Lenovo IdeaPad 330 Review
The Lenovo IdeaPad 330 is a reasonably priced 15-inch laptop with a solid keyboard and a strong design, but it struggles with performance and has a limited battery life. The Lenovo IdeaPad 330 (reviewed at $265), a good option if you’re on a low budget and need a laptop for simple web work, is available right now. Budget laptops seldom ever have features like this 15.6-inch machine’s strong construction and comfy keyboard. The IdeaPad 330 even has a DVD drive, which is unusual to see on modern laptops. We advise investing a little more on a better system, such as the Acer Aspire E 15, because the Acer Aspire E 15 has a terrible display, a short battery life, and average performance, which ruin the enjoyment.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330 Price and Configuration Options
The IdeaPad 330 is offered in a broad variety of pricing points and configurations. A 15.6-inch laptop tested for $265 has a display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, an Intel Celeron N4100 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive. A more expensive IdeaPad 330 with a Core i3-8130U processor can be purchased for $299, while an AMD model with a Ryzen 5 2500U processor, 12GB of RAM, and a 2TB HDD can be purchased for $663.
In conclusion, the IdeaPad 330’s design is functional for a laptop, but it doesn’t offer anything novel. But it’s alright. We are so accustomed to seeing flimsy laptops in this price bracket that the IdeaPad 330 is a welcome change. Though not as nice as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the IdeaPad 330 feels above average for the pricing. Although the IdeaPad 330 isn’t a 2-in-1 laptop and doesn’t have a touch screen, its flexible hinge allows you to turn it 180 degrees so you may show it to others or change the angle at which you use it on your lap while lounging on the sofa. The IdeaPad 330 is smaller and lighter than the Acer Aspire E 15 (15 x 10.2 x 1.2 inches, 5 pounds), at 14.9 x 10.2 x 0.9 inches.
Heat Issue Lenovo IdeaPad 330
Even when we put the IdeaPad 330 to the test by playing a 15-minute full-screen video, it maintained a respectable level of cooling. The temperature of the keyboard and touchpad only increased to 81 and 83 degrees, respectively. Only the laptop’s underbelly, which reached 96 degrees, exceeded our 95-degree comfort threshold.
Display
It’s difficult to fault a cheap laptop for having a low-resolution screen. A laptop with a 1080p screen costs an additional $100, yet it offers a far crisper image than the IdeaPad 330’s 15.6-inch, 1366 x 768 display. I noticed that Sylvester Stallone’s face was beaded with water after he splashed himself with water in the Rocky V teaser, despite the low pixel count. However a closer inspection revealed significant graininess, particularly in the darker regions. The display’s drab colors and awkward viewing angles, which combined made this over-the-top action sequel appear washed out, upset me more.
Some of those flaws were confirmed by our laboratory findings. Our colorimeter shows that the IdeaPad 330’s display only covers 66% of the sRGB color space. The IdeaPad 330’s screen is less vivid than that of the typical budget laptops (83%) and the Inspiron 15 3000 (73%), even if it surpasses the Aspire E 15 (62%) and is on par with the Swift 1. The matte finish on the IdeaPad 330’s display, despite how dull it is, makes it easier to see in bright conditions. The display’s maximum brightness of 188 nits is lower than that of the Aspire E 15 (227 nits), Swift 1, and the typical low-cost laptop (208 nits). The Inspiron 15 3000 has an average reading of 170 nits.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15 AMD Design
The IdeaPad 330 appears to be a typical laptop. In other words, if I asked you to create a laptop, you would probably end up with something that resembled the IdeaPad 330. It features a silver lid with the Chrome logo in one corner and is a rectangle with rounded sides. The silver lid and dark-gray bottom of the laptop are composed of durable plastic, as is the chassis, which is neither thick nor thin. The laptop’s interior lacks inspiration just as much. A low-resolution display’s thick bezels make me think of my dad’s awful GI spectacles, but on the plus side, the deck’s brushed-metal finish may pass for aluminum, and the dark-gray keyboard keys stand out against the surface well.
Keyboard and Touchpad
Lenovo’s keyboards consistently appear to meet expectations, and the IdeaPad 330 continues this tendency. I really liked typing on the IdeaPad 330’s keyboard, despite the fact that it isn’t ThinkPad quality. The chicklet-style keys are adequately proportioned and pretty clicky, with a little curve. The keys have a pleasing weight to them, which is probably due to the 70 grams of actuation force they have. Although the key travel is less than our preferred 1.5 millimeters, it is still better than the keyboards on comparable smartphones. Even though backlighting would be nice to have, cheap laptops don’t currently come with it as standard.
On the 10fastfingers.com typing test, I managed to type 114 words per minute with a 95% accuracy rate. This score fits my normal accuracy but is a little bit slower than my 119 wpm speed average. I had no trouble using Windows 10 gestures, including as pinch-to-zoom and three-finger swipe to switch windows, on the IdeaPad 330’s 4.1 x 2.6-inch touchpad.
