Lenovo Yoga 5G promises 24-hour battery life, high performance and internet everywhere

Born from Lenovo's Project Limitless, it's the first PC powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 5G Compute Platform.

Joshua Goldman Managing Editor / Advice

Managing Editor Josh Goldman is a laptop expert and has been writing about and reviewing them since built-in Wi-Fi was an optional feature. He also covers almost anything connected to a PC, including keyboards, mice, USB-C docks and PC gaming accessories. In addition, he writes about cameras, including action cams and drones. And while he doesn't consider himself a gamer, he spends entirely too much time playing them.

Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones Credentials

More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.

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Joshua Goldman

Jan. 6, 2020 11:48 a.m. PT

2 min read

03-yoga-5g-14inch-hero-front-facing-left — Angela Lang/CNET

Last May, Lenovo announced Project Limitless, its plan to make the first 5G laptop. That plan is now a reality with the Yoga 5G, the "the first-ever PC powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 5G Compute Platform," Lenovo said. Well, it will be the first: The Lenovo Yoga 5G isn't expected to be available until this spring starting at a price of $1,499. Also, it'll be called the Flex 5G in the US.

In case you've heard of 5G but still aren't clear what it means, it's the next-generation wireless technology that is 10 to 100 times speedier than your typical cellular connection and is low latency, so things like streaming video or downloads start almost instantaneously. The Yoga 5G supports both millimeter wave full-band and sub-6GHz 5G networks, which is good because not all networks are created equally.

The laptop itself sounds great, too, assuming the new Snapdragon is better than its past Computer Platform efforts, which were great on battery life, but not so much on performance. Lenovo says the Yoga 5G will get up to 24 hours of battery life, which, combined with its 2.9-pound weight (1.3kg) and bright, 400-nit display, should make this 14-inch two-in-one a great all-day work solution.

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Lenovo also announced a new set of clamshell laptops, the Yoga Slim 7. Available in 14- and 15-inch sizes, they seem to follow the same formula as the 14-inch Yoga S940. Like that model, these have an IR camera that works for facial recognition and is also paired with other sensors and Glance by Mirametrix attention-sensing AI software. Using the software it can, for example, detect whether you're looking at the laptop's display or the attached external display, and will move open windows accordingly or automatically shift the pointer back and forth between the built-in and attached displays. The software can now do more, such as pause audio or video when you look away from the display.

Also carried over from the S940 is Amazon Alexa support and you'll be able to do more with it later in the year. That includes using it even when the Yoga Slim 7's lid is down and being able to broadcast messages to Echo devices throughout your home.

With the 14-inch Yoga Slim 7 (known as IdeaPad 14 in North America) you'll have a choice of AMD Ryzen 4000 series processors with Radeon graphics or up to 10th-gen Intel Core i7 with Intel Iris Plus graphics or discrete Nvidia GeForce MX graphics. AMD models will start at $850 while base Intel configurations will be around $1,210. The 15-inch version is Intel only and also starts at $1,210, but will have an option for Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics. All are expected to be available in April.