About this deal
Yet, somehow, it’s actually quite acceptable for everyday use. As long as you don’t try and use it outside, or under particularly intense lighting, the screen is perfectly workable – movies and games played via Google’s Stadia streaming games service actually don’t look too bad at all. This compact Chromebook shares almost identical dimensions with its 11.6-inch predecessors, though this year, the lid bumps out a miniscule amount in the middle third. This gives you an easy handhold when pulling open the laptop without having to sculpt in a divot at the bottom, like most Chromebooks. The laptop may only technically be one color, but the two-tone texturing between the left third and the right two-thirds feels wonderfully pleasant in hand and makes for an easy grip when carrying the wonderfully lightweight Flex 3i around. Again, it's very likely that the dim, low-resolution screen played a big part in the IdeaPad 3's strong showing here. A Bargain Chromebook
Lenovo IdeaPad 3 11.6 Inch HD Chromebook - (Intel Celeron, 4
You don’t necessarily need to upgrade, however. Over a day or so of light use, including web browsing with a handful of tabs open at once, I found the IdeaPad 3 to be mostly free of sluggishness. It also took only around 10 seconds to boot up. I did encounter a significant slowdown when I was transferring a multi-gigabyte file from an external drive, but the system never froze up completely. 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. Of course, there are now numerous affordable 2-in-1 Chromebooks to choose from, including the Acer Chromebook Spin. The general theme in that class of Chromebook involves low-power processing and limited storage. The Flex 3 is no exception. Lenovo announced the IdeaPad Flex 3i Chromebook (Gen 8) in late December 2022, but the laptop didn't go on sale until the following summer, arriving around the end of July 2023. While multiple configurations of the Flex 3i (Gen 8) were announced, the only one we've seen for sale — and the one we reviewed — has the Intel N100, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal storage.In isolation, there’s a lot to like about the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 3i for the more basic, utilitarian computer usage – it has a comfortable keyboard, good battery life, and when you’re done working, you can flip the screen around and use it to stream videos. I’ve preferred using the Chromebook Flex 3i to a significantly more expensive Samsung Chromebook because it’s much more comfortable to use and for getting stuff done. 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.
Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Chromebook - Review 2020 - PCMag UK
Rounding out the main features, wireless connectivity takes the form of WiFi 802.11 AC and Bluetooth 4.2. Cutting edge, the Flex 3 is not. But the core functionality is all present.
A propensity to wander also means that Chromebooks need solid Wi-Fi, since they may be far from a wireless base station. While I didn’t experience any random disconnects or slowdowns while testing the IdeaPad 3 connected to a Netgear Nighthawk router, it is unfortunate that the laptop uses the older 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard. This offers adequate speed and reliability today, but the next-generation 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) standard provides better future-proofing.
Best Chromebooks for 2023 to suit every budget | Evening Standard
Audio quality is decent, though the stereo 2-watt speakers fire through bottom-mounted grilles, which means their output can sound slightly muddy when you’re watching a video or listening to music. Even as power-strained as the Lenovo C330, C340-11, and previous Flex 3i models were, I could at least work on them so long as I didn't go overboard on tabs. That really isn't the case with the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3i Chromebook (Gen 8) unless you're purely using it for casual browsing. Most budget Chromebooks start struggling once you have like 15-20 tabs/windows open. Once I got above six on the Gen 8, performance crawled to a halt. When it comes to battery life, however, the IdeaPad 3’s advantage is apparent. No other Chromebook we’ve tested recently comes close to its result on our video battery rundown test, which involves playing a locally stored video at 50 percent screen brightness with Wi-Fi turned off until the laptop dies. Were this a Windows machine, that Intel Celeron chip, 4GB of memory and 64GB eMMC SSD would be enough to invoke fear of the almighty, as in almighty awful performance. But not in a Chromebook.READ NEXT: Dell Latitude 7410 Chromebook Enterprise review Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Chromebook review: Performance and battery life Now for the big surprise. Where other ultra-budget Chromebooks stuff in dated Celeron N3350 and N4000 processors, the IdeaPad 3 has a 2019-vintage N4020 running at up to 2.8GHz. The scores in the Android Geekbench 5 benchmark are a little higher than the Celeron N4000-based Chromebooks, too, though not up there with the faster Pentium and Core i3 models. All told, the IdeaPad 3 feels a little snappier than some of its rivals in day-to-day browsing and general use.