Lenovo IdeaPad 15.6" 3i Review

This Chromebook is a weird one. It's got a big 15.6-inch screen, but that's about where the good news ends. The one thing you need to know is that it's built with some bafflingly old and slow parts for the price. It feels like Lenovo found some leftover components from 2018 and threw them in a new case. For basic web browsing, it'll work, but you can feel it struggling with more than a handful of tabs.

The performance is exactly what you'd expect from a single-core AMD 4500 CPU and 8GB of RAM in 2024: not great. It lands in the 35th percentile for CPU and a dismal 10th for RAM. Opening a few Google Docs and a YouTube tab is fine, but try to multitask and you'll hear the fan spin up. The 64GB eMMC storage is painfully slow and tiny, landing in the 6th percentile. You'll be managing cloud storage from day one.

At $219, it's cheap. But it's not a good value. You're buying a laptop that feels outdated the moment you open the box. That low price comes with major compromises in speed, storage, and future-proofing. You can find better used Chromebooks for this money.

Don't even look at the MacBook Pro or gaming laptops on the competitor list, that's silly. The real comparison is against other budget Chromebooks. The ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5 or even older models like the Acer Chromebook 514 will run circles around this IdeaPad. They have better processors, more RAM, and faster storage for similar prices. This Lenovo is outclassed in its own category.

Skip it. This Chromebook is a budget trap. It's built with specs that were mediocre five years ago, and it shows. For a student or someone who just needs a web machine, there are far better options that won't frustrate you daily. Spend a little more or buy used, and you'll get a much better experience.