Great performance for a value price, but there are some compromises. Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15ITL05 82FG00MRHV has a great balanced specification sheet which makes this laptop stand out as being one of the more intriguing deals in terms of value. It offers a lot of performance for the price. However, there is a very large compromise with the screen and that must be taken into consideration.
The 15.6" inch screen is very spacious indeed, which is a good thing. However, with 45% NTSC, the screen seems a bit washed out. It has mediocre saturation. The screen is not completely terrible though, it's just not great considering the Apple MacBook Air 2020, MSI Modern, and MSI Prestige exist in the same price range. Luckily, the screen gets bright, and the bezels are quite thin all the way around, both of which are highly redeeming qualities.
The Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15ITL05 82FG00MRHV costs 735 EUR (or 870 USD) for the machine alone, sold without any operating system. Adding another 130 EUR (or 150 USD) for the Windows 10 license, adds up to a total final price of 865 EUR (or 1020 USD) for a working machine. This price includes all taxes.
Overview
15.6" Screen size diagonal length
1.7kg Mass
Intel Tiger Lake intel core i5-1135G7 28W TDP CPU
NVIDIA GeForce MX450 dGPU
8 GB DDR4 RAM
256 GB M.2 SAMSUNG MZALQ256HAJD-000L2
57Wh 4880mAh battery
Open 2.5" drive caddy with SATA-to-MB upgrade kit
735 Euro price at retail
960 Euro price as tested
Rivals
Last year’s previous model can save some money. Current generation laptops with similar specs all cost around 700-1000 EUR (or 800-1000 USD) but notice that the IdeaPad 5 15 of this review is cheaper than most options. Additionally, there is the Apple MacBook Air 2020 M1 which is recommended for its great screen and powerful fan-less operation. However, the MacBook lacks any options for upgrades and maintenance. Feel free to learn more about any of these competing models. Although, all these competitors struggle to beat the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15ITL05 82FG00MRHV.
1. Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15IIL05 Intel Core i5-1035G1 NVIDIA GeForce MX350 (15.6" 1.7kg) 799 EUR
2. HP Envy 13-ba1475ng Intel Core i7-1165G7 NVIDIA GeForce MX450 (13.3" 1.3kg) 1099 EUR
3. HP Envy 17-cg1356ng Intel Core i5-1135G7 NVIDIA GeForce MX450 (17.3" 2.4kg) 1000 EUR
4. HP Pavilion 15-eg0025cl Intel Core i7-1165G7 NVIDIA GeForce MX450 (15.6" 1.7kg) 1000 EUR
5. Lenovo ThinkPad E15 Gen2-20TD002MGE Intel Core i7-1165G7 NVIDIA GeForce MX450 (15.6" 1.8kg) 1100 EUR
6. Dell Inspiron 13 5310-NJ24J Intel Core i5-11300H NVIDIA GeForce MX450 (13" 1.3kg)
7. Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro 16IHU6 Intel Core i5-11300H NVIDIA GeForce MX450 (16" 1.9kg) 999EUR
Body - It looks like a sharp svelte angular wedged shaped blade of metal.
The exterior design of this laptop is amazing. It is metal all around and feels great to the touch. The design is very sharp and angular, which of course isn't for everyone. The dark grey aluminum color is understated but also very nice due to its purplish undertone. The hinge opens 160 degrees, which is a good amount of articulation, almost 180 degrees. The laptop overall handles pretty well because its 1.7kg mass is quite light for a laptop with this screen size.
The only negative quality to mention about the body is that it is literally very sharp. This means that, right out of the box, the edges of the laptop's keyboard deck feel too sharp, as if it were not sanded properly. In fact, the edge is indeed sharp enough to create scratches or papercuts against the skin. Over time this sharpness lessens, and become more dull, but right out of the box, the computer is almost dangerously sharp.
Ports - USB C, good! Only just one, bad!
The laptop has a great set of connections. There is a fingerprint reader embedded power button, a single USB Type-C port which is also used for charging, a full-sized HDMI cable port, a 3.5mm combo headphone microphone jack, an SD card reader (with a rather short depth, by the way, so SD cards sit out by quite a lot, but on the plus side at least it has an SD card reader), and 2 USB Type-A ports. It has all of the basics.
Webcam - Picture can be adjusted easily with Lenovo Vantage software.
