SD-card reader: Transfer multimedia files like photos from your camera or mobile devices, a great feature for photographers. 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.

3 series :: ideapad 3 - US laptops and netbooks :: 3 series :: ideapad 3 - US

I'm replacing a heavy, 9yr-old, flakey 17" HP, 900p. So I'm thrilled with how much lighter, cooler, and quieter this Lenovo is.

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. 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. 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. If the kids manage to get hold of it, for example, you won't have to worry about it snapping in half... probably.

Lenovo IdeaPad 3 laptop - 10th Gen Intel core i5-1035G1, 8GB Lenovo IdeaPad 3 laptop - 10th Gen Intel core i5-1035G1, 8GB

Core i5 11th generation processor: When it comes to doing day to day tasks like browsing, video conferencing, this mid-range processor (1135G7) does not disappoint.

Lenovo IdeaPad 3, core i5 11th Generation, 15-inch, 4GB, 1TB specs:

You don’t get a graphics card, just the integrated graphics that is part of the Core i3 processor. There was little point in subjecting the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 to our usual gaming tests, but I did try out Skyrim to see if it would run. 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.