Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15″, 2022) – Top 5 Pros and Cons

Lenovo and AMD have always gotten along pretty well together, offering pretty good devices, especially when it comes to gaming. The Intel-powered IdeaPad Gaming 3i is a pretty good budget addition, but it has its problems like the low battery life, while the low TGP graphics don’t help either when comparing the device to the Nitro 5 (by the way, we did that and you can read all about it HERE).

However, today we have the AMD-powered model, and we know how efficient the 5000H-series chips were, so we’d expect that the 6000H-series is just as efficient, while providing a good increase in performance.

Today we present you with LaptopMedia’s top 5 picks about the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15″, 2022).

Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15″, 2022): Full Specs / In-depth Review


4 reasons to BUY the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15″, 2022)

1. Battery life

As we thought, the Ryzen 6000H-series makes better use of the 45Wh battery pack, lasting for 6 hours and 19 minutes of Web browsing, or 6 hours and 21 minutes of video playback, which is quite a lot more than the Intel-powered model. Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with.


2. Upgradeability

The upgradeability is pretty decent, with two SODIMM slots that fit DDR5 RAM, along with two M.2 slots for storage, with one 80mm slot and one 42mm slot, with only the small one having support for Gen 4 drives.

Here is our dedicated teardown video, which shows how to access both the RAM and SSD slots.


3. Input devices

The keyboard on the IdeaPad is still one of the best in the budget category, with long key travel, clicky feedback, and a 4-zone RGB backlight, making it great for gaming and typing. The touchpad is covered in Mylar, with which we’re very familiar. It is very smooth, while accuracy and responsiveness are also up there.


4. Cooling

The cooling setup is excellent, with three heat pipes, two fans, and four heatsinks on the back and the sides. Some parts of it are painted blue, which can be seen from the outside. One of the pipes is shared between the CPU and GPU, with one separate pipe for each of them as well.


Max CPU load

AMD Ryzen 5 6600H (45W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15″, 2022)3.94 GHz @ 91°C @ 80W3.90 GHz @ 100°C @ 79W3.83 GHz @ 100°C @ 74W

Talk about temps. The Ryzen 5 6600H maintains high clock speeds, but it heats like a furnace, which isn’t something we would recommend. Just to be safe, you can switch to a more lenient performance mode.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (Max Fan)
Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15″, 2022)2002 MHz @ 70°C @ 84W1985 MHz @ 72°C @ 85W

This is one of the highest-clocking RTX 3050 cards that we’ve tested, with only the Nitro 5 surpassing it. One more positive is that the temperatures are low, while the GPU reaches its full 85W TGP.

Comfort during full load

The base’s hotspot is located on the top part and reaches 42°C, while the noise of the fans is bearable.

 

1 reason NOT to buy the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15″, 2022)

1. Display quality

The 120Hz FHD IPS display is fine for a budget machine, but if you can spare some change, we would highly recommend upgrading to the 165Hz option, which brings better color gamut coverage and faster response times. Still, the 120Hz option provides comfortable viewing angles and a good contrast ratio. It covers 51% of the sRGB gamut, while accuracy doesn’t improve much, even with our Design and Gaming profile.

Here are the results of our test with both the stock settings (left) and with our profile applied (right).


Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15, 2022) configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS LEN156FHD (BOE NV156FHM-NX1, BOE0A81).

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


All Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15″, 2022) configurations:

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CARLOS
CARLOS
1 year ago

Tengo la ideapad gaming 3i de 7ma generacion con i5 12500H y 3050 ti con un cargador de 135w, me pasa algo y es que la conecto al cargador cuando voy a jugar y aun así se descarga la batería no entiendo. Se supone que el cargador deberia ser suficiente para cargar la bateria y al mismo tiempo poder jugar al maximo rendimiento, pero al parecer no es así. En ese aspecto la laptop me ha decepcionado ya que cuando se descarga la bateria a un 10% estando conectada el rendimiento empieza a decaer, en algunos momentos pega lagasos y… Read more »

Danish
7 months ago

I have used this laptop for up to 6 months. According to my 6 months of experience, the battery of this laptop is not great. But best for those who can’t spend more and the performance of this laptop is great.

Last edited 7 months ago by Danish