The webcam is a mediocre 720p camera, but this is really par for the course for almost all laptops. It should be noted that with direct sunlight and really good lighting the camera quality becomes much, much sharper, so it is recommended to think about the lighting when making video calls. What makes this setup standout is that Lenovo provides the capability to adjust the picture quality of the webcam, by adjusting brightness, contrast, and exposure. So, it is possible to tweak the camera to improve the picture quality to liking.
Maintenance
The laptop can be opened with a torx screwdriver and plastic prying tools. There are 9 torx screws holding the bottom together and some super strong plastic clips as well. After unscrewing the bottom, the plastic pry tools need to be used to dislodge the metal panel from the plastic clips.
The innards can be accessed through the bottom. The m.2 NVMe storage slot can be reached through the underside. There is also a bay for a SATA drive. The battery can be replaced. Note that there is a larger 70Whr battery available from Lenovo, however this will require that the SATA drive caddy is removed as it will fill in that space. The network card is another upgradeable part. Unfortunately, the RAM is soldered to the board; luckily, in dual channel though.
Warranty
36 Month warranty from Lenovo.
Keyboard
The typing experience overall is great, clearly a bit of ThinkPad genes are present. Key travel is nice because it doesn't feel too shallow. The key presses have a reasonable sound too, because it doesn't sound cheap, crude, and crackling, but instead they make a soft satisfying sound. They sound a bit like muffled thwacking. The keyboard includes a number pad. However, because of the numpad inclusion, the trackpad is positioned off-centered.
The keyboard backlight control is controlled manually allowing only 2 stages, bright and super bright (Fn+SPACEBAR). Unfortunately, the keyboard does not have a variable backlight brightness control with numerous stages, only this two-stage function. Unfortunately, the backlight does not automatically shut off, and the light remains on until manually turned off.
The battery life on the laptop, although great already, could be greater if Lenovo automatically dims or shuts off the backlit keyboard when there is no typing activity after some time. Manually turning on and off the keyboard backlight works fine, but automatic shut off would certainly save some battery. Despite the odd quirks of the keyboard backlight, it is still certainly nice to have a backlight at all. Overall, it’s a very good keyboard backlight.
Touchpad
The touchpad is really good. The glide factor feels smooth and accurate. It's a nice glass touchpad, with diving board design. Big enough but could be bigger.
Display - The one and only flaw
The matte screen used in the IdeaPad 5 here is great. The max brightness on this screen is bright enough, which is great. Thanks to the IPS technology, the laptop screen has great viewing angles, and the picture remains clear when viewing the screen from many directions. Viewing angles are spectacular on this laptop. The 1080p resolution is great, at about 157ppi the display is just about sharp enough, and this is not bad. As for the competition, smaller 1080p screens will look sharper since they have greater pixel density, however, regardless the 15.6" screen has sufficient detail.
The matte finish here is a very good choice. Matte displays can be preferable over glossy ones. Although glossy screens always tend to look sharper and nicer than matte screens, they have a massive downside of reflections which make the screen hard to view at times and fingerprint smudges pick up very easily.
However, this is where the complements end. There's some visible screen bleeding. Colors look grayish and washed out and gamma is a tad bit off. Basically, it is a very inaccurate display which lacks saturated colors that can look enticing. It’s a massive problem with this laptop that the screen is so bland. A richer screen would enhance multimedia experience on this laptop. Fortunately, the screen issue can be remedied to some degree. Diving into Control Panel and manually calibrating the screen to liking helps with alleviating the mediocrity of the screen.
Overall, the screen is almost a letdown, but because at least most laptops in this price range feature mediocre screens, the final verdict on the screen is neither totally negative or positive, but, in the end, apathetic. Try to see this basic screen as a sacrifice which allows the performance of this laptop to be afforded. The manufacturer had to cut costs somewhere in order to keep the sale price low, and seemingly this is the result. Sadly, Lenovo missed an opportunity here, because if this laptop had an amazing screen, it would feel so completed and well packaged that it would turn heads and become really popular amongst shoppers.
Performance - User adjustable
Memory here in this machine is very small at 8GB. This is the extreme lower limit for new laptops in 2021. Generally, it is hard to recommend any device with less than 16GB of RAM, but 8GB is not too bad if it is set up in dual channel mode. Luckily, in this Lenovo IdeaPad 5, the solder 8GB of memory is in dual channel mode. It is usable, just not ideal for future-proofing.
