Turn the laptop upside down, to see two speaker cutouts, as well as a ventilation grill. This model has no fan, so there is practically no heat exhaust. However, if you get an option that is actively cooled, it will dissipate the heat through a vent in between the base and the lid.

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering. 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.Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light. Gloss level measurement The final trial in our benchmark gauntlet consists of display brightness and color tests. Using Datacolor's SpyderX Elite calibrator and its software tools, we measure display performance, screen-brightness output levels, and measure gamut settings for the three most relevant color spaces for laptop users: the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 standards. 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. 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. After fully recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) where available and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video rundown test. (We also turn Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop into airplane mode.) In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the Blender Foundation short film Tears of Steel Tears of Steel—with screen brightness set at 50% and volume at 100% until the system quits.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 3’s fake metal plates aren’t really a reason to be put off this laptop but its screen might be. To test the laptop's gaming performance, we run 3DMark, a graphics test suite for Windows that contains several subtests for different GPU functions and software APIs. We run two DirectX 12 tests in particular: 3DMark Night Raid and 3DMark Time Spy. Here's where the IdeaPad 3 falters a bit, coming up short behind the Asus Vivobook S14 and the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 13. The higher the number, the better, however, and not a single laptop truly impresses in this area aside from the (much pricier) Galaxy Book Pro 13. That's true of both the more demanding Time Spy, and the modest Night Raid.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.

Engineered for long-lasting performance, the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 is the perfect laptop for your everyday tasks with features that you can depend on. Dolby Audio delivers crystal-clear sound whether you're watching a video, streaming music, or video-chatting, you're sure to love what you hear on the IdeaPad 3. A narrow bezel on 2 sides makes for a clean design, and larger display giving you more viewing area and less clutter. Input and output ports on a budget laptop are frequently a grab bag—you never know quite what you’re going to get, as the number and type of ports are constrained by whichever inexpensive motherboard design the laptop maker has sourced or concocted. For the IdeaPad 1 14, Lenovo has placed all but one of the ports on the left edge of the laptop. They include the connector for the barrel-style power adapter, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a full-size HDMI video output, and a microSD card slot. (Photo: Molly Flores) (Photo: Molly Flores)Battery: These systems do not support batteries that are not genuine Lenovo-made or authorised. Systems will continue to boot, but may not charge unauthorised batteries. Lenovo has no responsibility for the performance or safety of unauthorised batteries, and provides no warranties for failures or damage arising out of their use. **Battery life is based on the MobileMark® 2014 methodology and is an estimated maximum. Actual battery life may vary based on many factors, including screen brightness, active applications, features, power management settings, battery age and conditioning, and other customer preferences. You should also keep in mind that the build quality of the IdeaPad 1 (15″, 2022) is not fantastic. The plastic body panels flex, but to be frank, we expected the situation to be worse than that. Budget laptops can be full of unwanted preinstalled software known as bloatware, but the IdeaPad 3 14 is mercifully light on it. The usual offenders are here: Spotify, Disney Plus, McAfee Antivirus, and Alexa are just some of the apps taking up your precious storage space, but you can simply uninstall them if you don't need them. measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and lets high-end PCs and gaming rigs strut their stuff.

Our test is something of a best-case battery scenario, but it’s nice to know that even if you’re planning to use the IdeaPad 1 14 for more demanding tasks, you won’t suffer from battery anxiety. Consider plugging in a mouse for home use, but all you right-handers will have to do so on the “wrong” side of the laptop because the Lenovo IdeaPad 3’s USB ports are all on the left. There is the usual trio: one USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0s, but I’d expect to see the slower one on the right hand-side of the Lenovo IdeaPad 3. Turning to the ports, the IdeaPad 3 14 features a good selection. On its right side, you’ll find an SD card slot and a USB 2.0 port. 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. 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.A cheap laptop doesn't exist without compromise, but despite being sold at a budget price, the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14 feels premium. Its snappy performance, sturdy build, and additions like a USB-C port, Wi-Fi 6, and a fingerprint scanner help the IdeaPad 3 outclass its competition. Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing benchmark, in which we put a stopwatch on systems as they transcode a brief movie from 4K resolution down to 1080p. It, too, is a tough test for multi-core, multi-threaded CPUs; lower times are better. The IdeaPad 3 14 also makes some smart airflow enhancements. Using the Lenovo Vantage app, you can choose among three fan speeds that suit your performance needs. The rubber grips found underneath the laptop actually give the laptop an ever-so-slight airflow boost, since they keep the bottom of the chassis from sitting flush against your desk. 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.