Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Chromebook 14inch FHD Laptop (MediaTek MT8183, 4 GB RAM, 64GB eMMC, ARM Mali-G72 MP3 Graphics, Chrome OS) – Abyss Blue

Product Information

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. Audio quality is decent, though the stereo 2-watt speakers fire through bottom-mounted grilles, which means their output can sound slightly muddy when you’re watching a video or listening to music. You won’t want to use this laptop for serious image or video editing, but it is comfortably readable in most lighting aside from direct sunlight and it’s great for everyday work in Google Workspace apps or casual video streaming via Netflix or Disney+. If I can live with the ergonomics, I’m more than happy with the screen. The 14in IPS display follows the Chromebook Plus spec with its 1080p resolution but it turns out to be surprisingly capable in other ways. Sure, colour performance isn’t anything to write home about, with an sRGB colour gamut of 61% (that’s equivalent to 43% of DCI-P3) but it goes fairly bright, reaching peaks of 329cd/m 2. Colour and contrast are fine for most purposes, too, although the average Delta E of 4.21 (indicating colour accuracy) is on the high side.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 3 keyboard also suggest this laptop is meant more for work than play. While there’s a certain hollow sound to key presses ringing through the plastic shell, if you type hard, this is actually a lovely keyboard for long-form typing. 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. 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 runs Windows 10 S, which means you’re restricted to Windows Store apps unless you switch it to full Windows 10. You can do this for free in a matter of seconds, although will see some performance compromises.The Lenovo IdeaPad 3’s fake metal plates aren’t really a reason to be put off this laptop but its screen might be. This isn’t anything like a deal-breaker. The old Pentium Gold 7505 was a decent Chromebook processor, giving you noticeably snappier performance than the Pentium Silver and Celeron CPUs often used in budget Chromebooks without ramping up the price too much. And you can say the same about the Core i3-N305. 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.

I’ve used a lot of Lenovo laptop keyboards over the last ten years and the best are as good as it gets, while even the worst examples tend to be perfectly usable. The keyboard on the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook 14 sits somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. When it comes to battery life, however, the IdeaPad 3’s advantage is apparent. No other Chromebook we’ve tested recently comes close to its result on our video battery rundown test, which involves playing a locally stored video at 50 percent screen brightness with Wi-Fi turned off until the laptop dies. A propensity to wander also means that Chromebooks need solid Wi-Fi, since they may be far from a wireless base station. While I didn’t experience any random disconnects or slowdowns while testing the IdeaPad 3 connected to a Netgear Nighthawk router, it is unfortunate that the laptop uses the older 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard. This offers adequate speed and reliability today, but the next-generation 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) standard provides better future-proofing. These include the Asus Chromebook CX34 Flip (in its non-Vibe edition) and the AMD-based CM34 Flip, the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6 and the Acer Chromebook Plus 515 and 514 models. Meanwhile, Lenovo has the virtually identical IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook Plus and a 14in convertible – the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus. 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.Limits:Limit 5 per customer. Offers valid from Lenovo in the US only. Lenovo may increase or decrease these limits, from time to time, for certain offerings. There are just a few other points to mention. The Lenovo IdeaPad 3’s speakers are, you may gave guessed, pretty poor. They have the thin, bass-free sound typical of your average budget laptop. 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.

Putting it through the normal benchmark tests, the Chromebook posted the following scores; Jetstream 2 – 58.31, Basemark 3.0 – 340.71, Geekbench 5 (Android version) – single-core 447, multi-core 855. This puts it miles behind the likes of the premiumAgain, 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 Battery:These systems do not support batteries that are not genuine Lenovo-made or authorized. Systems will continue to boot, but may not charge unauthorized batteries. Attention: Lenovo has no responsibility for the performance or safety of unauthorized batteries, and provides no warranties for failures or damage arising out of their use. Battery life (and recharge times) will vary based on many factors, including system settings and usage. Sound is another area where the IdeaPad Slim 3i does surprisingly well. You’re not going to get the richest tone or immersive surround sound here, but it isn’t horrible weedy, harsh or tinny, and you can watch old concert footage on YouTube or stream a show on Netflix without feeling like you have to plug some headphones in.

Intel’s new Core i3-N305 is a peculiar little chip. It’s one of Intel’s Alder Lake-N CPUs, and with its eight cores and speeds of up to 3.8GHz, it feels it belongs in the Core i3 line rather than the barebones “Processor” line of the cheaper, four-core N100. However, those eight cores are Efficiency cores rather than the Performance cores you’ll find in the higher-end 12th and 13th gen Core i3 part, and this has a tangible impact on performance. Basically, I’d say this chip has more in common with the old Pentium Gold CPUs than a modern Core i3.The Lenovo IdeaPad 3 won’t last through a full day of work but if you just need it to hang on through an afternoon working in a cafe, no problem. Ah, Chromebooks. What an ever-evolving journey we’ve seen so far. When they first materialized into existence, Chromebooks were a popular option for students due to their durable frames and affordable price points. They were (and still are) designed to be everyday machines. Nowadays, there are even cloud-ready gaming Chromebooks, which are super rad and something I never thought I’d see. While I’ve evaluated all sorts of Chromebooks, from modern 2-in-1s to machines made of recycled material, this time I’m reviewing the IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook. Lenovo’s latest offering is definitely a more conservative approach, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.