This review covers the Lenovo Ideapad Flex 5 14ITL05 Laptop PCOUT-OF-THE-BOXThe unit arrives with no real instruction booklet, just a couple of multi-lingual folded instruction sheets. One sheet contained a QR code (but no listed URL) that promised an instruction booklet. I aimed my smartphone at the QR code and was taken to a Lenovo website that seemed to contain an instruction booklet for this laptop, but—oddly enough—the mobile phone interface didn't seem to offer access to any content in the online booklet. I emailed the URL to myself and viewed the website on my desktop PC, where I was finally able to read the instruction booklet's content. Oddly, the website did not seem to offer any way to create a full PDF of the instruction booklet: One could only "print" individual pages or sections.FIRST IMPRESSIONSThe Amazon details page for this laptop claims THREE USB 3.0 ports, but in fact there are only TWO. Oddly, these ports have a black plastic strip instead of the (standard?) blue strip used to identify 3.0 ports in all other equipment I own. The unit also has a USB C port.Overall, the unit has a thin, sleek, angular feel, unlike my old 2015-vintage Lenovo laptop PC, which is thicker and more rounded. That brings up an ergonomic issue: The angular, beveled edges of the screen and base meet in a straight line that looks stylish; however, this geometry makes it slightly but annoyingly difficult to open. You feel too much of a struggle as you pry the screen and the base apart with your fingertips. On the other hand, in my old Lenovo, the screen and base form a 'U' where they met, which is less stylish but makes the old unit easier to open. I vote for "easy to open" over "looks."FIRST-TIME BOOT-UPI connected the power supply and lifted the lid. The initial boot-up then began even though I had not pressed the power button, so be warned!The initial boot-up proceeded mostly smoothly, except for a few things.The audio narration was too loud, and it took me a while to figure out how to turn it down. (My old Lenovo laptop has a volume control along the edge, but not this new unit.)There seemed to be no way to avoid setting up a PIN for the machine, which then seems to become the only way to log onto the machine. What ever happened to typing in your Microsoft account password? There's probably a way to revert to the latter, but I haven't gotten around to consulting Dr. Google and fiddling with that yet.I use the Microsoft "Your Phone" app on my other Windows 10 machines, and I like this app. In the boot-up for this Lenovo laptop, there was a section that seemed to be a setup procedure for "Your Phone." For various reasons, I decided to skip that, preferring instead to set up "Your Phone" later. Well, later when I tried to use "Your Phone," it complained that the app was not current and forced me to update if I wanted to use it. So pressed the "Update" button that was offered. That somehow failed with a mystery error after many minutes, and my attempts to update "Your Phone" from the Microsoft Store also met with failure. Yet when I've tried to execute "Your Phone," it now seems to work, except the behavior is flaky. The moral of the story: If you want to use "Your Phone," don't skip the "Your Phone" setup procedure during the initial boot-up.COMMENTS ON OPERATION OF THE MACHINEThe machine is snappy and fast. In that sense, it's a pleasure to use. It's Microsoft Windows 10 S, which limits you to apps in the Microsoft Store. Supposedly, Windows 10 S has built-in antivirus capabilities and does not require that you purchase a third-party antivirus program. That sounds great, but having been stung by such claims back in the Windows 8 days (an earlier Microsoft OS that supposedly did not require a third-party antivirus program), I am leery. (A Windows 8 machine I was running back in 2014 got infected with viruses. I had to pay Microsoft to help clean up the mess. The Microsoft consultant I worked with scolded me for not having a third-party antivirus program on the machine, which he then sold to me. He said that the Microsoft Windows Defender Antivirus program, which ships with the OS at no extra cost, "is a good product, but you need to have a REAL antivirus program on your machine." Ha!)I've read that it's easy to convert a 10 S machine to Windows 10 HOME, which allows all installs. I'll probably do that soon, installing one of my Norton Antivirus licenses on the machine and then installing Cygwin and/or Ubuntu. (The last two cannot be installed under Windows 10 S, according to what I read.)Initially, the A/V signal from the HDMI port did not work well with my monitor, producing a bizarre image that was both truncated and spread out in odd ways. I never had this problem with any of my other three Windows PCs. I fiddled with the resolution on the new Lenovo, changing it away from its default, and finally found that 1360x768 60 HZ, along with changing the setting on a couple of other video flags, worked satisfactorily. There are still some odd video quirks that are not present on my other three Windows 10 machines, but I won't bother to describe them here.The fan on this machine triggers on and off fairly frequently, and it's noisy! This fan activity happens despite the fact that room temperature is hovering around 70 degrees F. I never heard a fan trigger on in my old Lenovo laptop, even on the hottest days of the year; in fact, I believe that old machine (which still runs fine, by the way) does not even have a fan. Why is heat dissipation not a problem in my old Lenovo laptop, yet this new Lenovo laptop requires a fan to keep cool? Is this technological progress?The physical (mechanical) privacy cover on the webcam is a nice touch. Unfortunately, though, the quality of the camera in this machine is poor. It's hardly better than the lousy camera in my old Lenovo laptop. The image is fuzzy and grainy, and the camera has limited dynamic range. A modest backlight or even a modest sidelight completely washes out the picture. I'm surprised that such an expensive machine would incorporate such a poor camera.And the microphone setup on this machine is truly awful. It seems that the two microphones (along the top edge of the screen) are not used to create a stereo audio signal. Instead, the signals from those two microphones are combined with apparent electronic wizardry to create a VERY narrowly focussed beam that points in front of the screen. If your head is precisely located in a narrow little corridor in front of the screen, your voice will be picked up. Otherwise, move your head off to the side or turn one way or the other, and the pickup becomes so weak that your listener will barely be able to hear you. In fact, your voice may get canceled out altogether. This actually happened during my tests.I should mention here that while my old Lenovo laptop has a terrible camera too, it does have a remarkably excellent microphone system that can pick up your voice anywhere in the room with astonishing strength and clarity. Again, I have to ask: Is this technological progress?This new Lenovo laptop would be a very poor device to use on a Zoom call, especially if there is more than one person on your end, with perhaps nobody sitting in the exact "voice corridor" that you must occupy for your voice to be heard.PS: The accompanying photo shows my PC setup. On the floor is my 2014-vintage Dell desktop, which works fine. On the desk nearest the camera is my new Lenovo laptop, which is the subject of this review. In the back and on top of the little wooden shelf is my old 2015-vintage Lenovo laptop, which works fine, and on the wall is my Mini desktop PC, obtained in 2021. All the machines run one version or another of Windows 10.