Lenovo IdeaPad 1 15 Review

What if you were to design an entire laptop around the phrase “entry-level?” That is, to deliver the lowest available components—from the display to the hardware—right down to the chassis. Well, first, you'd have an extremely affordable budget laptop. Second, it would look a whole lot like the Lenovo IdeaPad 1 15. If you're trying to save as much as possible, this IdeaPad's $329.99 price is super-appealing, and it has dropped as low as $179 in an early Black Friday 2022 sale at Best Buy. The Lenovo IdeaPad 1 15 is undoubtedly affordable, but with limited performance and features, it's difficult to recommend this budget laptop for anything but basic web browsing, spreadsheets, and document drafting.

Built for the Most Budget-Conscious Buyers

The IdeaPad 1 is Lenovo's entry-level, value-priced line, and our 15-inch review model (number 15ADA7) is on the low end of the series, selling for under $400. At these low prices, our most recommended hardware becomes less common, and familiarity with Intel's Core CPUs is rare. In this case, that means that the IdeaPad 1 15 is outfitted with an AMD Athlon Silver 3050U processor, with Radeon integrated graphics and a paltry 4GB of memory. The storage situation is similarly thrifty, with 128GB of eMMC storage, instead of an SSD or even a traditional hard drive.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Also, there's not much in the way of configuration options, though you can find Intel-based versions of the IdeaPad 1 listed under the “IdeaPad 1i” name. Upgrades are sadly out of the question, as both the RAM and the eMMC storage are soldered directly to the system board.

Lenovo has more powerful models in the works, with Ryzen-based products listed in some press materials, but Lenovo doesn't currently have any of those listed on its site, and retailers like Best Buy and Amazon don't seem to be carrying them.

Sticking with plastic construction, the frame has a bit of flex to it, though it's not so flimsy that it flexes when typing. The silver color does a lot to dress it up, making the inexpensive machine look presentable everywhere from classrooms to offices. It's also fairly light, weighing 3.53 pounds despite measuring 0.7 by 14.2 by 9.3 inches (HWD).

An Unsurprisingly Dim and Dull Display

What's most notable about this IdeaPad is its 15.6-inch display—notable in that the laptop uses a relatively dull 1,366-by-768-pixel resolution and an older TN panel. This combination fails to meet the sort of sharpness and brightness expectations we have for current Windows machines.

This barely HD display has no touch support, limited color reproduction, and low-enough contrast that you can spot its issues with the naked eye—no test equipment is necessary. Compared to its award-winning cousin, the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14, which has a full HD IPS panel, it's a step down in quality but on a bigger display.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Despite the simple design and underwhelming feature set, the laptop isn't without some welcome touches. The webcam includes a physical lens cover with an unmistakable red dot that becomes visible when you slide the cover closed, so there's never any confusion about camera privacy.

Lenovo's 15-inch chassis accommodates a full keyboard with a compact numeric pad, which uses half-width keys. The arrow keys use a layout that fits four buttons into the space of three keys, with the up and down arrows getting their buttons but sharing a single key well. None of that is unique for a 15-inch system.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

While nowhere near as generous in proportions as you'd see on a more expensive model, the touchpad is accurate, and its palm rejection keeps you from accidentally clicking or swiping when you brush the touchpad surface.

A Passable Presentation of Ports

When it comes to port selection, the IdeaPad 1 15 has a decent variety of connections, but not an abundant one—there's one of everything. One USB 2.0, one USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type-A), one USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI output, and one SD card slot. You also get an audio headset jack and a power connector.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Wireless connectivity is similarly adequate, with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. Neither is top of the line, but they will bring you the internet and let you connect with all of your wireless accessories, respectively.

Buyer Beware: Windows S Mode

One unexpected hazard of shopping in the bargain-priced section is that you'll run into non-standard versions of software. Case in point: Windows 11 S Mode, a limited version of Windows that's made for students and others that need added protection against unauthorized programs, with S Mode restricting users solely to apps that can be found in the Windows App store.

Thankfully, switching from S-Mode to full Windows 11 is free, and not hard to do (Microsoft even provides instructions(Opens in a new window)), but it's an odd hoop to jump through on a machine sold at retail.

Testing the Lenovo IdeaPad 1 15: Feel the Savings

Luckily for this test model, its hardware loadout isn't unusual among budget systems. For example, the model 3505 Dell Inspiron 15 3000 we tested uses the same processor, graphics, and memory, while Gateway's well-under-$300 15.6-Inch Ultra Slim (2022) uses an Intel Celeron with the same value storage solution.

You can find something like an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU for under $400, as seen in the street price of Acer's 2022 Aspire 5 (A515-45-R74Z), but it's usually a bit more expensive, as seen in the Editors' Choice Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14, which features (relatively) impressive supplemental specs, like 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for storage.

Productivity Tests 

Our main benchmark is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. (See more about how we test laptops.) 

Next, we use three benchmarks to focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). 

We don't expect dazzling performance from any sub-$400 laptop, but the IdeaPad 1 15 still manages to be a bit underwhelming. For example, in Handbrake, it doesn't have the worst score—that honor goes to the Gateway Ultra Slim, which takes an hour and a half to transcode a 12-minute video file. But, it still takes the IdeaPad here 43 minutes, making it abundantly clear that this isn't a machine for media editing. Even in pure processing tests, like Cinebench, or synthetic productivity benchmarks, like PCMark and Geekbench, the IdeaPad 1 15 languishes near the bottom of the pack. Only the Gateway and its Celeron are clearly inferior.

Graphics Tests 

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics), and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). 

Additionally, we run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.

The graphics performance delivered by the IdeaPad 1 15 is just as lackluster as the processor-based productivity tests, which comes as no surprise. With nothing but integrated graphics cores handling the visuals while the processor cores tackle the number crunching, there's no chance of a budget system matching a laptop with a dedicated graphics processor.

Plus, with the low-powered CPUs found in these sorts of budget models, we simply don't have high hopes. The IdeaPad's graphics capabilities not only prove to be unimpressive, but they also don't hold a candle to AMD Ryzen-powered systems, like the Acer Aspire 5. Ultimately, the Lenovo is a machine built for simple web browsing and maybe some YouTube.

Battery and Display Tests 

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To test color and brightness, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

One benefit of low-powered components is that battery life stretches farther when it doesn't have to drive faster components. And so, looking over the battery test results, we finally have a test that the IdeaPad 1 15 leads, stretching the 47Wh battery out to more than 12 hours of use. That's especially impressive in the context of similar budget systems, where you'll usually see inexpensive models break the 10-hour mark at best.

Unfortunately, part of this longevity comes from the display's noticeable dimness (and is also attributable to the very low native resolution). At full brightness, the HD screen produces just 258 nits—but that drops to a mere 32 nits when lowered to 50% brightness, as we do in our battery tests. Actual usability will require higher brightness, and even when dialed up to the highest setting, it won't offer much visibility in bright circumstances, like outdoor sunlight.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Verdict: Affordable, But Not an Excellent Value

Nobody buys a budget laptop expecting it to have all of the features and fine touches of a more expensive machine. Slower performance and less expansive feature sets are par for the course when the price dips below $400. But somehow, even with our realistic expectations, the Lenovo IdeaPad 1 15 is still underwhelming. It falls behind the competition in every performance category but battery life, which itself is largely thanks to a relatively dim, low-resolution display.

In this price range, unless you can find a truly valuable deal on something like the Editors' Choice Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14 (which remains our favorite budget Windows laptop), you might be better served by leaving Microsoft behind and checking out a Chromebook.