Lenovo IdeaPad 1 14" 2020 Review

Let's be straight up. The Lenovo IdeaPad 1 with an AMD A6 is a $153 laptop. That's the most important number here. It gets you a 14-inch screen, a 64GB SSD, and Windows 10 S in a 1.41kg body. For that price, you're getting a machine that's in the 80th percentile for compactness, which means it's genuinely light and portable.

Everything else is a trade-off. The 4GB of RAM puts it in the 0th percentile, and the AMD A6 dual-core CPU sits in the 10th percentile. This isn't a powerhouse. It's a basic tool for very specific, lightweight tasks like web browsing and document editing, and it's built to a very tight budget.

Performance is exactly what you'd expect from a $153 laptop with these specs. That AMD A6 dual-core CPU in the 10th percentile means it will struggle with anything beyond one or two basic applications at a time. The discrete Radeon R4 GPU is a bit of a surprise at this price, but its 37th percentile ranking still means it's only good for very light media playback, not gaming or creative work.

The 4GB of RAM is the biggest bottleneck. Being in the 0th percentile means it's the absolute minimum for running Windows 10 S. You'll feel that limit constantly. The 64GB SSD (6th percentile) fills up fast, but at least it's an SSD, so the system itself won't feel sluggish from storage delays.

The value proposition is simple: it costs $153. For that, you get a functional laptop with a name-brand OS. The price-per-performance ratio is... interesting. You're paying for the absolute baseline of computing. There's no room to negotiate on specs at this price; what you see is what you get. If your budget is rigidly under $200 and you need a Windows machine for text-only tasks, this has a case. Otherwise, even a small budget increase opens up much better options.

Comparing this to its listed 'competitors' like the MacBook Pro or Legion Pro is laughable—they're in a different universe. A real comparison is against other ultra-budget machines or used devices. For example, a used business laptop from a few years ago around $200 will often have a better CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a larger SSD. The IdeaPad 1's only clear advantage is its new-in-box status and super low weight. Against something like a Chromebook, you lose the Windows ecosystem but gain much smoother performance on similarly priced hardware. You're choosing between a slow Windows experience and a fast, limited ChromeOS one.

This is a hard machine to recommend for most people. The 0th percentile RAM and 10th percentile CPU create a experience that's frustratingly slow. It's only suitable if your needs are incredibly basic—think writing in a single Word document with one browser tab open—and your budget cannot exceed $153 by a single cent. For students or business use, its scores in the 20s and teens are a clear warning. If you can possibly stretch your budget, even by $50, you'll find used or refurbished machines that are dramatically more capable and reliable. This laptop exists for a very specific, very constrained financial scenario.