Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 (14 AMD, Gen 8) review – good budget daily driver with some downsides

Design and construction

Given the price tag, it’s not a surprise for us that the device is entirely made of plastic. The lid is kind of stable when it’s closed and when it’s opened you can flex it with ease. But we’ve seen worse though. The base is spongy, especially the lower side of the keyboard, the two palm rest areas, and the zone between the Space key and the touchpad (which feels soft as dough).

However, the plastic build has a positive side and that is the low weight which is 1.37 kg. The profile thickness is okay – 17.9 mm. The lid and the base have a glossy finish, while the bottom panel has a matte surface.

The hinges are stiff and the device is light – the end result is that you can’t open the lid with a single hand. On the bright side, the bezels around the display are thin.

The top one houses a 720p or optional 1080p Web camera (both come with a privacy shutter).

Moving to the base, we can see the power button that can double as a fingerprint reader (option) and it’s situated above the right speaker. The two 1.5W Dolby Audio front-firing speakers are positioned on both sides of the optional backlit keyboard.

The latter has a surprisingly long key travel and medium clicky feedback and that’s why the board is suitable for long typing sessions.

The touchpad size is okay for the proportions of the chassis (62 x 104 mm) and it has a smooth Mylar surface. The pad works fast and the tracking is good.

A quick look at the bottom plate – it houses three rubber feet and a decently sized ventilation grill. The hot air is being pushed through a vent positioned in between the base and the hinge. Because of that, the lower part of the display is getting warm when the CPU is heavily stressed.

Ports

On the left, we can see the power plug, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, an HDMI 1.4 connector (for up to 4K 30Hz external displays), a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 1) port with Power Delivery and DisplayPort 1.2 capabilities (suitable for 4K 60Hz external screens), as well as an Audio jack. On the other side of the machine, you get a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, and an SD card reader.

Author: Nikolay Palaozov

Author: eng. Kroum NikolovHead of Engineering at LaptopMedia.com, inventor and innovator with 40+ years of experience in electronics and high technology.

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PHVM

2 years ago

A unique phenomenon occurs in this site’s CPU tests.
Lately the same processors have achieved exactly same results in the multicore benchmarks.
Impressive!

Last edited 2 years ago by PHVM

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