General
I bought the Lenovo 1311 (Flex 4), not only to review it, but because I needed a new computer for my college courses. This was a great buy from BestBuy who had it for sale at $300 after taxes, so for the money, it’s a good catch. Especially when you consider that most of the 2 in ones in this price range are either running Chrome OS or Android tablet. I was able to get 2 hours and 10 minutes at 40% brightness on a 55% charge. It also only takes a half hour to charge 50% in my experience without the power saver being turned on. My version didn’t come with office 365 but it was relatively easy to install with a “Get 365” button located in the programs menu. The insurance on this laptop is astronomical, being $80(ish) for 1 year, which I guess is cool, but is too rich for my blood. The windows 10 installation runs smoothly and doesn’t show lag even in this small form factor (2GB RAM, Intel Celeron [email protected], 10 touch points, and a small, but expandable (by SDCARD) 56.9GB) which makes this good performance for the price.
Pros/Cons Summary
Over all I like the computer and didn’t suffer from buyer’s remorse after my purchase. It runs Office, like I need it to, and its lightweight which is perfect for portability. I don’t like the keypad housing, as it leaves prints, and I don’t like the size of certain keys on the keyboard when compared with their placement. It multitasks fine and runs just like any other windows 10 computer and tablet, and automatically goes into tablet mode when you rotate it. The LAN port cover is horribly crafted and will break on you in a second rendering you unable to Hardwire into your internet. The mic is great, the speakers aren’t. The screen is great, the touchpad isn’t. The touchscreen is awesome, rotating it takes more time than I would like.
Specs
56.9GB Hard drive, only 35GB usable. 2GB DDR3L Ram, 1.81 usable HDMI Port, Multimedia card reader port. 1 USB 3.0, 2USB 2.0 port. 1366x768 HD resolution touchscreen. 2 Cell lithium battery. 3Lbs. Intel HD intergrated graphics card. Wireless networking. , Intel Celeron [email protected] Processor.
Aesthetics (pros)
Out the box it has very nice "curb appeal", with the chrome trim around the keyboard, and touchpad. I’m not used to smaller laptops so it took me some time to get used to the thick 1.3-inch black panel across the bottom, as with the 1in black panel across the top and on sides. It’s very light weight and the screen flips to turn it into a tablet. Need I mention it’s also touch screen, finger touch. The back of my ink pen didn’t work but imagine a stylus would. The screen is HD(1366x768) and shows colors very nicely. Also, there’s not much outside glare from windows and whatnot blocking my daytime viewing. The brightness is very crisp and clear (none of that white backlight distortion). The build quality is impressive, as I looked at $800+ models that had the same build quality, for obviously, a much higher price. The hinges are covered in a nice hard plastic casing and feel very sturdy and touch when closing or folding the screen. Its confidence instilling. Not to mention it only weighs 3 pounds.
Aesthetics (cons)
Aesthetically, it’s a very nicely designed computer, and execution was almost perfect. The reason I say almost, is because the little plastic cover that goes under the LAN port is very cheaply made. My first day of owning the Flex 4, I plugged in one of my offices LAN cords. it fit in nicely, and the concept was right, but the execution was off. 10 minutes later, I would kind of lean to the side, and the cord would receive minor pressure, which was enough the break the plastic port cover. Not completely off, as I don’t know what’s broken about it, but enough to where I would have to hold the cord up to get an actual. connection. The surface of the keyboard is made of a plastic that attracts finger prints and grease spots. One day in and the bottom corner (where the intel sticker is) has my finger prints on it showing darker than the grey that the keyboard is. By the time, I would end my first day with it, the keyboard housing would be three different shades of grey. The screen, also, attracts these same finger prints on its big black edges. When in tablet mode my biggest disagreement is the keyboard itself. I know this is the same feature with all 2 in 1s but I think there should be something to cover the keys while you are holding this like a tablet as I found myself always clicking them and it was uncomfortable in my opinion. Last but not least, the speakers are improperly placed on the bottom of the laptop just below the table grips and are very small (maybe 1x1)
Functionality (pros)
First of all, This thing boots up almost lightning fast after the first time. The touch screen is very responsive and I love the swipe trail that follows my finger when I touch it. I can’t say how much I like this screen. I’ve had HP touch screen laptops before that weren’t this easy and responsive, I’m very impressed. Simply put a finger from each hand on the screen and drag apart or pull together to zoom. That’s a great feature. The touchpad is smooth with the right click and left click keys being distinguished by a half inch red barrier line that won’t bother you upon touch. Did I mention that beautiful “chrome” bezel around it? For a laptop with 1.82GB of usable ram, I would say it runs very quickly, and multitasks very well. I currently have MS word, Google chrome with 10 tabs open Facebook messenger up and running, the Facebook app, and three other programs, and it hasn’t slowed down noticeably in my opinion, unless you pay hard attention. I used voice chat on Facebook messenger and the mic on here is more clear than the mic on my cellphone and my chatee could hear me perfectly when talking from her cellphone.
Functionality (cons)
The Screen, when changing to tablet mode, takes all of three seconds to transform which is longer than I would like. That, in turn, means that changing the viewing perspective to vertical mode takes an additional two seconds. I know, that’s not a lot of time, but when you’re performing the maneuver, I think you’d want it to change and be ready when you are. I find myself having to wait a second or two to get started after rotating the screen. Not the biggest issue but to each his/her own. The touchpad sometimes takes a second to register that you’re using it. I wanted to scroll up on the screen and had to click with the mouse several times to get it to realize that. It ended up being faster and more practical to just use the touch and scroll with my fingers. I would say the touch pad could be more responsive and has minor lag issues. The keys on the keyboard are far too close together for my fingers and I’m on the thin side of the weight spectrum. I often found myself hitting the “=” key instead of delete and hitting the “PGup” key when meaning to hit the quotation mark key. The right-hand side shift key is also very small (the size of a letter key) and placed next to the PGUp key, but I usually only use the left-hand shift key so it wasn’t as a big of issue as the “=” sign and the quotation mark. [If I’m typing fluidly I must slow down and carefully press in order to not hit the wrong key in error as far as “=” and quotation.] While the 1.82Gb of ram are great for a laptop of this spec and price, I noticed that after my tenth tab on google chrome that they were starting to take a little longer to show up for me to enter my URL, however I managed to get 18 tabs deep before any significant slowdown was expressed and it wasn’t that bad. The Speakers are mediocre at best and sound muffled due to their placement and size.