Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15 (2021): What Real Users Actually Think

If this was 4000 series (zen 2) I would buy this in a heartbeat. Can't remember if zen/zen+ still have power management issues.

The 5700U is the rebranded 4800U. Odd second number Ryzen are Zen 2 this gen. The 5500U is a rebranded 4600U. Very confusing products naming. 6C/12T are perfectly adequate. I would save the cash in a laptop of that caliber, unless you like Costco.

I highly recommend waiting to go with a Zen 2/4000 series CPU as the leap in performance and power efficiency is definitely worth it.

Yeah the Vega 8 graphics should be enough for that.

Regular price $699.00 minus $150 savings equals $549.99 plus $9.99 for shipping to home. Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (8-Core), 12GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD.

Lenovo's spec sheet says it's a TN panel. I've been burned by Walmart mislabeling monitors before.

No laptop in your price range is going to get you four years of use, at least not if you're unwilling to lower settings dramatically. That being said, the 3050 Ti will last much longer than the 1650 because of its support for DLSS.

Played around with the demo model. Solid deal for college students who don't game.

For about $100 more you can get the same laptop but with double the storage and a far more powerful GPU in the RTX 3050 Ti. The RTX also gives you access to DLSS, which provides a noticeable performance improvement in supported games.

I got the other Lenovo with the Ryzen 5 5500U for $500. Any reason I should have spent the extra $50 for better CPU, if all I'm doing on the side is light gaming?

I do believe that the 5500U is just a rebranded 4700U. I can't see there being a crazy difference but for 50$ I'd go grab this one with the 5700U. Can't beat Costco's no questions asked 90 day PC return policy.

I have the 2022 AMD model. It feels nicer in-hand than the 2021, though it's harder to disassemble for upgrades and cleaning. The '22 has better quality of life features including display output and charging via USB-C, neither of which is supported on the 2021.

YES! I am literally using it to write this comment, it's really good!

I cut a hole in the bottom of my Inspiron with a 3700U for thermals and I can hit 80ish fps in League while in lane and dipping to 40s in big teamfights. I play at 1440P ultrawide. This would be great for League at 60fps.

Is this decent if I want something to run lighter stuff like League/Age of Empires/browsing?

Did you download general drivers or the drivers specific to your laptop from the manufacturer's website? Try the drivers provided by the manufacturer and see if that corrects it.

Probably the FreeSync driver is missing or somewhat. Not sure. I didn't clean install so it's still here for me.

For me if you are using it for graphic projects and also ability to game on free time I would recommend the IdeaPad Gaming 3 the most. But you have to set in mind that by buying a gaming laptop you are going to accept the fact the battery wouldn't hold for long periods but you get a really good gaming laptop that is so cheaper than most on the market.

If you are going for 3A games, I would recommend Legion. You can find some videos on YouTube comparing Legion and Ideapad. It is quite obvious that Legion has a better cooling performance.

Legion devices are better than IdeaPad. Check them out too.

Can anyone comment on the build quality? I understand it's plastic, but it is sturdy or cheap plastic?

Sturdy. No major deck flex.

An 8GB DIMM and a 4GB DIMM. You see this configuration a lot on budget laptops. Unfortunately that means the RAM runs in single channel mode instead of dual channel, which can make a pretty substantial difference in performance even in non-game workloads.

The downside here is the memory. You're missing out on the full dual channel benefits with mismatched memory, unfortunately. So the question is whether any of the memory is soldered. If not, ditch the 4gb stick for an 8gb stick that matches the other, and you're off to the races.

Great deal, just got it.

Firmware updates are available through Lenovo's website, but are Windows only for IdeaPads. LVFS does not support IdeaPads. Your best bet for installing firmware updates is likely to have a dual-boot system with Windows, unfortunately.

The trackpad is hard to make work until really recent kernels.

Honestly, I'd try to get something better than these. Even if you mostly play Valorant, you might be interested in something more demanding in the future to find out your system can't give you a stable experience.

I should add, the two laptops might not even last 3 hours on battery.

I initially downloaded the drivers from Lenovo's website but freesync was greyed out. Downloaded the general driver afterwards and have been running that since. Also greyed out.

I'm so dumb. Should have just lived with the bloatware.

As an IdeaPad Gaming 3 user, battery is ok for a gaming laptop, under normal use (YouTube, Reddit, etc) you should get at least 3-4 hours, the laptop is rated for 6 though, but I would take these manufacturer ratings as a mere reference, as that rating is not under real-world usage.

Just buy one with at least a 4000 series Ryzen processor.

Just to be clear this is a TN panel, I don't know why Walmart is marketing it as an IPS.

Did you ever get this resolved? As I am having the same issue and have done all the troubleshooting and still can't figure it out.

I have a Legion and from time to time I install a small SSD with Win10 to make BIOS updates and once it's done I swap the SSD again. Of course you can have dual boot but I like to have the full space.

You need Windows. You likely have an Insyde BIOS and the linux binary is available from some vendors, you will not know if it will work for your laptop. Your best bet is a Windows PE image. This can be booted from USB and then you can apply the update.

What app you plan to use to remote into your server? If it is not just the browser, I recommend an 8GB RAM machine since you would either need to use an Android app or Linux app.

Even the new Windows app (rebrand of RDP) runs a little better with more RAM. Otherwise, best bet are Linux remote admin or even X11 forwarding if using a Linux server without Wayland.

I would recommend waiting if you're not in a rush and buy the Gen 6. Not just better processing but updated cooling solution.

Currently struggling to decide on what laptop to get. Been looking at the Thinkpad E15 too.