The IdeaPad 3 range has always catered to the budget-friendly consumer and with improved processors found inside these machines, the value these bring to the table is phenomenal. The Lenovo-branded notebook is listed on Amazon for only $449, and after hearing about its internals, you will be thrilled to hear that the price does not break the bank.
Coming to the build first, since it is a budget-friendly notebook, consumers need to have realistic expectations if they pay less than $500 for an IdeaPad 3. It will not have a MacBook chassis at this price point, instead sporting plastic all around. The display is a 14-inch 1080p IPS LCD unit with a decent color gamut, and the keyboard deck does not have a number pad, leaving plenty of space for the keys to be spaced away from one another to avoid accidental presses.
Underneath the hood of the IdeaPad 3, you get AMD’s Ryzen 5 5500U, a 6-core CPU rocking 12 threads that can run up to 4.00GHz when required. The CPU is complemented with 8GB of DDR4 RAM running at 3200MHz, plus 256GB of PCIe NVMe storage. Before you ask, both the RAM and SSD are upgradable, though there is 4GB RAM already soldered to the motherboard, so you can add another 16GB stick, totaling 20GB of RAM.
As for the SSD, there is a single stick that is already populated on the laptop, but you can pick out something affordable like the Crucial P2 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD that is available on Amazon for only $76.99, so you do not go overboard with the total amount. When doing basic tasks like word processing, and video streaming, running 8GB of RAM on Windows 11 should be enough, and you can always upgrade down the road.
You also have a wide array of ports such as a single USB 3.2 Type-A port, HDMI 1.4b, USB-C port, and a 3.5mm audio-combo jack. On the other side, you are greeted with a full-sized SD card reader and a single USB 2.0 Type-A port. There is a privacy shutter located on the top of the 720p webcam if that matters to you. Overall, the IdeaPad 3 is a fantastic deal on Amazon, and we are surprised how Lenovo managed to get it down to this much. If you are interested, all you have to do is click on the link below.
