Lenovo IdeaPad 3 11 Chromebook Laptop, 11.6"
with covet 19 raging on one surprisingbeneficiary of the pandemic seems to bethe chrome os platform that makes senseseeing every parent and their childrenare using zoom and cloud-based worksuites on the daily lenovo sent us areview unit of the ideapad 3 chromebookwhich sells at an affordable price of250,and with an ever saturating market ofquality budget laptops does this onehave a spot on your consideration listchromebooks are an easy piece oftechnology to review whether torecommend to buyers or notunlike android phones where oems oftenadd their own skin or additionalfeatures onto the device all chromebooksare unified in their delivery of acomputing experience, when you pop openthat lid you're greeted with a quickboot up and a simple setup processwhich goes into chrome os home screenthe heart of modern chromebooks revolvearound the android google play storewhich allows this lightweight operatingsystem to give users all theapplications they need for just aboutany taskwhere things deviate from chromebook tochromebook is with performance this isof course influenced by the type ofprocessor powering laptop on the ideapad3 lenovo opted to use an intel celeronn4020 chipset that has long populatedbudget chromebooks it might sound weirdfor me to say this but i'd rather see anarm chip processor on budget chrome osdevices as android apps seem to respondbetter to thosesurfing the internet on the ideapad 3 isenjoyable enough with little to nostuttering when navigating through threeto five tabs anything more will usuallybog down load times when it comes toapps i've been actually relativelysurprised at how well it's held up onits own games like pokemon quest andbloon's adventure time work flawlesslyas if you were playing this on one ofthe android flagship phones there wereno frame dropping issues with games ofthat stature certain graphicallyintensive games like war robots wouldn'teven open up on this laptop that'spretty much what i've come to expectfrom intel celeron processors on chromeosone thing this chromebook has that manynewer chromebooks are departing from isthe inclusion of multiple portswhile the inclusion of ports adds to thethickness of the device there are stillmany use case scenarios that requireplugging in accessories the ideapad 3provides you with 2 usb c ports 2 usb 8ports a headphone jack and a micro sdcard reader that'll be plenty enough forany kid to get their homework done theaddition of a micro sd card slot alshelps alleviate the minuscule 32gigabytes of on-board storage thislaptop has it's also nice to have thislaptop charged through usbc whileadoption rates have skyrocketed theselast couple of years some budget devicesare still holding out with micro usbit's definitely refreshing to see a usbcon a 250 laptop speaking of chargingyou'll get solid battery life here ifyou literally use this for web browsingon chrome os as it was intended for itwill be days before you need to chargehowever if you use this laptop forentertainment purposes i was able tosqueeze roughly 45 hours running a game ,
non-stop off the plug that's not too badwhat is bad is without a doubt the tndisplay here i thought we left tndisplays in the rear view window oncethe asus chromebook flip launchedit ,
showed the world that you can have a
budget price point with a screen that's
actually viewable yeah here we are in
2020 and i'm viewing the same eyesore
that tainted my vision in the early
2010s of course i'm being sarcastic here
yet the frightening thing is i'm not
exactly fully kidding this is not a high
quality display by any means you can't
really expect to be blown away at 250
but
i can at least be hopeful to want to
look at a laptop right i can't stand to
keep my eyes on this tn panel for longer
than a few minutes at a time you can't
really discuss viewing angles when there
are no viewing angles that are
comfortable to look at in the first
place i can't even tell you how many
times my hand reaches for the hinge to
adjust the viewing angle of this
of this display while reading just one
article at least you can fold the
display all the way flat to the table
not that it really helps
yes the size is great for the price at
14.1 inches
i'm even going to say that at the bare
minimum qualification of hd 1366 by 768p
it doesn't bother me when i keep
reminding myself this is only 250 the
only thing i cannot get off my mind is
ironically another chromebook from
lenovo we recently reviewed the
chromebook duet yes the four factor andthe intended use cases are different butfor a mere 20-ish dollars more theviewing experience on that device was somuch better i can't even put into words,
how night and day it is literally it's
like viewing night and day not having
glare reflections on the screen might be
the only positive thing i have to say
about tn panels on chromebooks don't get
me wrong though i don't hate tm panels
in fact at the lab i work in i actually
use tn panels
every single day i just can't scan low
resolution tn panels on laptops they
have to go
everything else about the ideapad 3
chromebook is satisfactory this is
constructed from plastic
and deceptively large i say deceptively
because from a distance you could easily
mistake this for a much thinner device
lenovo focused the majority of the
components towards the rear before
thinning it out
to hit the lip it's plastic for sure but
seems well put together i do like the
typing experience here too thanks to a
large comfortable key layout the keycaps
don't give off that mushy feel that many
laptops in the budget range of
yesteryear are known for i'm pleasantly
happy with the tactile response and
touch of this non-backlit keyboard no
backlighting is a deterrent from using
this laptop in many scenarios but i do
tend to give these devices a pass thanks
to the low price tag
the trackpad on the other hand gives me
much less material to praise since this
is a rather large laptop size there is a
fair amount of room for the trackpad
while it's a decent size as it is
i've seen laptops of much smaller
stature with about the same trackpad
imprint i think lenovo could have bumped
that up just a little bit
the problem with the trackpad is that it
isn't quite precise enough to be
reliable to use i found myself having to
subconsciously target what i'm clicking
on more than usual i wouldn't go so far
as to say it's sluggish for response
time but i will say it felt airy as if
the arrow you control had no weight to
it
to round out the hardware side of the
ideapad 3 you're probably wondering
where the speakers are
like many older chromebook designs there
are dual speakers on the bottom panel of
the laptop
down facing speakers on their budget
laptop they're never any good and this
trend continues here sound coming out of
the idea path 3 is muffled and kind of
archaic sounding you can tell lenovo
didn't put a lot of value into audio
reproduction here and a part of me
actually doesn't really mind that i
doubt many people looking for a device
for entertainment purposes will be
looking at this laptop in the first
place lenovo at least gave users a
headphone jack here also don't expect
much from the 720p webcam you'll have to
rely on your own beauty to impress youco-workers or classmates instead of placing your trust on the capabilitiesof this camera what it comes down to ultimately when considering the ideapad 3 are two things.
intended use of the laptop and the
budget although the chromebook duet is a
significantly different device from the
traditional laptop built like this
unless you for some reason can't add 25
dollars to your budget i highly
recommend looking into that direction if
you legitimately only had 250 and not a
dime more to spend you can do a lot
worse than the ideapad 3. this isn't an
ideal computing machine but it is very
much a serviceable machine you'll just
have to stomach looking at it
you know what you should do
hit that subscribe button because by the
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something better is probably going to
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check that video out in the future
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