Lenovo IdeaPad 1 14" 82LV0075US Cloud Grey

The Lenovo IdeaPad 1 is a $190 Windows laptop that's too slow to recommend, period. For the same money, a Chromebook will feel like a luxury upgrade.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 1 costs $190, and it absolutely feels like a $190 Windows laptop. That's not a compliment. This is a machine built for the absolute basics, checking email, typing up a document, maybe streaming a video, and even then it struggles as soon as you open more than a couple browser tabs. The Celeron processor and 4GB of RAM are a miserable pairing with Windows 11, and the sluggish eMMC storage makes every click feel like it's wading through molasses. But here's the weird part: the screen, a 1366x768 TN panel, actually punches above its weight in our database, ranking surprisingly high among laptops. It's not good by any modern standard, but at this price, it's not the insult you'd expect.

What surprised us wasn't the sluggish performance, we expected that from a Celeron N4500 and 4GB of RAM. The shock was the screen. It hit the 89th percentile in our testing, which is frankly baffling given the 220-nit, 45% NTSC specs. The anti-glare coating helps it stay usable in bright rooms, but colors are washed out and viewing angles are classic TN. As for actual performance, don't think about multitasking. A single lightweight app is fine, but with two or three Chrome tabs, the whole system starts gasping. Our database puts the CPU and RAM at the absolute bottom, only 2nd percentile across all laptops. The 128GB eMMC drive is also among the slowest we've recorded, in the 6th percentile. Boot times are glacial and file transfers feel like a punishment.

For $190, it's actually a poor value. We'd say skip it. A similarly priced Chromebook like a Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 or Acer Chromebook 314 will handle web browsing and light work far more smoothly, and usually with better battery life. The only reason to buy this is if you're forced to run a specific Windows app and have no budget at all.

The real competition for the IdeaPad 1 isn't the MacBook Air M1 or high-end Dell Latitudes, it's other dirt-cheap laptops and, honestly, Chromebooks. The HP Stream 14 is a direct Windows rival with similar specs, but it suffers from the same slow storage and RAM ceiling. At this price, an Acer Chromebook 315 or Lenovo Chromebook 3 provides a much better experience. ChromeOS is lighter, so 4GB of RAM goes further, and you'll get faster boot times. If you need Windows, an old off-lease Dell Latitude like the 5420 with an 11th-gen i5 and 8GB of RAM can be found refurbished around $250, and it runs circles around this IdeaPad.

If you're looking for a laptop that can multitask, run light games, or just open more than three browser tabs without crying, this isn't it. Go get a refurbished business laptop or a Chromebook. You'll be way happier.

Don't buy the Lenovo IdeaPad 1 unless you're literally out of options and must run Windows on a sub-$200 budget. The Celeron CPU and 4GB of RAM make everyday tasks a chore, and the storage is a cruel joke. Pick up a Chromebook instead and save yourself the frustration.