Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 2021 AMD Ryzen 5 5500U 14 FHD IPS Thin & Light Laptop Review

 Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Review

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 2021 AMD Ryzen 5 5500U 14 FHD IPS Thin & Light Laptop 

Pros:

1. Light weight and compact so very easy to travel.
2. Have backlit keyboard.
3. Very practical ports selection.
4. Performance is quite good in the segment.

Cons:

1. Build quality is not that great.
2. Don't have a full-sized keyboard.
3. Not having a good colour accuracy.
4. No glass trackpad.

Specifications:

Ram- 8GB DDR4 3200MHz.
Processor- Ryzen 5 5500U  
Storage-  512GB NVME SSD
Graphics- AMD RADEON graphics(integrated).

Exterior Overview:

The laptop is made up of PC-ABS (Polycarbonate/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene)material which is claimed to be an improved version of ABS. It is also claimed about 5-7% more durable than normal ABS plastic. Overall it is still plastic. The frontside is also given a mat texture to give it a more premium look. There is also a tiny "LENOVO" logo present. The exhaust is also located just below the display.

The lower section is also made up to the same material (PC-ABS) and is also quite well built. The back section houses rubber padding to added grip and also for better intake of air from the grille located just beneath the rubber strip. The rear also houses two 1.5W speakers on each side which has also  Dolby Atmos support. The speaker experience is average only don't get fooled by the branding.

Ports Available:

The port selection is very practical.

Left side:

1. Power DC input 
2. 3.0 USB type-A
3. HDMI port
4. 3.2 USB type-C 
5. 3.5 mm headphone and microphone jack.

Ports present

Right:

1. 3.0 port with power delivery 
2. Full-sized SD-card reader
3. Power indicators

Interior Overview:

The interior is also finished with the same material and the same mat premiumness is also continued. There is a decent sized trackpad with great response and also supports all the windows gestures present just beneath the keyboard. The keyboard is decent enough to type and have a good travel distance. The keyboard is also backlit having two different strength of illumination. Overall typing experience is decent enough in the segment. There is also a fingerprint sensor present within the power button which a very fast and reliable. 

Interior overview

The display bezel is also shrinked from the all the sides and the webcam is placed just on the upper side of the screen. The webcam is only 720p and the quality of camera and microphone output is also decent. There is also a privacy shutter in the web-cam for added privacy. The laptop cannot be opened with a single hand and we cannot expect considering the light-weight factor. It also comes with 2 year warranty which is also an added bonus.

Display & Software:

The laptop comes a full Hd(1080p) anti-glare screen with 180° rotation and with 300 nits of brightness which is decent enough in outdoors. The screen has only 45% NTSC colour range which is certainly not that great for professionals but with an external monitor it can be easily solved. Overall with punchy colour the overall experience is decent enough.

The laptop also comes pre-loaded with Windows 10 home and Microsoft home and office 2019 for lifetime. It also have wifi- 5 support and bluetooth 5 for better connectivity.
Battery life is also decent enough  averaging almost about 4-5 hours depending upon the usage which is decent enough. 

Performance:

The laptop is powered with the latest Ryzen 5 (5500U) with a base clock speed of 2.1 GHz and a boost clock speed of 4 GHz with 6 cores and 12 threads. 
We have performed a few benchmarks in the laptop.:
In Cinebench R23, Singlecore- 1175 and Multicore score- 7160.
In Geekbench, Singlecore score- 1115 and Multicore score- 5320. 
The above scores certainly points out that the laptop is great in multicore performance and also beat intel core i5=11th gen. Overall we ran a Photoshop  and Da Vinci softwares and it performed superbly, there was no noticeable stutters everything was smooth. 
In the gaming tests also the laptop performed decently. Overall this is an impressive package with a mixture of everything. 

Upgrade Options:

1. Ram- The ram is arranged in dual channels in which a 4GB is soldered and the other                       4GB slot can be  increased upto 8 GB (3200GHz) . In total ram canbe upgraded                     to 12GB.
2. Memory- There is no slot for HDD addition in the laptop but the 512GB SSD can be                            altered with a 1Tb one. One can also use an external hard disk for added                                storage.

Verdict:

The laptop comes within the range of 50k-55k. Considering the price it performs quite superbly. I would highly recommend this machine for students for daily tasks not gaming and video editing and for professionals because of it's performance and also features like lifetime Windows and Microsoft Home and Office and considering the brand name the price is somewhat justified in India. If you are having this budget go for it.

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