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How about Photoshop? It will run OK for the basics, but 4GB RAM is not enough if you want to start working on big layered images. Photoshop is a RAM hog, and when it runs out you will start to see significant slow-down and potentially some crashes. Lenovo says its IdeaPad laptops are made for “thin and light” portable use. But it hasn’t followed this up with a particularly large battery.
The bodywork is mostly plastic, although the lid is an unnamed metal, finished in the two-tone grey Lenovo seems to favour for its Chromebook line these days. There’s no doubt that the Slim 3i 14 is a budget Chromebook but it doesn’t feel horribly cheap and the construction seems perfectly robust. In fact, Lenovo claims it’s certified for military-grade durability, along with resistance to damage from spills and drops. It hasn’t been tested against the full range of tests required for MIL-STD-810H certification, however. The Lenovo IdeaPad 3 keyboard also suggest this laptop is meant more for work than play. While there’s a certain hollow sound to key presses ringing through the plastic shell, if you type hard, this is actually a lovely keyboard for long-form typing. I’ve used a lot of Lenovo laptop keyboards over the last ten years and the best are as good as it gets, while even the worst examples tend to be perfectly usable. The keyboard on the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook 14 sits somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
An ultra-cheap Chromebook with reasonable performance, but the screen and build are sub-par
In terms of the physical design, Lenovo has made the best of a limited budget. The all-plastic construction feels cheap, but there’s a nice two-tone textured effect on the lid, which itself isn’t as weak and flexible as on some budget Chromebooks. Bar the massive bezel below the screen, it’s not a bad-looking device. This laptop uses a standard cylindrical plug to charge, which is obvious when you remember there aren’t even any USB-Cs here. A charge takes around two hours, and it goes from flat to 30% in 30 minutes. Should you buy the Lenovo IdeaPad 3? First impressions of the keyboard and touchpad aren’t great. There’s something a bit cheap-looking and toy-like about the IdeaPad 3’s square chiclet keys – we’re a long way away from the classy, sculpted keytops found on Lenovo’s business-grade ThinkPad laptops.
Consider plugging in a mouse for home use, but all you right-handers will have to do so on the “wrong” side of the laptop because the Lenovo IdeaPad 3’s USB ports are all on the left. There is the usual trio: one USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0s, but I’d expect to see the slower one on the right hand-side of the Lenovo IdeaPad 3. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook is a solid, low-cost option for young professionals or college students. While we really like the lightweight design and long battery life, we had some caveats with the overall performance and disappointing 720p webcam. Intel’s new Core i3-N305 is a peculiar little chip. It’s one of Intel’s Alder Lake-N CPUs, and with its eight cores and speeds of up to 3.8GHz, it feels it belongs in the Core i3 line rather than the barebones “Processor” line of the cheaper, four-core N100. However, those eight cores are Efficiency cores rather than the Performance cores you’ll find in the higher-end 12th and 13th gen Core i3 part, and this has a tangible impact on performance. Basically, I’d say this chip has more in common with the old Pentium Gold CPUs than a modern Core i3. Paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of eMMC storage, it’s nowhere near as fast as the Core i3 and Core i5 processors we’re seeing in devices such as the Asus Chromebook Vibe CX34 Flip or Acer Chromebook Spin 714. If you need a Chromebook for simple computing needs, and budget is your primary shopping criteria, the IdeaPad 3 will likely meet your needs. By giving up a high-resolution display, you get enough computing power for basic tasks, plenty of external connectivity, excellent battery life, and a reasonably attractive, well-built chassis.Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. See how we test. Sound is another area where the IdeaPad Slim 3i does surprisingly well. You’re not going to get the richest tone or immersive surround sound here, but it isn’t horrible weedy, harsh or tinny, and you can watch old concert footage on YouTube or stream a show on Netflix without feeling like you have to plug some headphones in. Putting it through the normal benchmark tests, the Chromebook posted the following scores; Jetstream 2 – 58.31, Basemark 3.0 – 340.71, Geekbench 5 (Android version) – single-core 447, multi-core 855. This puts it miles behind the likes of the premium
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