence this device is in high demand on Amazon. You can see the other users review yourself, it’s one of the best seller notebooks. The back cover appears to be a matte finish and has a soft-touch structure.
Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS Introduction
📌 This 14″ touchscreen laptop is powered by AMD Ryzen 5 3500U CPU and 12 GB of RAM that makes this compact 2-in-1 convertible laptop pretty good at all of your computing tasks you throw at it.
Additionally, this Lenovo Flex 14 Ryzen 5 also includes a digital pen that you can use to draw or edit your picture with ease. Even managing 1080 videos, yes this small machine can handle that as well.
If you like to draw on your screen, this model is a Windows Ink compatible device, so you can draw and edit sketches with its included 5.5″ long Lenovo Active Pen. The pen is slightly thicker than the Bic stylus and has its own holder as well as good pressure sensitivity.
With the 12GB of RAM and SSD out of the box, it will fulfill your computing jobs without being sluggish. Most laptops in this price range, have max. 8GB of RAM, let alone being convertible and has a touchscreen as well.
For gaming, even though this is not built to game, but you will be surprised by how it is capable to play some titles with its integrated VEGA graphics.
Main Specs
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 3500U Processor |
| RAM | 12GB DDR4 RAM |
| Graphics | Integrated AMD Radeon Vega 8 |
| Storage | 256GB NVMe SSD |
| Display | 1920×1080 Full-HD touchscreen |
Lenovo Flex 14 Ryzen 5 Performance
This Ryzen 5 3500 powered convertible model comes with the Quad-Core or 8-Thread AMD Ryzen 5 3500U CPU chip. This processor is the new processor from AMD which was tested in benchmarks to perform better than the more expensive i5 from Intel. This happens due to the fact that this AMD CPU has newer processing architecture than the i5 series 9th generation or then-superior i7 series from 2012.
The Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS with Ryzen 5 3500UThe CPU of this model beats the 9th gen i5 series in every battle except the single-core test, even then it only lost by lower than 1%. Also, this processor version is more efficient, using a lot less power, and it is not easy to get overheat.
The integrated Vega 8 graphic helps the CPU to handle your device graphics considerably better too. Hence Xbox and Playstation use the exact same CPU chip.
Memory
This laptop has pre-installed 12GB of dual-channel DDR4-200MHz RAM (The GPU will use the 2GB ).
There are two slots of them, 1x 4GB is soldered to its motherboard, and the other slot is populated with 1×8 GB RAM which you can upgrade.
This dual-channel memory helps tremendously the GPU performance, you will be able to play games, for instance, Forza Horizon 4 smoothly with a 30 FPS setting. In short, the 12GB memory is more than sufficient for your daily computing with this little convertible machine.
The memory of this unit is a system-wide memory, which means it runs all of the operations of your Windows system. It also supports the integrated Vega 8 graphics card.
Lenovo Flex 14The Flex 6-14 model number 81SS000DUS, is shipped with a single M.2 NVMe 256GB SSD drive. The Solid State Drive is a PClex4 M.2 NVME Western Digital drive that has an excellent transfer rate up to 400MB/s and 3.GB reading- and 1.6GB writing speed.
Display
The screen of this Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS is a 14″ IPS LCD FHD with 1920×1080 resolution and with LED Backlight.
Compare it with this Acer Spin 3 Convertible
The touchscreen display is also has a 360-degree flip feature on the hinges of the screen, so you can choose to use it as a normal laptop, a tablet, or a tent. The combination of the Lenovo Active Pen and the full-HD touchscreen works flawlessly and you can adjust the settings as well.
To turn off or disable the touchscreen feature, check out this instruction (it’s a Windows thing, not the laptop’s config).
Keyboard
The Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS comes with a white-colored backlight keyboard that has 2 brightness levels which is very useful to type on if you are in the darkroom. To disable the backlight, you can press FN + Spacebar keys at the same time.
Although you cannot detach the keyboard, since it has the 360-degree hinges, you can flip the keyboard to the back and use your laptop as a tablet. There is also a fingerprint scanner for the security option.
Battery Life
Battery life is more than decent since it runs a 45Wh low battery. When you use your laptop more intensely, you will get shorter battery life as expected on most laptops. This Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS has 5-8 hours battery life, depending on how intense you are using your device.
If you set everything to low power usage, such as dim screen, etc, you can achieve the advertised battery life, which is 10 hours.
Other Features
The right-hand side portsThis Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS has a total of 9 ports. On the left side, there are 1x DC-in, 1x HDMI, 1x USB-C 3.0, and 1x Audio Jack. Then there is a 1x Novo button (Lenovo made this special button made by Lenovo to help you when your laptop fails to boot), the power button, SD Card Reader slot, and 2x USB 3.1 located on the right side of the laptop.
As to power your device, you cannot charge it over the USB-C port as this unit has its own special power port. When you use a 65W AC Adapter, Rapid Charge Technology will automatically help the quick charging.
The 4-in-1 SD card slot can accept SD, SDXC, SDHC, and MMC cards. Other features are built-in Bluetooth 4.1, and 802.11 AC Wi-Fi, as well as the 720p HD webcam.
The 81SS000DUS vs Lenovo Flex 14 81SS0005US model
12GB vs 8GB of RAM (the one we are reviewing right now has 12GB of RAM, on the left)
These two models just have a different name and different pre-installed RAM but the other features are exactly the same. The 81SS0005US model has only 8GB of RAM and this one has 12.
Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS vs Microsoft Surface Go
First off, this Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS is an actual laptop. You can use it as a tablet when flipped around. It has two USB 3.1 ports, and a USB-C connector while the Microsoft Surface Go doesn’t. The Surface Go is more to a tablet, and only has one SD card slot. The surface does not include any USB ports.
Flex 14 81SS000DUS vs Surface Go
Furthermore, the Microsoft Surface Go has eMMC storage, meanwhile, this one has SSD storage. SSD has stronger performance and bigger storage capacity. eMMC type of drives is often used in smartphones and cameras.
In terms of keyboard, this one has a built-in keyboard, Microsoft Surface Go does not. Microsoft Surface Go has a Bluetooth keyboard which is not as solid as a laptop’s keyboard like this one.
Both devices are good in our opinion, it depends on what you need. Microsoft Surface Go is more portable since it is not a full laptop, but a tablet. We think this Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS is better when it comes to the performance. As it packs the newest Ryzen 5 CPU and a more powerful SSD drive.
Useful Links
- Users manuals of this Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS
- A USB pluggable universal port that you can use as a docking station for this laptop.
- A charger supply as a replacement or a second power supply.
Lenovo Flex 4 14 Review Verdict
For the 500 price range laptops, this Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS is a great value.
The newer and powerful specs on this device are all that you want for daily and business use. Thanks to the SSD and 12GB of RAM this laptop can boot up in a few seconds.
So if you want to experience a 2-in-1 device with a full-HD 1080p screen, SSD, and more of RAM and don’t want to spend more than 600, then this Lenovo Flex 14 81SS000DUS is for you.
