Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 Review

Specifications:

• Series-IdeaPad Gaming 3
• Brand-Lenovo
• Specific Uses For Product-Multimedia, Gaming, Business
• Screen Size-15.6 Inches
• Operating System-Windows 11 Home
• Human Interface Input-Keyboard
• CPU Manufacturer-NVIDIA
• Graphics Card Description-Dedicated
• Special Feature-Backlit Keyboard
• Colour-SHADOW_BLACK

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Introduction

When it comes to the Ideapad series from Lenovo, we often think of the daily performers; laptops on which you can perform daily tasks like editing a Word file or updating an Excel sheet. Additionally, they are also good for watching videos and light browsing.

However, you will change that perception once you use this Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3. It has excellent performance, great build quality with military-grade sturdiness and gaming aesthetic.

Let us understand what makes this IdeaPad different from its siblings…

Design

The design of the new Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 is different from the typical design of the IdeaPad series. Lenovo has finished the laptop in a dark shade of grey called ‘Shadow Black’. The angular design of the laptop helps state its gaming heritage, while the backlit keyboard has the familiar IdeaPad-shaped keys. Although the body is made of plastic with a rubberised finish, it has a sturdy feel and premium look to it, which is perfect for the price tag.

The LCD is flanked by narrow bezels on both sides with a wider top bezel that houses the webcam with a privacy shutter. The laptop weighs 2.25 kg and the laptop is thin for a gaming device. Additionally, Lenovo has certified the laptop with military-grade MIL-STD-810G certification for various military specification tests like low & high temperature (-25 to 63°C for 4 hours), temperature shock (-25 to 63°C 1-way temperature shock), shock (122cm+ drop test) and vibration (4-32Hz over 2 hours).

Performance

The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H CPU, which has a base speed of 3.3 GHz and can go all the way up to 4.2 GHz with the help of 6 cores, 12 threads and a 16MB L3 cache. Due to this CPU, the laptop’s performance is excellent. However, this powerful CPU is combined with a powerful dedicated GPU also to make the laptop a performance beast. The dedicated GPU is provided by Nvidia in the form of GeForce GTX 1650 with 4GB GDDR6 VRAM. Lenovo has also graciously provided 8GB DDR4 RAM running at 3200 MHz while leaving space for upgradability to 16GB. They have also provided a 512 GB SSD to complete the performance package.

Display

Lenovo has provided a 15.6” FHD (1920×1080) colour accurate display with antiglare coating and IPS technology. Due to the amazing specifications of the machine, Lenovo was able to provide a 120 Hz display with 250 nits brightness. While it may not be able to compete with other laptops in the sRGB and Adobe colours, it surely serves the purpose of making every game look good and sharp for the average gamer. Being a gaming laptop, having a higher refresh rate is anyways better than having a colour accurate display.

Audio

The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 comes with two 2W Nahimic-branded speakers for everyday performance. They are average and are ok at what they do: they are neither good nor bad. If you wish to experience true surround sound, you should stick to headphones that come to life with the combined Dobly app.

On the Nahimic speakers, the sounds are crisp, yet they are distorted on higher volumes. It is better to keep the speakers around 30%-40% if you wish to get better audio quality from the speakers.

Input

Being a gaming laptop, Lenovo has put extra effort into sculpting the keyboard of the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 for gaming. The ‘Legionary TrueStrike’ full-size keyboard features a wide variety of controls, including a dedicated number pad, dedicated media controls, large arrow keys for racing games with astounding 1.5mm key travel, as well as blue backlight for those late-night gaming sessions. The keys are also anti-ghosting for maximum gaming efficiency.

As for the trackpad, it seems that Lenovo has not performed any tweaks since the normal trackpads come with Windows Precision drivers which in itself are excellent to use. Since a gaming laptop would have a mouse connected at all times, it seems redundant to over-engineer the trackpad which would be hardly used.

Battery

The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 comes with a 45 Watt-hour Li-Po battery. Lenovo claims that it can run the laptop for 5 hours. However, as expected, real-life battery backup is far less as is the case with most gaming laptops. We tested running some games on battery and it lasted for around 3 hours on medium brightness and lower graphic settings.

However, on normal usages like web browsing or watching videos, it provides the advertised 5-hour backup. Combining the fact that it charges fast, it becomes a potent combination for daily usage and portability.

Connectivity

The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 comes with multiple connectivity options. On the right side of the laptop, we have an Ethernet port, an HDMI 2.1 port and a USB 3.2 Type C port. On the left side, we have 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and the 3.5 mm headphone mic combo port.

As for wireless connectivity, the laptop comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 for faster connections and lesser lag with wireless devices. The omission of an SD card reader is understandable since gamers generally do not carry SD cards with them.

Conclusion

The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 is an all-rounder when it comes to everyday gaming laptops. It has the looks to match the excellent performance as well as the practicality of an everyday laptop. Hence, it is an ideal choice at its price range and a sturdy one at that. The fact that it is also military certified for various parameters ensure that the laptop can even take a bit of beating and harsh conditions.

While the laptop is not without any flaws, one can easily overlook most of them as the laptop is geared towards gaming. The lack of an SD card reader or the average webcam and speakers are features that are often overlooked by gamers themselves. Hence, Lenovo has skipped the same and utilized their budget judiciously to provide a higher refresh rate display and combined an excellent CPU with a potent GPU to provide a great gaming laptop at a normal pric