Despite the small memory, this computer can certainly perform. Key to this laptop's success is the ability to set the laptop into various performance modes. Each certainly make noticeable differences for how the computer runs. The modes, provided by the Lenovo Vantage application, are "Battery saving," "Intelligent cooling," and "Extreme performance." For each, the fan noise has different qualities while under heavy load: quiet, reasonable, loud AF respectively.
While "Extreme performance" mode is annoyingly loud it will provide the most enjoyable experiences while gaming. Basically, in "Extreme performance" mode it can get quite windy while gaming. "Intelligent cooling" mode is perhaps the best possible mode because it never becomes annoyingly loud, and it doesn’t severely throttle the CPU to manage heat. With "Intelligent cooling" mode the fan noise doesn't become too irritating. Its presence can certainly be heard, but it's a very soft noise for a fan blowing when the laptop is under heavy load.
Lastly "Battery saving" mode makes the computer virtually silent or fan-less, however it is very clear that this mode achieves this by severely throttling the CPU and limiting the maximum power output. However, regardless of which ever mode is selected, it is quite noticeable that this laptop is practically 100% quiet while doing lighter tasks outside of gaming. Word processing for example is completely silent, even outside of the silent "Battery saving" mode.
What Lenovo did here with fan noise here is quite interesting, because the user gets full control over fan speed and fan noise right outside of the box. This is a great feature for a power user. There's plenty of fan speed when it is needed. On the other hand, the user can switch the fan speed on demand, and the laptop can be forced to operate practically fan-less.
This laptop performs well both on battery and plugged in, although the performance is obviously throttled ever so slightly while on battery power, since there is a small but noticeable difference. The most energy-efficient and lightest power mode, which combines both the Lenovo Vantage "Battery saving" and Windows "Best Battery life" while on battery, seems to have 44% less single-core performance and 16% less multi-core performance compared to using the most performant setting Lenovo Vantage "Extreme performance" and Windows "Best Performance" while plugged in.
Maximum GeekBench 5.4 Score (while on battery) Intelligent cooling: "Battery saving" and Windows "Best Battery life" : Single Core 787 Multi-core: 3981
Maximum GeekBench 5.4 Score (while on battery) Intelligent cooling: "Extreme performance" and Windows "Best Battery life" : Single Core 963 Multi-core: 4119
Maximum GeekBench 5.4 Score (while on battery) Intelligent cooling: "Extreme performance" and Windows "Best Performance": Single Core 1388 Multi-core: 4699
Maximum GeekBench 5.4 Score (while Plugged in) Intelligent cooling: "Extreme performance" and Windows "Best Performance": Single Core 1413 Multi-core: 4747
Graphics card - Nvidia GeForce MX450
The MX450 is more or less a GTX 1650 with 2 GB GDDR6 video memory. Essentially, this card is a scaled back version of that older Turing processor. It is great for playing older titles, up to around 2018-2019 releases.
UL 3DMark Fire Strike v1.1 Benchmark Score (while Plugged in): 4935, Graphics score 5326, Physics score 12611, combined score 2004
UL 3DMark Time Spy v1.0 Benchmark Score (while Plugged in): 2770, Graphics score 2130, CPU Score 3622
Gaming performance
Using the Lenovo Vantage "Extreme performance" and Windows "Best Performance" while plugged in is quite nice while gaming, because it gives the computer that extra bit of muscle required to play some games. This is not a gaming laptop, but games have been tested on this machine and so far, each runs perfectly fine.
• Fallout New Vegas - It's possible to max it out and sustain 50-60 FPS
• Sims 4 - High 60 FPS
• Grand Theft Auto 5 - High 40FPS
• No Man Sky - Normal 30-60 FPS
More about No Man's Sky
The experience in No Man's Sky is playable only at the fairly low settings. The default settings is a very nice and playable experience. Though turning the settings down a bit makes it a bit more possible to get a more consistent 30-60 FPS frame rate. Consistent frame rates is only possible in the "Extreme performance" and "Intelligent cooling" modes. While "Extreme performance" mode will make the fans run really loudly, it seems to manage to keep the game playing at a constant 30 FPS for longer. Using the "Intelligent cooling" or "Battery saving" there will be some pretty bad occasional stutters and severe drops in frame rate, to as low as 10-12 FPS. It's clear there is plenty of throttling going on in these modes when they kept consistently under load. To avoid this, use Fn+Q to turn the laptop into the highest performance mode. The fan noise will be loud, but at least it will allow games to play smoothly.
