Lenovo Ideapad 330s 156 Laptop Windows 10 Review
Our Verdict
The Lenovo IdeaPad 330S' solid functioning and make clean chassis are undone by dismal battery life and a poor display.
For
- Slim, sturdy chassis
- Comfortable keyboard
- Good CPU speeds
Confronting
- Dismal battery life
- Dim, low-res display
- Sluggish hard drive
You could spend around $1,000 on any of the latest premium laptops and walk away with a expert car. But purchasing a mainstream or budget laptop remains a crapshoot, even today. Unfortunately, the Lenovo IdeaPad 330S (starting at $379, reviewed at $499), like so many midrange laptops before information technology, fails to print. This 15.6-inch notebook has a sleek chassis and comfy keyboard, merely its awful battery life and 1366 x 768-pixel brandish are inexcusable. If you want an everyday laptop on a upkeep, nosotros advise looking elsewhere. Run across our best laptops and best Lenovo laptops pages for other recommendations.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S price and configuration options
Lenovo sells several versions of the IdeaPad 330S. The $499 model we reviewed has a 15.6-inch, 1366 10 768-resolution display and is powered by an Intel Core i5-8250U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD, 5,200-rpm difficult drive with 16GB of Intel Optane storage. If you can afford to, we recommend spending $818 for a 1080p display and a 256GB SSD.
Yous can purchase the IdeaPad 330S on Amazon, Best Purchase or Lenovo'southward website.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S design
Lenovo did a good job keeping costs depression while imitating the premium look and feel of pricier Ultrabooks. I only wish the company had taken some risks with the IdeaPad 330S' chassis, which is uninspired to the point of being bland.
The matte-argent finish on the lid and underside of the IdeaPad 330S grows tiring once you open up the chapeau, but to find more of the material coating the deck. The only respite comes from a soft-gray Lenovo tag in the corner of the lid and a darker gray keyboard. I really wish there were some color, or fifty-fifty the chrome trim nosotros find on some midrange laptops, to liven things up.
The IdeaPad 330S' aesthetic shortcomings are excused thanks to a sturdy frame. The laptop's hat is really made of aluminum, and the solid plastic underside deceived me into thinking that information technology, too, was metal. I constitute minimal hat flex when pressing downwardly in the centre, and the flexible hinges kept the brandish in place when I lifted the machine from my desk.
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As banal as it is, the IdeaPad 330S has sparse bezels, a standout feature you won't notice on nearly midrange laptops. Those narrow bezels offer two key benefits: a more than captivating viewing feel and a meaty chassis.
For that reason, the IdeaPad 330S is smaller and lighter than its xv-inch rivals. At three.9 pounds and xiv ten 9.five x 0.8 inches, the IdeaPad is a lot more portable than the Acer Aspire 5 (4.6 pounds, 15 x 10.iv 10 0.eight inches), Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (4.9 pounds, xv x ten.ii x 0.9 inches) and Aspire E 15 (5 pounds, 15 x 10.2 x one.2 inches).
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S ports
Despite having a relatively thin chassis, the IdeaPad 330S offers a good pick of ports.
On the right side of the laptop, you'll find an SD card slot, a USB 3.0 port and a lock slot, while a headphone jack, a USB-C port, a USB iii.0 port and an HDMI port line the left side.
If you need more ports than that, check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S brandish
Displays with a 1366 x 786 resolution shouldn't exist anymore, particularly on laptops that cost more than $400. And yet, hither I am, squinting at IdeaPad 330S' depression-res, 15.6-inch console with an exasperated expression on my face.
When I watched a trailer for Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, I could encounter patterns in Dwayne Johnson'due south Maori tattoos, but finer details, like Jason Statham'southward stubble, looked indistinct. The Rock's red pants composite into the dreary dirt field in a scene where he performs a prefight haka, and the cool helicopter-missile explosions looked washed out. Worst of all, the screen was dim and the display quality suffered when viewed from even a slight angle.
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Information technology's difficult to fathom that this display is able to cover 106.4% of the sRGB spectrum, which, on newspaper, makes this screen more vivid than those on the Aspire 5 (65%), Inspiron 15 5000 (67%) and Aspire E xv (62%). The IdeaPad 330S even tops the category boilerplate (79%).
Those colors are held back by poor brightness. The IdeaPad 330S peaked at only 215 nits of brightness, which is short of the Aspire Eastward 15's score (227 nits) and the mainstream laptop boilerplate (244 nits). The Aspire 5 (209 nits) and Inspiron 15 5000 (175 nits) are even dimmer.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S keyboard and touchpad
The IdeaPad 330S' keyboard may non accept the aforementioned brilliant keys as Lenovo's ThinkPad laptops, merely I notwithstanding enjoyed typing on this midrange notebook.
