Today, Lenovo is announcing the availability of the Flex 5G, which is known as the Yoga 5G outside of the United States. It was first teased in May 2019 as Project Limitless and was formally unveiled at CES this year. It"s the first 5G PC to come to market.
The Lenovo Flex 5G includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 5G chipset, similar to what"s in the Samsung Galaxy Book S and the Microsoft Surface Pro X, although the chipsets in all three of those are slightly different. What differentiates the 8cx in the Flex 5G and the 8cx in the Galaxy Book S is that with Lenovo"s PC, it comes with the Snapdragon X55 5G modem.
It also supports both sub6 and mmWave 5G, which is an impressive feat. Companies like HP and Dell have both announced Intel-powered 5G PCs with Qualcomm cellular modems, but all of those are sub6-only. Lenovo is also the only OEM that"s been on-board with all three generations of Windows on ARM, with Samsung joining in the second generation and Microsoft only joining with its first-party PCs in the 8cx generation.
"Lenovo introduced the world’s first 5G laptop in market to equip the mobile generation with smarter technology for always-on connectivity and computing. The hardware is just the first step," says Johnson Jia, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Business Segment in Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group. "With our strategic partnerships with global 5G network carriers, consumers will now be able to access easier, faster and more secure connectivity seamlessly from virtually anywhere. As 5G computing holds the power to transform user experiences, we believe it can ultimately disrupt the PC industry for the better."
Down to the Flex 5G itself, it"s a convertible that comes in at 2.86 pounds. The overall design is similar to the Yoga C630, although it"s a bit larger with its 14-inch FHD display. It"s also brighter at 400 nits, solving one of the pain points from when we reviewed the C630.
The Lenovo Flex 5G will be available on Verizon on June 18, starting at $1,399.99, $100 less than the price it was announced at. Later this year, the Yoga 5G will be available on Lenovo.com in some markets, and on EE in the UK, Sunrise in Switzerland, and CMCC in China.