Performance is weak but on par with the Asus ProArt, the only other Snapdragon Plus machine I've tested to date. Compared to the Snapdragon Elite system, expect about a 20 percent performance drop on general applications and web tasks, and a significantly greater drop on graphics-related tasks, where the IdeaPad runs at about half the framerate. Some CoPilot+ PC features struggled, like translated live captions, though the CoCreator AI image generation system was reasonably expedient.
I thought there would be a silver lining to the laptop slowdown in that the IdeaPad would definitely prove to have excellent battery life, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. While ProArt clocked down a near-record 19+ hours of run time, the IdeaPad lasted barely more than 9 hours on my full-screen YouTube test and less than 12 hours on the second run-through. That might be fine for keeping the kids entertained all day long, but it pales in comparison to most other Snapdragon machines.
Another issue: At 3.3 pounds and 22 mm thick, the IdeaPad 5x is too big for its screen size. I had to scroll back to 2016 to find something heavy with a 14-inch screen in my test records. (That said, some 14.4-inch systems released since then are also on the sturdier side.) The weight is noticeable, both in the lap and if you're trying to use it as a tablet — though On the plus side, the system is absolutely quiet either way. I couldn't get the fan to register that much sound even under stress-test load.
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Photograph: Christopher Null
Still the price makes this laptop at least a little attractive, and at the price-performance level, the figures don't look that bad. However, some base level of performance is still a requirement, given how power-hungry modern applications are, even on a budget machine, and at $850 the IdeaPad 5x isn't so incredibly cheap that its shortcomings can easily be overstated. Can be ignored.