You have the metal-effect plastic base, mid-grey keyboard keys, a textured plastic hinge and a cheap-looking screen. Lenovo has made some great-looking mid-price laptops over the years, but this cheaper one won’t convince too many eyes – it’s anything but a budget model close-up. That metal effect illusion works best from a distance. The Lenovo IdeaPad 3 has an Intel Core-series processor, one more powerful than the typical Windows 10 S laptop. So why is Windows 10 S even here? The laptop has limited RAM and storage, and the restricted software is a heads-up of who it’s meant for. Build quality is fair, if no better than the norm. The keyboard surround will flex a little under the pressure of hard typing, if not enough to ruin the experience, and the inside of the IdeaPad 3 looks a little too much of a mish-mash. How about Photoshop? It will run OK for the basics, but 4GB RAM is not enough if you want to start working on big layered images. Photoshop is a RAM hog, and when it runs out you will start to see significant slow-down and potentially some crashes. Again, it's very likely that the dim, low-resolution screen played a big part in the IdeaPad 3's strong showing here. A Bargain Chromebook

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook review: Surprisingly good Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook review: Surprisingly good

This line-up had me wondering why the IdeaPad 3 comes with Windows 10 S instead of full Windows. A Core i3-1005G1 is much more powerful than the kind of Intel Pentium Gold processor that usually gets the cut-down OS. As ever, there’s nothing wrong with a Core i3.Want the numbers? My SpyderX Pro says it covers just 55.4% of sRGB, 38.2% of Adobe RGB and 39.3% of DCI P3, which means it offers dreadfully poor colour accuracy. Maximum brightness is also way below the average at 223 nits, resulting in a poor 706:1 contrast. The screen is comfortably the worst part of the Lenovo IdeaPad 3. I don’t expect a particularly high-quality screen at the price, but twisted nematic panels are hard to stomach in 2020. An IPS display, even a bad one, would make this a much better laptop for video and gaming. This is given a helping hand by the 4GB of RAM that’s installed. This might seem low compared to Windows PCs, and I’d certainly advise against buying the latter if it only had 4GB, but ChromeOS is a lightweight operating system and functions happily within these constraints. In fact, all the tasks I needed to complete on the IdeaPad were done with no fuss and nary a crash in sight. It’s a solid device that gets the job done.

Lenovo Ideapad Lenovo Laptop Deals - Laptops Direct Lenovo Ideapad Lenovo Laptop Deals - Laptops Direct

TN screens almost always offer dramatically worse image quality than an IPS LCD, the type used by almost all pricier laptops and the majority of phones and tables. The Lenovo IdeaPad 3’s colour saturation is very weak, contrast is low and the effects of the panel’s contrast shift are obvious. Now for the big surprise. Where other ultra-budget Chromebooks stuff in dated Celeron N3350 and N4000 processors, the IdeaPad 3 has a 2019-vintage N4020 running at up to 2.8GHz.If you need a Chromebook for simple computing needs, and budget is your primary shopping criteria, the IdeaPad 3 will likely meet your needs. By giving up a high-resolution display, you get enough computing power for basic tasks, plenty of external connectivity, excellent battery life, and a reasonably attractive, well-built chassis.

Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Chromebook 14 Inch Full HD Laptop (MediaTek

However, give it a little time and the IdeaPad 3 Chromebook turns out to be surprisingly useable. The flat keys don’t have much travel, but they do have a light and fairly crisp action with no wobbles or flexing in the middle. This laptop uses a standard cylindrical plug to charge, which is obvious when you remember there aren’t even any USB-Cs here. A charge takes around two hours, and it goes from flat to 30% in 30 minutes. Should you buy the Lenovo IdeaPad 3? Lenovo says its IdeaPad laptops are made for “thin and light” portable use. But it hasn’t followed this up with a particularly large battery. You don’t necessarily need to upgrade, however. Over a day or so of light use, including web browsing with a handful of tabs open at once, I found the IdeaPad 3 to be mostly free of sluggishness. It also took only around 10 seconds to boot up. I did encounter a significant slowdown when I was transferring a multi-gigabyte file from an external drive, but the system never froze up completely.

A Sleek, Modern Exterior (at a Cheap Price)

The scores in the Android Geekbench 5 benchmark are a little higher than the Celeron N4000-based Chromebooks, too, though not up there with the faster Pentium and Core i3 models. All told, the IdeaPad 3 feels a little snappier than some of its rivals in day-to-day browsing and general use. I also appreciate that the IdeaPad 3 uses a USB-C cable for charging. This makes it easier to use a charging cord from another device if you can’t remember where you placed the AC adapter. Many bargain-basement Chromebooks still use proprietary barrel-style charging cables, which can be difficult and expensive to replace if your child loses them. Plenty of Typing Comfort It performs the basics just fine, thanks to an unusually deep and responsive keyboard and near-silent running. However, the screen is poor and its battery doesn’t get quite close enough to all-day use. But is it still a good value laptop? You don’t get a graphics card, just the integrated graphics that is part of the Core i3 processor. There was little point in subjecting the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 to our usual gaming tests, but I did try out Skyrim to see if it would run.

Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Chromebook Review - Tech Advisor

First impressions of the keyboard and touchpad aren’t great. There’s something a bit cheap-looking and toy-like about the IdeaPad 3’s square chiclet keys – we’re a long way away from the classy, sculpted keytops found on Lenovo’s business-grade ThinkPad laptops.

Power for Essential Tasks

According to PC Mark 10’s battery tests, it lasts for five hours and 28 minutes of basic office productivity work. Using it to write a document outdoors, which all but mandates maximum display brightness, and it lasts around six hours. That may seem impressive until you remember the screen itself is pretty dim. Just like its predecessors, the IdeaPad 3 is very much an entry-level Chromebook – in fact, it’s one of the cheapest available in the UK. It’s a strictly frills-free device: it has a conventional clamshell design, an 11.6-inch screen and a Celeron processor, so nothing unexpected in the slightest.