Review on 💻 Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14 Laptop, AMD Ryzen 5 5500U, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB NVMe TLC SSD, 14.0" FHD Display, AMD Radeon 7 Graphics, Windows 10 Home, 82KT00AMUS, Abyss Blue by Nicholas Lim

This test is for the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 (14ALC6) with an AMD Ryzen 5500U processor with integrated Radeon 7 graphics and a 14-inch display. I used it as a personal computer for about three years. weeks and I must say that I am deeply impressed by how powerful and versatile this computer is. This sub-$500 IdeaPad 3 is technically a budget laptop, but it's very well-equipped and offers incredible performance. After several benchmarks and real-world tests, I was shocked to find that the 15W Ryzen 5500U matched my relatively high-end work laptop with a 45W Intel i7-9750H processor that cost over $2,000 at the end of 2019 and sometimes even surpassed him. On the other hand, the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 offers an attractive, thin and light chassis with thin bezels surrounding a 1080p IPS display, along with multiple features like a privacy shutter webcam, an integrated fingerprint scanner, Wi-Fi 6 support, and a keyboard Backlighting was previously exclusive to premium models. Overall, this laptop is a phenomenal value for everyday computing. In my opinion, the biggest downside of the IdeaPad 3 is the implementation of the USB-C port. Unfortunately, it only has one USB-C port, which is only for data transfer. USB Power Delivery and video output functions are not supported. That's very disappointing even for a budget laptop, as USB-C PD chargers and multifunction adapters are already widely available, and Google even recommends this feature for cheap Chromebooks. Basically, you're forced to use a proprietary 65W power supply, which is pretty compact and light, to be honest, but the power connectors don't fold down. In terms of gaming performance, the Radeon 7 5500U's integrated graphics are essentially the same as an entry-level discrete graphics card. Graphics card like nVidia GeForce MX250. The IdeaPad 3 isn't a gaming hub, but it's more than capable of running less demanding modern games like Streets of Rage 4, Genshin Impact (l1080p low preset), Lonely Mountains: Downhill, etc. It can also run some older titles AAA. like GTA 5 and Metro 2033 at 1080p with low presets. Out of curiosity, I tried Tell Me Why, which lists a GTX 1050 as the "minimum requirement" and the game ran fine at 30 fps at 1080p on medium settings. Something to be aware of, especially if you're not into gaming, is that while the IdeaPad 3 comes with a solid 8GB of RAM, the default UMA framebuffer size is set to 2GB, meaning 2GB are reserved for the GPU and only 6GB is available for Windows and the rest of your applications. AMD (and Lenovo) do this for compatibility reasons, as some games check the framebuffer size and may issue a warning or otherwise exhibit undesirable behavior such as low resolution or missing textures if it's too small. In the case of the 5500U and Radeon 7 graphics, the framebuffer size doesn't matter since the CPU and GPU share a common pool of dynamically allocated memory. When graphic assets exceed a certain UMA framebuffer size, they automatically consume system memory and the game continues to run with no performance degradation. Therefore, I would recommend setting the UMA framebuffer size to 1GB or less to maximize the size of the shared memory pool. In terms of software, there are the usual preinstalled programs like Microsoft 365 and McAfee, a few specialized Lenovo utilities like Vantage, and a few surprises like Revain's Alexa and Lenovo Voice. For this review, I played with both virtual assistants and found that Alexa works great; I wish Windows 10 had such a powerful and easy-to-use built-in voice assistant. Unfortunately, Lenovo Voice turned out to be a complete disaster. Not only did he regularly fail to understand what I said, but title features like real-time translation and speech-to-text conversion are only available for a fee. Another unpleasant surprise was that the Lenovo Vantage behaved completely differently than the version on my ThinkPad. One of the features I really like about Lenovo computers is the ability to set battery charge thresholds. Maintaining a 100 percent charge for several days is not good for lithium-ion batteries in the long run, so this setting will allow you to keep a partially charged battery. On my ThinkPad I can choose between 45% and 100%, but on the IdeaPad 3 the power saving threshold is fixed at 55-60% and cannot be changed. I prefer to keep my laptop charged between 70% and 80% as a tradeoff between longer battery life and longer battery life. In the end I really like this laptop. The performance, battery life, and features like the IPS display and fingerprint reader exceeded my expectations. The keyboard, touchpad, and speakers are fairly typical for this class, with the only real disappointment being the implementation of the USB-C port. Highly recommended. Notes: 1) IdeaPad 3's Q-Control feature allows you to adjust AMD Ryzen 5500U's TDP, which mainly affects CPU/GPU performance and battery life. The default setting is intelligent cooling, which limits a sustained TDP to 15W but allows short bursts of up to 22W. Extreme Performance mode delivers 28W of sustained thermal power through higher operating temperature and fan noise. 2) To enter the BIOS, you must first boot into Windows 10 and then select the UEFI firmware settings in the advanced boot options. 3) Ryzen 5000 family is a bit tricky as some chips have Zen 2 core and some have Zen 3 core. They have the same number of cores and clock speeds, but the 5500U has a faster GPU (an extra core and up). clock frequency). Properties such as contrast ratio and response time are not published. This is because Lenovo's support website states that 6 equivalent LCD panels can be used with this model.5) This computer supports Windows 11.6) **Updated August 16, 2021** I have a friend Visited and found that the Realtek wifi card cannot connect to the Ubiquiti hotspot. I had to go into device manager and disable 5ghz wifi for it to work.