Webcam
Avoid using the built-in webcam on the IdeaPad 330 to avoid annoying the person on the other end of your video chat. Given that most of the cameras we evaluate are plain terrible, the 640 x 480 lens may be the worst I’ve ever seen on a laptop. I took a selfie in our poorly lit workplace and it was almost impossible to tell it was me. My hair appeared to be one solid blob in the photograph, and my eyes appeared to be blurry, black holes. The lights behind me made everything they touched appear washed out, and my deep crimson clothing appeared to have been bleached away. If you want to conduct video conferences, make sure you invest in a dedicated webcam.
Performance and Graphics
The IdeaPad 330 (Intel Celeron N4100, 4GB of RAM) already demonstrated that its performance is only sufficient for simple tasks, such writing emails or browsing the internet. The IdeaPad 330 slowed to a stop if there were any more tabs open. Fortunately, I could switch between pages with “only” brief pauses once a webpage had completed displaying. Additionally, a 1080p YouTube video on Google’s Stadia gaming service never buffered, despite the fact that I had to wait a while for it to load.
On our performance benchmarks, the IdeaPad 330 placed in the middle of the pack among budget laptops. The Swift 1 (Pentium Silver N5000, 5,527) and the Aspire E 15 (Core i3-8130U, 7,871) outperformed the Lenovo, which only just edged out the budget category average (5,184) with a score of 5,234 on the Geek bench 4.1 test. I found the IdeaPad 330 to operate poorly in real-world situations because to its slow hard disk. 4.97GB of mixed-media files took the 500GB, 5,400-rpm HDD in the IdeaPad 330 2 minutes and 57 seconds to replicate at a speed of 28.8 megabytes per second. The Swift 1 (64GB eMMC, 65 MBps), Aspire E 15 (1TB, 5400-rpm SATA hard drive, 33.5MBps), and the typical low-cost laptop (65MBps) all offer faster storage than the Inspiron 15 3000 (500GB, 5,400-rpm HDD, 25.7MBps).
In the HandBrake test, the IdeaPad 330 greatly struggled, needing 1 hour and 7 seconds to convert a 4K movie to 1080p HD. The Swift 1 and Aspire E 15 both had cheap laptops, and they finished the test in less than half the time (31:40 and 46:13, respectively), with the typical budget laptop finishing in just 21:27. The Windows App Store primarily serves as the only source of games for the IdeaPad 330. The gadget could only play the racing game Dirt 3 at 14 frames per second, which is much below our playable criteria of 30 frames per second. The budget category average for frame rates is 28 fps; by comparison, the Aspire E 15 (UHD Graphics 620) ran the game at 56 fps. Similar results were seen on the Ice Storm Unlimited graphics test, where the 330 scored 25,837, considerably lower than the scores obtained by the Aspire E 15 (63,817) and Swift 1 (UHD 605, 32,238).
Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15 AMD Battery
If you intend to use the IdeaPad 330 away from home, stay close to an outlet. The IdeaPad 330 shut down many hours before the Aspire E 15 (8:48) with a runtime of 5 hours and 52 minutes on continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits. The IdeaPad 330 performed better than the shamefully short-lived Inspiron 15 3000 (3:16), but it was unable to outlive the budget laptop category average (7:20).
Lenovo Ports
If it were 2012, the 330 would have every port you could possibly need. But truly, the laptop’s right side is occupied with a DVD drive. The CD drive is still functional. The IdeaPad 330’s connectors, which include a USB 3.1 port, a USB 2.0 input, an HDMI port, an RJ45 Ethernet port, and a headphone/mic combination jack, are all located on the opposite side of the device. In order to upload images from an SD card without a dongle, there is also a 4-in-1 card reader.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15 Pros & Cons
Pros
- Robust design
- Comfortable keyboard
- Quite reasonable
Cons
- Poor performance
- Dim, dull display
- Limited battery life
FAQs
What is the battery life of the Lenovo Ideapad 330-15?
The Lenovo Ideapad 330-15 has a battery life of up to 6 hours on a single charge. However, the actual battery life will vary depending on the usage conditions. For example, if you are using the laptop for demanding tasks such as video editing or gaming, the battery will drain faster.
What are the dimensions of the Lenovo Ideapad 330-15?
The Lenovo Ideapad 330-15 measures 15.6 inches x 10.2 inches x 0.8 inches. It is a relatively thin and light laptop for its size, making it easy to carry around.
What is the weight of the Lenovo Ideapad 330-15?
The Lenovo Ideapad 330-15 weighs 4.8 pounds. This is a bit heavier than some other 15-inch laptops, but it is still light enough to carry around comfortably.
Final Verdict Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15
A very economical laptop with a huge, 15.6-inch screen, a nice keyboard, and a sturdy, long-lasting chassis is the IdeaPad 330. That could be sufficient for some users, but the IdeaPad 330 has too many flaws, including as a short battery life, a dull display, and subpar performance, to get our full endorsement. If there weren’t any other solutions available, it would be simple to ignore these problems. However, some laptops with comparable prices, such as the $379 Acer Aspire E 15, just provide better value. It’s also worthwhile to take into account the Acer Swift 1, which has a superior camera, an aluminum frame, and a smaller, 14-inch display with a long battery life. The IdeaPad 330 is still a respectable choice if your budget is less than $300 as long as your expectations are reasonable.
