Deal | Cheap $449 USD Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15 comes with latest 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 5500U CPU, 1080p display, and dual-channel 8 GB RAM
The AMD Ryzen 5 processor rivals many flagship Intel-powered Ultrabooks retailing for twice the price. When compared to other sub $500 laptops, this Lenovo is easily one of the fastest.
Walmart is currently offering the latest 15.6-inch Lenovo IdeaPad 3 laptop for $70 USD off the already inexpensive original launch price of $520. The IdeaPad 3 series is home to some of Lenovo's cheapest models, but users on tighter budgets will still find a ton of value.
The most notable feature of the deal is its AMD Ryzen 5 5500U CPU. Though it may not be a Zen 3 CPU, it is still as fast or even faster than many 10th gen or 11th gen Intel U-series CPUs including some Core i7 options. It's a lot of processing horsepower to help make the IdeaPad 3 run much faster than what its cheap price would otherwise suggest. Most other laptops in the sub $500 range would typically come with painfully slow Core i3, Celeron, or Atom CPUs instead.
Other features include a 256 GB NVMe SSD with 8 GB of dual-channel DDR4 3200 MHz RAM compared to just single-channel RAM on other cheap alternatives. Users can even add a module to increase capacity, but we suspect that the bottom panel may be somewhat difficult to remove.
We've yet to personally review the 15.6-inch Lenovo IdeaPad 3 and so we can't offer our firsthand impressions. However, we do expect the FHD display to be dim and with mediocre colors based on our time with other inexpensive IdeaPad models.
Allen Ngo - Lead Editor U.S. - 5246 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2011
After graduating with a B.S. in environmental hydrodynamics from the University of California, I studied reactor physics to become licensed by the U.S. NRC to operate nuclear reactors. There's a striking level of appreciation you gain for everyday consumer electronics after working with modern nuclear reactivity systems astonishingly powered by computers from the 80s. When I'm not managing day-to-day activities and US review articles on Notebookcheck, you can catch me following the eSports scene and the latest gaming news.