Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14″ FHD Laptop, Ryzen 5 3500U, 81W0003QUS
Abyss blue Lenovo IdeaPad 3 (81W0003QUS) is a 14-inch laptop with a Full HD non-touch narrow bezel display, the powerful AMD Ryzen 5 3500U processor, Radeon Vega 8 graphics, 256GB Solid State Drive, 8GB DDR4 SDRAM and Windows 10 Home operating system.
It is a very recent release laptop with an average customer rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars by 3 users so far, but the specs and design look quite promising, especially at the price level. AMD Ryzen 5 3500U is an early 2019 release ultra low voltage processor with a Passmark benchmark score of 7177 at the time of this product review. It is very fast and capable for both your everyday and demanding tasks including multimedia editing and some gaming. It is a quad core processor with 8 threads in parallel and works at speeds between 2.1GHz and 3.7GHz.
The TDP- Typical Thermal Design Power is 15 watts and you can expect around 7-8 hours on average depending on what you’re donig on the computer. You have the Q control function that lets you switch between the powerful mode and the battery saver mode. 2GB of the 8GB total memory is allocated to the Vega 8 GPU and you have about 6GB left for your other tasks. 4GB is soldered to the motherboard and the other 4GB is in the other RAM slot. 256GB M.2 NVMe solid state hard drive is very fast and offers good enough storage if you don’t have a lot of games or other multimedia files to save.
14″ anti-glare WLED-backlit Full HD display has the 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution and 200 nits brightness. It has a regular TN panel and not an IPS with 178-degree viewing angles. The image gets somewhat distorted when you look at it from the sides (viewing angles are 170 horizontal and 160 vertical degrees). It comes with a 300p webcam with a built-in microphone for your casual Skype chats. There is a physical privacy shutter that we’ve seen on the Lenovo Flex 14 model before and is a nice feature for protecting your privacy. You have more viewing area on the screen with the narrow bezels and the computer is a bit smaller than a regular 14-inch.
Vega 8 is quite a decent built-in graphics card with a performance level between the GeForce 940MX and GeForce MX150. You can play the games like Dota 2, Quake Champions, or LOL- League of Legends at 720p HD or 1080p FHD resolutions. And the power consumption is reported to be lower than average. Sound is pretty good with the Dolby Audio for a slim and compact laptop. You can connect easily with the 802.11ac 2×2 WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.1, an HDMI output, a USB-C port, 2 x USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, a Media Card Reader, and a headphone jack. It does not have a DVD Drive and you can get an external drive cheaply at Amazon.com and hook it up via a USB port or wirelessly via Bluetooth.
Abyss blue Lenovo IdeaPad 3 weighs 3.3 pounds and measures 12.88L x 9.49W x 0.78H inches. It is easy to carry around to school or work thanks to its lightweight and compact chassis. It is built sturdy and durable and you can expect a long lasting performance from it. Keyboard is not backlit and the keys are more textured than smooth and there is no numeric pad because of its compact size. It offers the same performance level of the Flex 14-API but without the touch display, 2-in-1 convertibility, backlit keyboard, IPS panel or metallic feel. But it costs about 250-300 dollars less too and is a sturdy, durable, fast and powerful laptop at a reasonable price overall. The warranty offered is limited one year by the manufacturer. IdeaPad 3 can be used for a variety of purposes like school, home entertainment, and home office work.