



Lenovo IdeaPad 3 review: performance and features Need a laptop with more gaming power? Then take a look at T3's best gaming laptops guide. Despite the low price, we'd expect it to last you a good few years. Unless you need something really compact or a lot of screen real estate, this laptop hits the sweet spot between giving you lots of display to look at without sacrificing too much in the way of mobility. But at the same time it's a well-built portable computer, which at 1.6 kilograms (that's 3.5 lbs) isn't at all difficult to lug around the office or the house. It's fair to say that the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 looks like what it is: a budget laptop. Three USB-A ports, a HDMI-out port for an external monitor, a 3.5 mm headphone jack and an SD card slot mean that you're pretty well covered in terms of attaching peripherals and other gadgets up to your laptop too. There's no keyboard backlighting, but we can live with that, and while the trackpad is on the small side it feels substantial and responsive.Īnother nice touch is the privacy shield on the webcam just above the monitor, which gives you some extra peace of mind once your video calling is done for the day. You don't get a full-sized keyboard with a number pad, but otherwise it's excellent: the key presses feel soft but substantial, the keys are well spaced, and you get the usual array of shortcuts on the function keys at the top (for volume, brightness, and so on). It's worth mentioning the typing experience on the Lenovo IdeaPad 3. If the kids manage to get hold of it, for example, you won't have to worry about it snapping in half. The screen hinge feels robust, the outer plastic casing feels durable, and you get the impression that this is a laptop that's going to last and last. Lenovo has been in the laptop game for a long time now of course, and that's reflected in the solid build quality and reassuring feel of the IdeaPad 3. While the 16:9 aspect ratio isn't as good as 16:10 for documents and webpages, it does work very well for video content, as we found from a quick YouTube binge. It's not available as a touchscreen, but then you wouldn't really expect it to be at this price. Whether you're browsing the web, writing up an essay, or sitting back and watching some movies from your favourite video streaming platform, the display of the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 holds up. The bezels around the display are thicker than you'll find on the very best laptops out there, and the viewing angles and maximum brightness aren't particularly top-notch, but this is a laptop that you need to judge in relation to its price – and for the money it costs we were very satisfied.

The IdeaPad 3 comes with a compact 14-inch display running at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, and it's a reasonably bright and crisp screen.