Fan noise and temperature - Fans can be quite loud, but settings allow the user to force the laptop to run silently.
The cooling system is superb here because the laptop never becomes uncomfortable warm or hot. The temperature is managed very well. This laptop is almost always cool.
Fan noise is a contentious topic when it comes to this laptop. To clarify, the situation is actually excellent, because the user can manually adjust the fan speed. However, right out of the box, the laptop is unacceptably loud and thunderous. This is because the fan is set into performance mode right out of the box. Lenovo's "Extreme performance" can be a bit annoying at times because it adds very little performance advantage whilst adding a whole lot of noise.
After opening the box, and whilst installing windows and all the initial updates, the fan sounded like a rocket ship! Placing a hand near the vent, windy air pressure can be felt. This was certainly surprising.
Regardless, overall, the fan is too unbelievably loud when the computer is under heavy load and in "Extreme performance" mode, for example: playing games, installing updates, or anything that requires massive compute power. However, please keep in mind that on the bright side of things, the fan can be forced to remain quiet by setting the laptop to "Battery saving" mode. In this mode the laptop is completely 100% silent. So, it's not like the computer has a completely bad fan, or poor thermals. The computer fan is mostly good. It is just that when there is heavy load on the CPU, the fans kick up to an unacceptably loud level. For example, "Extreme performance" mode is not recommended for quiet classrooms or study halls. Under load, the fans really do sound like a small jet ready for takeoff.
Power consumption
Battery life is great. Lenovo Vantage setting the battery estimates provided by the Lenovo Vantage software are pretty accurate. A full battery can indeed last 10 hours of use. On battery, the battery life is adequate, and the laptop can easily last through as entire workday, when it is kept within its most power efficient mode Lenovo Vantage Intelligent cooling: "Battery saving" and Windows "Best Battery life." In this mode, the laptop operates completely silently, it is impossible to determine if the fan is running at all. Charge levels are also maintained very well when the laptop lid is closed and goes to sleep.
It's interesting to also notice the laptop behavior while plugged in. Spending hours editing video in Adobe Premiere, power draw never exceeded what the battery and wall adapter are capable of delivering. It is possible to exceed the power delivered, while gaming, however luckily this does not mean that it is inevitable while editing videos, or photos, or while working in CAD.
On the other hand, pushing the laptop to its max limits, for 2 hours of gameplay with No Man's Sky, it is evident that the laptop is using more wattage than the 65W power adapter can provide. In the timeframe of the test, the laptop dropped 3% from 99% to 96%. That's obviously a little disappointing. After all, it would be nice to see this laptop being fed enough power through the cord so that it can handle gaming. It's not all doom and gloom, because by turning on the rapid charging mode, quite a bit more juice is fed into the laptop. However, how this workaround will affect long-term battery life is unforeseen.
When the thunderbolt icon is display then rapid charge mode is on.
Thoughts
Imagine paying 735 EUR for an ultrabook fitted with an intel i5-1135G7 paired with an NVIDIA MX450 graphics processor. The value is excellent considering that other ultrabooks, like the MacBook Air 2020, does not allow user access through the bottom for customizations made by the user. In this unit, things like the battery, storage, network card, and other components can be easily upgraded.
The Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15ITL05 is within the same performance class and range as the M1, albeit slightly less performant overall. But the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 beats out the MacBook Air 2020 in terms of value considering the CPU & GPU combination performance with a power output that is very similar. In fact, based on benchmarks, it seems the processing power here is equivalent to Apple Silicon's A14 chip found in the iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPad Air (Gen 4).
Since there was an open drive bay, a 960GB Kingston 7mm 2.5" SSD, which costs 95 EUR (or 110 USD), was added to this review unit. Thus, the total price over the unit reviewed in this article is 960 EUR. Please keep in mind what the competition looks like and remember that the Apple MacBook Air M1 2020 with 256 GB storage capacity sells on Amazon Germany (Amazon.de) for 1040 EUR (or 1225 USD).
Years ago, finding good value in the ultrabook space was nearly impossible, because manufacturers were able to demand a premium for products with this form factor. Nowadays, there's an 11th Gen Intel CPU and a Nvidia GeForce dGPU crammed into a thin, light, and affordable laptop. Essentially, this ultrabook is great for day-to-day tasks, some older games, video editing, skype, excel, and word processing. It is practically perfect, besides the screen.
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