Lenovo Ideapad 3i 2022 Edition

 

Lenovo Ideapad 3i 2022 Edition

Intro:

So I am here with one of the most popular mid-range productivity laptops. I’m talking about the latest iteration of the Lenovo Ideapad 3i 2022 edition, now the configuration we have here is one of many this particular configuration has the i5 1235 u processor, we have 12 Gigabytes of DDR4 memory onboard, Intel’s integrated Iris XD graphics and a 500 gigabyte the drive. We have Wi-Fi six and Bluetooth 5.2 on board additionally this is the 15-inch non-touch display.

However depending on which region you're located and which retailer you buy from, it also has a touch screen variant as well. In today's blog we're going to do a detailed breakdown to see if the Lenovo Idea pad 3i can keep its crown as one of the best values for productivity laptops or if they're getting a little rusty at their game and there might yet be better options as always.

Specs:

Let’s get started as far as the unboxing goes Lenovo really doesn't care much about their packaging experience which basically means you get a standard looking plain cardboard box with the word Lenovo literally written on it. Now once you open the box inside of course the first item you will find is the Idea pad 3i itself which on first impression looks very similar to last year's model but more on that in a quick minute, you also have a standard 65 watt charging adapter unfortunately it's still using Lenovo’s proprietary pin so no USB C charging out of the box bit of a shame there you also finally have the standard wall outlet charging cable piece and that's pretty much everything of relevance as I mentioned earlier the Ideapad 3i looks very similar to its 2021 predecessor in terms of design.

Build Quality & Design:

You have a majority plastic build with some premium metallic finishes but overall this is still very much the reserved and conservative design we've seen from Lenovo traditionally speaking now this laptop does have a relatively hefty weight of 3.8 pounds making it slightly heavier than the average 15 inch laptop but in all fairness it's bulky body doesn't necessarily look bad and like I mentioned has a professional appeal to it now starting off with the top side of the device like I mentioned you have this really nice premium metallic finish that doesn't really have any particular texture to it. It just looks nice and subtle you'll also notice you do have the classic Lenovo bagging towards the bottom right although this time you have a more chrome reflective surface rather than a plain old mirror.

One as you make your way to the side of the laptop you're going to be quite disappointed by the fact that I/O port quality and standards haven't really improved on this latest generation of the laptop, so you have the DC charging port past that you have a USB a super speed port you have a Hdmi 1.4 b port. You have a USB C port unfortunately, it's not thunderbolt 4, so it's just a plain old USB C port quite disappointing you also have a good old headphone jack.

Now on the other side you have one more usb a port and you do have interestingly enough a full-sized SD card reader while there are enough ports these standards are quite dated and would be usually found on laptops that are often two or even three years old, at this point in time the bottom of the laptop is pretty standard stuff so you do have a hard plastic finish you'll also notice you have a nice long air intake vent for cool air to enter and on either bottom corner you do have a speaker grille indicating this is a bottom firing dual speaker setup, as soon as you unfold this laptop you immediately appreciate the sheer amount of palm rest area Lenovo horizon for you to comfortably rest your hands but you're also mind baffled at the fact that for some reason Lenovo is unable to tell where the center of the device is because that track pad is way too left skewed which continues to be a problem with so many Lenovo devices.

 Now the good news of course is that the track pad itself is actually quite decent in terms of its quality so basically you do have a plastic surface finish but the clicks are surprisingly tactile it's very responsive and it's miles better than what a lot of the competition actually offers in this price range.

