One of the most popular mid-range productivity laptops I’m talking about the latest iteration of the Lenovo Idea pad 3i 2022 edition. In today's blog, we'll do a detailed breakdown to see if the Lenovo Ideapad 3i can keep its crown as one of the best values for productivity laptops, or if it's getting a little rusty on its game and there may still be better options out there. as always.
Lenovo Idea Pad 3i - Un-Boxing
When it comes to un-boxing, Lenovo really doesn't care much about its packaging experience, which basically means that when you open the box, you get a standard looking plain cardboard box with the word Lenovo literally written on it. Inside, of course, the first item you'll find is the Ideapad 3i itself, and the second thing you'll have is a 65W charging adapter and a standard wall outlet charging cable. On first impression, the Ideapad 3i looks very similar to last year's model in terms of design, you have a mostly plastic build with some premium metal finishes, but overall it's still a very reserved and conservative design that we've seen from Lenovo. Conventionally speaking, this laptop weighs in at a relatively hefty 3.8 pounds, so it's a bit heavier than the average 15-inch laptop, but in all fairness, its bulky body doesn't necessarily make it look bad.
Lenovo Idea pad 3i - 1st side
The laptop comes with a 15-inch non-touch/touch screen (however, depending on the region you're in and the retailer you're buying from). When you get to the notebook side, you will be quite disappointed that the quality and standards of the IO ports have not improved much in this latest generation notebook. So you have a DC charging port, a super speed USB port, an HDMI 1.4b port and a USBC port, it's not thunderbolt 4 so it's just a plain old USBC port which is quite disappointing. You have the better quality old earphone jack.
Lenovo Idea pad 3i -
Now on the other side you have one more USB port and you have a full size SD card reader. While there are plenty of ports, these standards are quite outdated and can usually be found on laptops that are often two or even three years old at this point.
Lenovo Idea Pad 3i -
As time goes by, the bottom of the laptop is pretty standard so you have a hard plastic finish and you'll also notice that you have a nice long air intake that lets cool air inside. You have a speaker grille on both bottom corners, which means it's a two-speaker setup from the bottom once you unfold this laptop. You immediately appreciate the huge surface area of the Lenovo horizon's palm rest to comfortably rest your hands on, but you're also confused by the fact that for some reason Lenovo can't determine where the center of the device is because the pad is positioned too far to the left, which is still a problem with so many devices Lenovo.
The good news, of course, is that the trackpad itself is actually pretty decent in terms of its quality, so you basically have a plastic surface, but the clicks are surprisingly tactile, very responsive, and miles better than most of the competition actually offers in this price range.
Lenovo Idea Pad 3i -
The keyboard on the Ideapad 3i continues to be a class act you have a ample amount of surface area on each keycap for the most part and you'll also appreciate the fact that typing on this place is an absolute joy, every keystroke is tactile but nimble at the same time, this is one of the few keyboards were typing is actually fun. On top of that, you have a full size 10 keyboard included for your productivity and of course it's a fully backlit keyboard and if that's not enough, it has a built-in fingerprint sensor that doubles the performance. The button hinge quality is decent on this device but it still shakes quite a bit when using the device, luckily the hinge mechanism is quite secure which basically means it should last for many years.
Lenovo Idea Pad 3i -
Now the display mount is pretty standard, you have a relatively thin chin at the bottom, you will also notice that you have nice and thin bezels, they are narrow and look more less in line with 2022 standard and you have a pretty thin forehead at the top which does unfortunately include a severely outdated 720p webcam a lot of the competition has moved out no will continue to cheap out here a little bit and let's just be honest it looks less than ideal for anything other than zoom meetings. When it comes to the display, Lenovo basically went the standard budget laptop route, which means you get a standard full HD or 1920x1080p display, a 15-inch screen with an IPS panel and a 60Hz refresh rate, the viewing angles are pretty decent, and I'll say one thing now. for the non-touch variant you have a matte screen finish, if you were to get the touch variant it would have a glossy finish, also worth noting this laptop only has an overall color accuracy of around 51 SRGB which means it looks dull and the colors aren't there this machine is great, if you do color sensitive work you might want to consider other options, but if you're good at looking at numbers in excel you'll be fine. Now, it's also worth noting that you get a maximum peak brightness of 300 nits, which is more than enough for most indoor and low-light settings, but if you use it in a bright outdoor environment, the screen will easily beat glare in terms of performance.
Lenovo Idea Pad 3i -
This is an i5 u-series processor, which I wasn't expecting much from, but it's a pretty punchy machine, so everyday tasks like browsing the web and watching 4k videos will all run super fast, as you'd expect from them. but even demanding tasks like extensive multitasking or even 4k video editing are truly viable on this device. I was actually able to do multi-layer video rendering and for the most part it was a pretty smooth experience, partly because we have 12 gigabytes versus eight gigabytes, but it's also definitely because of that 12 gen performance. while gaming you'll be happy to know that older games like GTA 5 can easily run at a steady 30+ fps on medium settings with dx11 enabled of course this isn't a gaming machine by any standard so you won't be going cyberpunk here in the thermals department.
The Ideapad 3i is actually quite impressive, so under unrealistic peak load it can only reach an average surface temperature of about 44 degrees Celsius, but a more realistic sustained load will give you about 38 degrees, which is a very manageable number, now unfortunately the noise is not so forgiving. at max lows we were able to reach noise levels of up to 49 decibels, which is close to gaming laptop territory, luckily the fans only really run when you're really doing demanding tasks and are pretty quiet when you're doing more casual activities in terms of battery life, performance will vary depending on what kind of activities you do in our tests, we had the brightness at 50, occasionally used the speakers at 40 for some web browsing, and also of course watched some 4k footage on Netflix and only got about eight hours of battery life , in terms of speaker quality, it's not sharp, it's not very clear, there's a favorite distortion of the higher volume level b This speaker system can definitely be very loud for the size of a laptop, it fills the room, and quickly listen for yourself.
Conclusion:
Here is a summary of the basic configuration of the 3i 15 inch laptop, there is definitely a lot of conservatism in this laptop Lenovo continues to use the successful design they introduced last year, it also provides the same quality trackpad and keyboard that we have come to love with Lenovo products, however they refused to improve certain areas that now they are definitely becoming visibly outdated, such as the poor selection of IO ports on this laptop and the heavily colorless display they continue to put up with, that said of course these things aren't always necessary. all users and maybe Lenovo is doing this is strategic in the sense that they give you a lot of items that professional business users would need, such as access to a full 10 keyboard again, but if you are someone who is more creative the 3i is not necessarily as competitive as some of the competition like what acer puts out with the aspire 5 or hp with their 15 series laptops so definitely research the market but if you are a business student or professional then the 3i is still an excellent budget productivity option if you liked the content make sure you hit the like button and consider subscribing to this channel it really helps us let me know which laptop review you would like to see.
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