Lenovo Yoga C740 14 vs. IdeaPad Flex 5 14: Which is a better buy?

Yoga C740 14 vs. IdeaPad Flex 5 14 tech specs

Design and features

The Yoga C740 14 belongs to Lenovo's mid-range convertible lineup. It has a solid aluminum body with nice lines that seems like it can withstand some serious use. The IdeaPad Flex 5 14 is in a slightly more affordable price range, and its plastic chassis helps keep cost down. The Yoga C740 is thinner and lighter, but not by a whole lot. Neither will prove to be much of a burden in a backpack or messenger. Both laptops have dual hinges that allow them to rotate into tent, stand, or tablet modes. This adds considerable versatility, especially for anyone who likes taking notes or sketching by hand.

The keyboard on both laptops is comfortable even when typing all day. Key travel is sufficient, and a backlight helps when working in low-light conditions. Lenovo makes good use of space below the keyboard for Precision touchpads on both devices. While the Yoga C740's touchpad is firm and has a solid click, the Flex 5 14's touchpad seems a bit wobbly. It's not something that interferes with everyday work, but it is noticeable with both laptops side by side. On either side of the keyboards are top-firing speakers. Each laptop has dual 2W speakers that do a decent job of putting out loud audio with a bit of bass. Nothing special, but nothing terrible either.

The Yoga C740 has gone the premium Ultrabook route with its port selection, offering up dual USB-C, one USB-A, and 3.5mm audio. The Flex 5 14 has a wider range of connectivity, with USB-C, two USB-A, HDMI, an SD card reader, and 3.5mm audio. If you're often connecting to an external display or deal with removable media, you should feel more at home with the Flex 5 14, at least until a docking station or USB-C hub is added to the mix.

Both laptops have touch fingerprint readers embedded in the right palm rest, well out of the way of any typing. This works with Windows Hello for an added layer of security. There's no IR camera for facial recognition available in either laptop, but there is a privacy shutter for the front-facing 720p camera.

Display and inking

The C740 14 doesn't have as impressive a display as can be found in the higher-end Yoga C940 lineup, but it does beat out the screen in the IdeaPad Flex 5 14. The C740's display hits 100% sRGB and 78% AdobeRGB color reproduction, whereas the Flex 5 14 manages just 62% sRGB and 46% AdobeRGB. Contrast is good in both displays, but the color is far superior in the Yoga laptop. The Flex 5 14 will do for general productivity, though anyone who occasionally edits photos will want a screen with much better color.

There's also the matter of brightness combined with a glossy finish. The Yoga C740 pushes more than 300 nits at its peak, while the Flex 5 14 topped out at about 270 nits. That's not nearly bright enough to work glare-free with any sort of bright light around. In our IdeaPad Flex 5 14 review, it's noted that the display is by far the laptop's weakest link.

All Flex 5's seemingly do come with an active pen included. It delivers 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity for a decent inking experience that even amateur artists should appreciate. The Yoga C740 14 can be paired up with an active pen as well — something like the Lenovo Active Pen 2 — but you'll pay extra for the addition.

Performance and battery

Thanks to AMD's 4000-series Ryzen processors (CPU) in the Flex 5 14, it really pulls away from the Yoga C740 in terms of performance and battery life. In our Yoga C740 review, a model with Core i5-10210U and 51Wh battery got between five and six hours of battery life on a charge. With PCMark 10's battery rundown test, it came it just less than six hours.

Comparatively, the Flex 5 14 with Ryzen 5 4500U CPU and slightly larger 52.5Wh battery delivered between eight and nine hours on a charge and registered just more than nine hours in PCMark 10's rundown test. That's a huge difference, especially when the Ryzen CPU is running six cores, and Intel CPU is running just four. As you can see in the Geekbench 5 CPU test below, the Ryzen 5 4500U is much better with multi-core operations.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench 5.0 (CPU) (Higher is better)

Cinebench

Cinebench (R20) (Higher is better)

Running Cinebench a few times in a row is a good measure of how well a laptop cools itself and whether or not there's any thermal throttling. The Flex 5 14 actually scored higher as the runs went on, while the Yoga C740 dipped a bit due to heat constraints.

The Ryzen 5 4500U Flex 5 model will outperform the Yoga C740 14 Core i5-10210U model in raw performance and battery life, plus it costs less. If you need even better performance, there's also a Ryzen 7 4700U model available. AMD Radeon Vega graphics outpace Intel UHD Graphics as well, so if you have light gaming in mind, the AMD system should be considered.

To put pricing into perspective, a Flex 5 14 with AMD Ryzen 5 4500U CPU, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and active pen costs about $735, while a Yoga C740 14 with similar specs and Core i5 CPU goes for about $970 before any of Lenovo's many sales. You may be able to get a similar price for the Yoga C740, and at that point, you'll have to measure how much display quality, performance, battery life, and build quality mean to you.

The Yoga C740 14 has a better display, higher build quality

If you're planning on working with photos or just can't stand an underwhelming display, the Yoga C740 14 is no doubt going to be far more appealing thanks to more color and brightness. Intel performance won't match up to Ryzen performance in the Flex 5 14, but it is close and still enough for most people's day-to-day workload. The aluminum chassis is also much higher-end.

The IdeaPad Flex 5 14 (AMD) has better performance and battery life

Its plastic chassis doesn't feel as premium, and its display is inferior, but the AMD Ryzen CPUs in the Flex 5 14 bring cool performance and excellent battery life. It's also generally a more affordable laptop, so if you can work around the display, it's no doubt going to be quite appealing.