Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x review: A no-nonsense Snapdragon X2 laptop | usagoldmines.com

Price When Reviewed

$849.99

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Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slim 5 lineup has never been the sort to get your pulse racing. Instead, they’re practical machines sold at a reasonable price, and as such they succeed or fail based on the overall value-per-dollar they provide. The IdeaPad Slim 5x does well on that account, providing good CPU performance and battery life for under $1,000.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Specs and features as-tested

The headliner here is no doubt the Snapdragon X2 Plus chip. Snapdragon X2 is a new chip line from Qualcomm that has just come to market, and the Snapdragon X2 Plus is particularly uncommon at the moment. Most budget laptops with Qualcomm hardware are still using the older Snapdragon X chip.

• Model number: 15Q8Y11
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Plus X2P-42-100
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5X-9523
• Graphics/GPU: Qualcomm Adreno X2-45
• NPU: Qualcomm Hexagon NPU up to 80 TOPS
• Display: 15.3-inch 1920×1200 IPS 120Hz touchscreen
• Storage: 512GB PCIe 4.0 solid state drive
• Webcam and microphone: 1080p webcam with IR camera, privacy shutter, dual array microphone
• Connectivity: 1x HDMI 2.1, 2x USB-C 10Gbps with DisplayPort 1.4 and 65 watts of Power Delivery, 2x USB-A with 5Gbps of data, 1x 3.5mm combo headphone jack, 1x microSD card reader
• Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: Windows Hello facial recognition
• Audio: 2x 2-watt speaker system
• Battery capacity: 54.7 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 13.36 x 9.29 x 0.61 inches
• Weight: 3.28 pounds
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home
• Price: $849.99 MSRP as configured

The specification sheet is otherwise fairly mundane. Lenovo provides 16GB of RAM, a 512GB solid state drive, and a 1920×1200 IPS display. Fortunately, the basic specifications are reflected in the laptop’s $849.99 MSRP. Thanks to increased RAM and SSD pricing, this is inexpensive for a new Windows laptop in 2026.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Design and build quality

Foundry / Matthew Smith

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x doesn’t make a strong first impression. On the contrary, I doubt you could peg it as a Lenovo machine if not for the badge on the top and the camera bump above the display. Many laptops from many manufacturers offer a similar silver colorway and strike a similar profile on a desk.

However, the details favor Lenovo. The IdeaPad Slim 5x has a hinge that allows rotation back to almost 180 degrees, which is handy and not found on all similar laptops. It’s a well-tuned hinge as well. It’s tight enough to stay closed in a bag, but also loose enough to let you lift the lid with one hand. 

The chassis is aluminum on both top and bottom, which is an advantage for a laptop in the sub-$1,000 price bracket, and the chassis feels rigid when handled. It’s a slim laptop with a maximum thickness just over six-tenths of an inch and it’s light at 3.28 pounds.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Keyboard, touchpad

Foundry / Matthew Smith

Lenovo provides the IdeaPad Slim 5x with a spacious keyboard. It does not have a numpad, which means the keyboard is centered and there’s plenty of room for large keys. This is my preference, though users who like having a numpad will want to look elsewhere.

Key feel is good. Keys activate with a taut action and bottom out with a crisp, though soft, click. It’s nothing to write home about, but the overall typing experience is pleasant. A white LED keyboard backlight is standard and provides plenty of brightness.

The touchpad is a bit odd, however, for starters, the touchpad isn’t centered below the keyboard. This is unusual for a laptop that lacks a numpad and definitely feels weird under my fingers. The touchpad is reasonably wide at just over five inches, but a hair under three inches deep, so it can still feel constrained when using a two-finger scrolling gesture. A physical click action is supported but feels cheap and plastic-y. 

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Display

Foundry / Matthew Smith

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x I received for review had a 15.3-inch 1920×1200 IPS display. It’s rated for a maximum of 400 nits, which it just hits, and has a refresh rate of 120Hz.

It’s fine. This sort of mid-range IPS display has the benefit of good sharpness and readability, the latter thanks to a matte coat that diffuses glare on the display. However, it’s still not bright enough to use outdoors comfortably on a sunny day, or in direct view of sunlit windows. The image looks vivid when displaying colorful content but lacks contrast and detail in darker scenes.

Surprisingly, the IPS display is a touchscreen. You wouldn’t know that by looking at it, as it lacks the glossy coat that many touchscreens have, but it works no differently because of that. This is not a 2-in-1 device, so you can’t turn it into a tablet, but the touchscreen is handy for situations where you don’t want to use a keyboard—like if you’re reclined on the couch and watching YouTube.

