Deal | Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15 with Ryzen 5 5500U CPU on sale for $449 USD to be one of the fastest laptops in its price range
Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15 with Ryzen 5 5500U CPU on sale for $449 USD to be one of the fastest laptops in its price range (Image source: Walmart)
AMD has been bringing an extreme amount of processing power to low-end laptops these days. Although the rest of the laptop is merely average, the Ryzen 5 5500U will give higher performance-per-dollar than most in this price range.
Walmart is currently offering the latest generation Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15 laptop for $80 USD off the already inexpensive original launch price. The IdeaPad 3 series is home to Lenovo's budget laptops in contrast to the higher-end and more expensive Flex or Yoga series.
The deal in question is notable for its Ryzen 5 5500U CPU which can be as fast or even faster than most Intel Core i7 U-series CPUs in laptops twice the price. It's a lot of raw processing power especially when compared to other sub $500 laptops where Atom, Celeron, or Core i3 CPUs are more common. If you run a lot of CPU-heavy tasks, then it'll be hard to top the IdeaPad 3 at this price range.
Other aspects of the laptop are relatively underwhelming and more reflective of the sale price. The TN display, limited 8 GB RAM, and small 45 Wh battery aren't going to impress anyone. We've yet to review this specific model and so we can't offer our personal take on it just yet, but we can guarantee a poor display with limited color reproduction based on our experience with other IdeaPad models.
AMD Ryzen 5 5500U 6-core CPU (Zen 2)
Integrated Radeon 7 graphics
15.6-inch 1920 x 1080, 250-nit, 45% NTSC (~60% sRGB)
8 GB DDR4 RAM (4 GB soldered, 4 GB removable)
256 GB M.2 2242 NVMe SSD
3x USB-A, (no USB-C), HDMI 1.4b, 3.5 mm combo audio
Allen Ngo - Lead Editor U.S. - 5158 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.