The keyboard on the Ideapad 3i continues to be a class act you have a ample amount of surface area on each keycap for the most part and you'll also appreciate the fact that the typing experience on here is an absolute joy, every keystroke feels tactile yet nimble at the exact same time this is one of the few keyboards we're typing is actually fun. On top of that you do have the inclusion of a full size 10 keypad for you number productivity folks out there and of course this is a fully backlit keyboard and if that's not enough it does include a built-in fingerprint scanner which doubles as the power button the hinge quality is decent on this device but you still do have a fair bit of wobble when you're acting using the device thankfully the hinge mechanism is quite secure which basically means it should last for the years to come now display fitting is pretty standard you have a relatively thin chin at the bottom you'll also notice you have nice and thin bezels they're narrow and they look more and less in line with 20 22 standard and you have a pretty thin forehead at the top which does unfortunately include a now severely outdated 720p webcam a lot of the competition has moved out no will continue to cheap out here a little bit and let's just be honest it looks less than ideal for anything other than zoom meetings.

Display:

In terms of display Lenovo went down the standard budget laptop route basically meaning you get a standard full HD or 1920x1080p display here a 15 inch screen with a ips panel and a 60hz refresh rate viewing angles are pretty decent as well now one thing I will tell you is that because it's the non-touch variant you have a matte finish screen if you got the touch variant it would have a glossy finish it's also worth noting this laptop has a overall color accuracy of just approximately 51 srgb meaning it looks bland and colors aren't that great on this machine if you are doing color sensitive activities you may want to consider other options but if you're looking at numbers on excel well it'll be all right for that now it's also worth noting you have a maximum peak brightness of 300 units which is more than enough for most indoor and low light settings however if you use this in bright outdoor settings the screen is easily overcome by glare.

 

Performance:

In terms of performance given that this is a u-series i5 processor I wasn't expecting all that much but it's a pretty peppy machine so day-to-day tasks like web browsing watching videos in 4k are all going to work super fast as you'd expect them to but even demanding tasks like extensive multitasking or even 4k video editing are actually viable experiences on this device in fact I was able to do multiple layer video rendering and it was a pretty smooth experience for the most part of that is because we have 12 gigabytes as opposed to eight gigabyte but it's definitely also because of that 12 gen power.

Now as far as gaming goes you'll be happy to know that older games like GTA 5 can easily run at a steady 30 plus frames per second on medium settings with dx11 enabled of course this is not a gaming machine by any standard so you're not going to run cyberpunk on here in the thermals department the 3i is actually pretty impressive so under unrealistic peak loads it can hit an average surface temperature of just about 44 degrees Celsius but more realistic sustained loads will yield you about 38 degrees which is a very manageable number now fat noise is not as forgiving unfortunately under peak lows we were able to hit as much as 49 decibels noise level which comes pretty close to gaming laptop territory fortunately the fans only really run when you're actually doing demanding tasks and it's pretty quiet when you're doing more casual activities.

 

Backup Life:

In terms of battery life performance will vary depending on the kind of activities you're doing in our tests we had it on 50 brightness did some web browsing occasionally use the speakers at 40 volume and also of course yielded just about eight hours of battery life in terms of speaker quality it's not crisp not all that clear there is a favorite distortion higher volume levels but this speaker system can definitely get very loud given the sizes laptop enough to fill an entire room have a quick listen for yourself.

Here’s the summary at approximately 650 us for the base configuration of the 3i 15-inch laptop there's definitely a lot of conservatism with this laptop Lenovo continues to use the successful design they introduced last year additionally they provide the same high quality track pad and keyboard we've come to love with Lenovo products however they refused to improve certain areas that now are definitely becoming visibly dated like the poor IO port selection on this laptop and that severely colorless display that they continue putting up now with that said of course these things aren't always imperative for all users and perhaps Lenovo’s doing so is strategic in the sense that they provide you with a lot of the items professional business users alike would need like having access again to a full-size 10 keypad but if you are someone who's more on the creative side the 3i isn't necessarily as competitive as some of the competition like with what Acer is putting out with the aspire 5 or hp with their laptop 15 series so definitely explore the market but if you're a business student or a professional then the 3i continues to be excellent budget productivity option overall.

 

If you guys enjoyed the content make sure to promote my blogs it genuinely helps us grow.

 

Instigator