Lenovo Ideapad 1i Laptops

Lenovo Ideapad 1i Laptops

In the world of YouTubers and tech reviewers, mid-range and premium laptops are typically the focus. However, it's important to take a step back and look at what the budget and ultra-budget categories have to offer. Lenovo's IdeaPad 1 series is one of the most prominent figures in this category.

The latest generation of the IdeaPad 1 is the subject of this review. To clarify, the "I" in 1i stands for Intel, while a "1" without the "I" denotes an AMD variant. The configuration of the laptop being reviewed is equipped with Intel's N6000 Pentium Silver series processor, 4 GB of DDR4 memory, and a 128 GB solid-state drive for storage. Additionally, the laptop has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 onboard, and a 15-inch full HD display.

It's worth noting that, given the laptop's budget-friendly nature, it will not be compared against the most high-end models available. Instead, we'll see if the IdeaPad 1i offers everything that one might expect from a budget laptop, and if there are any noteworthy features in particular.

From an unboxing perspective, the laptop comes in a plain and simple cardboard box. Upon opening the box, you'll find the laptop itself, along with protective packaging, a 45-watt charging adapter, a standard wall outlet charging cable, a quick start guide, and some basic documentation.

Despite being a budget laptop, the IdeaPad 1i looks and feels just as good as the higher-end IdeaPad 3 and 5 series. The laptop has a full plastic body, but it doesn't feel cheap or flimsy. Instead, it has a sturdy build and a nice professional business look. The Abyss Blue color is also quite striking.

The laptop weighs a modest 3.5 pounds, which is a bit heavier than one might expect given its plastic build. On the top of the laptop, you'll find a full plastic surface that's clean and simple, but unfortunately a bit of a fingerprint magnet. There's also Lenovo badging on the side, but it's not too intrusive.

There's a decent variety of ports on either side of the laptop. One side has a DC charging port, a USB 3.0 port, an HDMI 1.4 port, a basic USB-C port, and a headphone jack. The other side has more ports. On one side of this laptop, you'll find a DC charging port, a USB 3.0 port, an HDMI 1.4 port, a basic USB-C port, and a headphone jack. On the other side, there's another USB port, although it's a 2.0 version. Interestingly, you also have a full-size SD card reader, which is a feature that's often not found on laptops several times more expensive than this one. So, there's nothing to complain about here.

The bottom of this laptop is pretty standard. You'll notice a plastic surface finish and a large air intake vent, which is semi-pointless because you don't actually have a cooling fan on this device. I guess it's mostly there for passive cooling. Then, on either corner at the bottom, you'll see a speaker grille, so it's a bottom-firing setup. We'll definitely do a sound test in a bit.

As you unfold this laptop, you immediately notice that you have a lot of palm rest space here, which is always a good thing. The Abyss blue color again just makes this device look so elegant. With that said, you'll notice that you have a relatively small trackpad proportioning to the rest of the body. However, the good news is that despite having a plastic surface finish, it's a very tactile trackpad. There isn't a ton of flex, and using it is actually quite bearable. In fact, I'd say it's one of the better trackpads you'd find on a laptop in general.

The keyboard here is more or less in line with the rest of the IdeaPad series. You have those well-labeled keycaps with those semi-rectangular designs. You have a decent amount of spacing between each keycap, though I hate that split in half shift key with the slash button. It's a huge design flaw in my opinion. You also have the inclusion of a 10-keypad since this is the 15-inch variant, though you still don't get any sort of backlighting. But I suppose that's fair enough. As far as the typing experience goes, it's still pretty darn good, though I do feel like there is a very slight drop in quality. This year's model feels like it has a little bit less key travel, so it gives it a more shallow feeling. But still, I think this is probably the best budget keyboard I've seen on a laptop.

Moving on to the hinge quality and display, you have a single mechanism hinge over here, and the impressive part is that you can do a near 180-degree tilt. As far as the display fitting goes, you do have a standard plastic lip all around, though you have a relatively thin chin at the bottom, fairly narrow bezels that are not with modern-day standards, and a thin enough forehead. At the center of which, you will find a one-megapixel 720p webcam, which is good enough to make it look like a Minecraft character.

Although it may not be suitable for your dating needs, this machine has a built-in privacy shutter, which is a nice feature. However, the display quality is arguably the least impressive part of this laptop, although that is somewhat expected.

On the positive side, the display has full HD resolution (1920x1080p), which is an upgrade from last year's 720p base display. Additionally, the laptop has a 60 hertz refresh rate and a 16x9 aspect ratio. The IPS panel has great viewing angles and is of high quality.

Unfortunately, the display's peak brightness is only 220 nits, which means that in bright settings or daylight settings, the screen will be plagued by glare since there is not enough brightness to compensate for it. The laptop has a 45 ntsc rating or approximately 56 srgb, which means that colors will not look their best. Therefore, you should avoid doing color-sensitive activities like photo or video editing, but it should be fine for general use like web browsing.

Now let's talk about performance. The laptop has an Intel Pentium Silver processor, which is designed to do as little work as possible. It's not an insult; it's just the processor's true capacity. If you're using the laptop for web browsing, writing up Word documents, or checking out the news, it will be just fine since it's designed for those kinds of tasks. However, if you're going to try to use this laptop with its mere four gigabytes of RAM to do benchmarking, photo editing, programming, or other intensive tasks, it's just not possible. This laptop will choke up, lag, and ultimately not be able to handle those kinds of tasks. Therefore, if you are buying this laptop for any of the activities mentioned, or even casual gaming, do not do that. This laptop is designed for very basic and standard use cases, so keep that in mind.

As far as thermals go, if you're watching full HD videos on the web, you can hit a maximum average surface temperature of just around 32 degrees Celsius, which is not bad given the fact that there is no active cooling or cooling fan on this machine. However, it won't go much higher than that and will immediately thermal throttle if you try doing anything more intensive.

With a 45-watt speaker-hour battery, you'll get around seven and a half hours of real-world battery time on a single charge. As far as speaker quality goes, it's actually not bad, considering that the laptop has bottom-firing speakers, as mentioned earlier.