In the $500 laptop price bracket, there was a time when customers had to sacrifice a lot when they were on a budget for laptops. However, for $520, the Lenovo IdeaPad 3i offers solid hardware that will last you years if properly maintained. The 15.6-inch 1080p machine offers a decent build that's plastic all around, because at this price point you should have realistic expectations of what you're getting for your money.
Under the hood is all the magic, as you get a 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1235U, 8GB of DDR4 memory soldered to the motherboard, and 512GB of PCIe NVMe storage. There is a free RAM slot that you can fill later, but we recommend that you do it as soon as possible, because the IdeaPad 3i runs Windows 11, and according to user reviews, there are a lot of advantages in increasing the memory. The pre-installed storage has decent read and write speeds and supports the Gen 3 standard.
The CPU itself offers two high-performance and eight energy-saving ones, which leads to a significant improvement in multi-threaded workloads. The extra cores are definitely a step up from Intel's 11th gen lineup, and you can also squeeze a little battery life out of the built-in 48WHr cell, though your mileage will vary. Accessing the internal hardware is also easy. In terms of ports, there's a decent assortment of I/O, including two USB-A ports (one USB 3.2 and one 2.0), an HDMI port, an SD card reader, and an audio jack.
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You can also chat with colleagues or friends on the 720p HD camera, which also comes with dual microphones and Smart Noise Cancelling. After the call is over, just slide the physical shutter over the webcam to ensure your privacy. For basic tasks, a bit of browsing, streaming or media consumption, Lenovo's IdeaPad 3i will be your perfect everyday driver, but as this is a limited-time offer, we advise readers to grab it as soon as possible.
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