Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Review ⭐

The component crisis has not been kind to the PC industry. And while the IdeaPad Slim 3i isn't a first--Lenovo has long sold similar entry-level PCs with mostly obvious compromises--the higher prices one has to pay to settle these days are. I'm not a fan of the nonsensical phrase "do more with less," but then that's not what this is. It's doing less with less, and then paying more for the privilege.

To be clear, this is not Lenovo's fault. It's just doing what it can with the hand the world was dealt. But it's difficult to describe this laptop as a good value, regardless of the configuration. It's basic computing, but at a relatively high price.
Design
With its Cosmic Blue chassis, the IdeaPad Slim 3i looks similar to other Lenovo consumer offerings. But it's more minimalist in some ways, and lacks some of the classier-looking "Lenovo" branding touches we see elsewhere.

It's also a big laptop thanks to its 15.3-inch display. But instead of placing the speakers and visible speaker grills on either side of the keyboard, Lenovo instead filled in the extra space there with a numeric keypad, a big disappointment with major usability downsides. It's also visually more cluttered.

Almost the entire laptop is made of plastic, top and bottom and from the chassis to the keyboard. This is reasonable in a budget laptop and rarely bothers me. But in this case it also feels cheap all around, and there's obvious flex when I press down anywhere on the keyboard deck.

The keyboard keys are gray, providing good contrast with the deep blue body that surrounds them, but they look cheap too, and, worse, they feel cheap to the touch.
Display
The IdeaPad Slim 3i provides a 15.3-inch IPS panel with a Full HD+ (1920 x 1200) resolution, a 16:10 aspect ratio, and a 120 Hz variable refresh rate (VRR)--rare in this price class and the one welcome surprise here--that that covers 45 percent of the NTSC color gamut, and has software-based TUV Low Blue Light capabilities, and emits just 300 nits of brightness.

The only available display option is whether it provides multitouch capabilities, as Lenovo offers configurations with and without that feature. It's not clear if you'll ever see this choice, however, as I've only seen prebuilt configurations, not build-your-own options. The review unit does include multitouch, but I never explicitly used it like that.

Overall, it's a solid display for productivity work, and though the resolution is a bit low, text is mostly crisp. Interestingly, it seems much brighter than the 300 nits Lenovo claims. And it's not at all reflective, but it provides vivid colors when viewing images or videos.

The display almost lies flat, but not quite. But the display hinge is quite stiff, and it requires two hands to open the display lid. Otherwise, the front of the laptop lifts off the surface it's when you try to open the lid.
Internal components
The Intel "Wildcat Lake" processors that power the...