Lenovo - 2021 - IdeaPad Gaming 3 - Laptop Computer - 15.6 FHD Display -120Hz - AMD Ryzen 5 5600H - 8GB RAM - 256GB Storage - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 - Windows 11 Home

This laptop sits in an interesting space...its not built to the max like the Legion series, but its not a netbook either. Call it the Legion Lite. I shy away from calling it a “budget” gaming laptop, for reasons I’ll explain below.

My 12 year old had been begging for a laptop that could handle games better. Mainly Minecraft with about 100 installed mods. He also makes vids and a news report for the family. This laptop is more than enough for all that. Its ram can be increased if needed. Its hard drive can be increased if needed. These are cheap upgrades that can be done at any time down the line. Mainly, I wanted to be sure it had a decent processor and graphics card. Those are the hardest to upgrade in a laptop. I wasnt going to spend $1000 on a laptop for a 12 year old, so I wasnt seriously looking. Then I saw this over the summer, with an amazon pay plan and thought, have it paid by Christmas. Done. The look on his face was worth it. Actual 2 minutes of silence. It runs great and hes got it integrated with the house. I did put in parental controls because there is too much undirected trouble available out there and because I dont want him to live in his computer, and hes a 12-year-old boy. As far as performance goes, I have a higher end laptop with an i7 and GeForce video card. This one performs just as well for the kind of things he does. A lot of people buy the Corvette and never drive faster than 90 mph. This isnt the Corvette, but it will do the 90 easily.

The build quality overall is fine. But you can tell where they really cut corners on the hardware. On battery, expect to get about 1hr of gaming time. An extra 8gigs memory is basically a requirement for this machine, so add that into your cart as well. And youll most likely need an additional hard drive if you plan to have more than a few games in it at a time. Its noisy too. Even running FFXIV on med settings has this machine sounding like wind turbine.

Let me just start by saying I own other Lenovo products and am generally pleased with the quality, function, and build of them. Now that thats out of the way:

This laptop is easily upgradable and a great value. I love everything about it!

I do not know if they sent me a refurbished one or what the deal is I can not log on to the defaultuser0 No password works. Not an empty one. Not *blank*, or admin, password nothing. Very unhappy as there is no paperwork to fine it. Update: I will give it half. After trying to return it for an instant refund due to having to buy my son a gift I got nothing I would have to wait to get it. I had tried to call Lenovo and nothing I had wrapped it up for return and suddenly they called and the Tech got it reset for me I was finally able to do a fresh install. I would not trust a computer with a password already set up could have been sent with a trojan. If you get one with a password reset it or send it back.

Ive had it for a few days now and I have been pretty satisfied with it (Im using it to type this review) I mainly got it so that I could bring a PC when I am staying over at my friends house instead of bringing my entire tower, monitor, etc etc... It runs WarThunder on high, runs modded fallout new vegas stutter free and of course it can play mine craft, it can also host a minecraft server fairly well.

Awesome laptop so far! Its more than enough for what Im using it for currently, which was my intention and gives me the ability to expand my own tasks when ready!

Problems from the start:

It was amazing at the beginning, but suddenly I had damaged pixels on the screen. Im dependent on it heavily now, so it wont be possible to ask for replacement until maybe a month or two. Lets see how this goes