Lenovo says it will offer a 2560×1600 OLED upgrade with a brightness of 500 nits and a refresh rate up to 165Hz, but I wasn’t able to test it. I expect that would be a significant upgrade in terms of image quality.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Audio

Audio quality is a perk for the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x. The laptop has a pair of two-watt speakers that provide crisp, loud audio directly to the user’s ears. I was impressed by the speakers’ clarity and ability to deliver a bit of low-end oomph when required. The speakers aren’t going to challenge a MacBook Air, but they’re above average for an affordable Windows machine and enjoyable to use in a wide range of content, from movies to podcasts.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

A 1080p webcam is found in the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x’s camera bump. The webcam’s image quality is mediocre. It’s clear in bright lighting but grainy in a dim room. The camera also has an overly wide default field of view. You can hedge against this with the AI framing feature, which zooms in on your face, but this reduces the effective resolution. A physical privacy shutter is included.

The microphone array captures clear audio, but the hollow, distant sound common to laptop microphones is obvious. On the whole, the webcam and microphone are good enough for a Zoom call but not up to more demanding tasks.

An IR camera is included and provides support for Windows Hello login via facial recognition. It works well in a variety of lighting conditions. A fingerprint reader is not available.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Connectivity

Foundry / Matthew Smith

You’ll find two USB-A ports and two USB-C ports lining the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x’s flanks, plus one HDMI 2.1 for video output, a 3.5mm combo audio jack, and a microSD card reader.

The USB-C ports can provide up to 10Gbps of data and also support up to 65 watts of USB Power Delivery, which is enough to charge the laptop (and the included charger uses USB-C). The USB-A ports provide 5Gbps of data. These are typical specs of a sub-$1,000 Windows laptop. There are no Thunderbolt or USB-4 data rates, and the USB data rates will be an obstacle if you want to connect a lot of high-speed storage or have any plan to use an external GPU. This is a typical downside for Snapdragon laptops and I can excuse it at this price, though I always prefer to see at least one port with 40Gbps data. 

Wireless connectivity is good with support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. The Wi-Fi signal was strong during my time with the laptop.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Performance

Lenovo ships every IdeaPad Slim 5x (15Q8Y11) with a Snapdragon X2 Plus X2P-42-100. This is a lower-tier chip in the new Snapdragon X2 lineup. It has six CPU cores (down from up to 18 in the flagship chip) and an Adreno X2-45 GPU. The Snapdragon X2 Plus performs fairly well, especially in Arm-native benchmarks.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

Let’s start with Cinebench 2024, a CPU benchmark with an Arm-native version. Here the Snapdragon X2 Plus proves quite powerful with a score of 725. This might come as a surprise given that it only has six cores—but it turns out the cores are each quite speedy, so it can ultimately defeat competitor CPUs with more cores. This is a great result for the IdeaPad Slim 5x.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

Our HandBrake test runs on an older version without an Arm-native build, and it provides a glimpse of what can happen when Arm-native software isn’t available. The script is flipped and the IdeaPad Slim 5x ends up behind the pack. To be fair, however, HandBrake does now include an Arm-native build, as do many productivity apps.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

Moving on to 3D performance, the Snapdragon X2 Plus has an Adreno X2-45 integrated GPU. This is an entry-level GPU in the Snapdragon X2 line. It provides a significant upgrade over the preceding Adreno X1-45. It’s also generally competitive with, or perhaps even a bit faster than, AMD’s Radeon 860M graphics. 

However, leading Intel and AMD integrated graphics solutions remain far ahead. I wouldn’t recommend the IdeaPad Slim 5x if you’d like to play games regularly. Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips with Arc B390 graphics are the best choice for that, though most laptops with Arc B390 are at least a few hundred dollars more expensive. 

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Battery life and portability

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x has a 54.7 watt-hour battery. That’s actually toward the smaller side for a 15.3-inch laptop; a lot of Windows laptops of similar size will have a 60 or 70 watt-hour battery. However, the use of a lower-tier Snapdragon X2 chip seems to help make the most of what’s in the tank.

Foundry / Matthew Smith

I saw over 20 hours of battery life from the IdeaPad Slim 5x. As the graph shows, this isn’t the best that you can find from a modern Windows laptop, but it’s still rather good. Battery life this long means you can likely go two or three days between charges if you’re running less demanding apps.

Speaking of charging, the laptop ships with a small 65-watt USB-C power adapter. It’s not as small as the adapter HP ships with some OmniBook laptops, but it’s only two inches in width and depth and an inch thick, so it’ll easily fit in almost any bag that can hold the laptop. The laptop has a rapid charge feature that can provide up to three hours of battery life with a 15-minute charge.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x: Conclusion

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x is a solid choice if you want a basic, versatile Windows laptop. It hits the sweet spot in many respects. It offers good performance in most areas yet it remains affordable. The battery life isn’t the best but still good, and the smaller battery likely contributes to the laptop’s slimmer size and lower weight. It does have weaknesses such as the mediocre touchpad and unimpressive integrated graphics performance, but the overall package is a good value for your money.