The grayness keys have the signature Lenovo bend, which conformed nicely to my fingertips. I too enjoyed the keys' ane.5 millimeters of travel, which matches our preference and which prevented me from bottoming out or hit the deck. And with 63 grams of actuation force, the keys accept a nice bounciness.
I do have two big gripes with the keyboard. Commencement, it's not backlit, and so nontouch typists will take problem writing in the dark. 2nd, Lenovo shrunk several keys, including Backspace, in order to cram a numpad onto the deck.
I typed at 123 words per infinitesimal with an accuracy of 96% on the IdeaPad 330S, beating my averages of 119 wpm and 95% accuracy.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S functioning
The IdeaPad 330S offers a favorable price-to-functioning ratio. The laptop'due south Intel Core i5-8250U CPU and 8GB of RAM (with 16GB of Intel Optane retentiveness) provide enough power for everyday multitasking. I noticed some brief pauses when loading 16 web pages in Google Chrome, just the IdeaPad 330S powered through and finished rendering each folio without major stoppages. The laptop kept a steady pace, even while I streamed two 1080p videos on Twitch and another pair on YouTube. However, if you want the all-time speeds, go with an SSD because the hard disk bulldoze in this machine is painfully boring.
The IdeaPad 330S scored a 12,307 on the Geekbench 4.ane overall performance test, which narrowly tops the scores from the Aspire 5 (xi,391, Intel Cadre i5-8250U) and Inspiron 15 5000 (11,791, Intel Cadre i5-8250U) but crushes the Aspire Eastward 15'due south event (vii,871, Intel Core i3-8130U) and the mainstream laptop boilerplate (eight,369).
On our file-transfer test, the IdeaPad 330S' sluggish 1TB, 5400-rpm difficult bulldoze needed two minutes and 51 seconds to duplicate 4.97GB of mixed-media files, for a rate of 29.eight megabytes per second. That sluggish footstep is far slower than the results from the Aspire v (43.1 MBps, 1TB HDD) and Inspiron 15 5000 (130.v MBps, 1TB HDD), as well as the mainstream laptop average (106.1 MBps). Merely the Aspire Eastward xv (33.5 MBps, 1TB HDD) struggled nigh as badly as the IdeaPad 330S.
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The IdeaPad 330S as well finished dead last on our Excel macro test, which involves matching 65,000 names with their corresponding addresses. With a time of 2 minutes and 20 seconds, the IdeaPad finished the task subsequently the Aspire five (1:23), Inspiron 15 5000 (one:eleven) and Aspire E 15 (two:12). If information technology'southward any consolation to the Lenovo car, the average mainstream laptop is a tad slower (2:21).
Equipped with integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics, the IdeaPad 330S isn't meant for gaming. However, it'll do for casual gamers who want to run apps or play games at low graphics settings. The IdeaPad 330S scored a 57,791 on the 3DMark Water ice Tempest Unlimited benchmark, netting a lower score than the Aspire 5 (67,490), Inspiron xv 5000 (69,943) and Aspire Eastward xv (63,817), while also falling brusque of the mainstream laptop average (61,450).
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S battery life
Get this: Avengers: Endgame has a longer runtime than the IdeaPad 330S. The machine lasted just 2 hours and 42 minutes on our battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits. The Aspire v (four:43), Inspiron 15 5000 (5:08) and Aspire Eastward xv (8:48) endured for several hours longer than the IdeaPad, and the average mainstream laptop tin go for six hours and 35 minutes without a charge.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S webcam
The 720p webcam located on the thin bezel above the IdeaPad 330S' display captures decent images. There was surprisingly little visual dissonance in a selfie I shot in our dimly lit room, and the lights above me weren't blown out. Unfortunately, my face looked a ghastly white and fine details, like strands of pilus, were blurry.
Lenovo IdeaPad 330S rut
The IdeaPad 330S remained cool throughout our testing, even after we played a 15-minute HD video in full screen. The hottest location, the lesser panel nigh the hinge, warmed to 88 degrees Fahrenheit, which is well below our 95-degree comfort threshold.
The center of the keyboard (86 degrees) and the touchpad (74 degrees) weren't much hotter than room temperature.
Bottom line
Despite having a poor display, the IdeaPad 330S is a proficient laptop, at least until you leave it unplugged for a few hours. There is merely no excusing the laptop's sub-iii-hour runtime, especially given this midrange notebook's dim, low-resolution console. That's a shame, because in that location's a lot to like near the IdeaPad 330S, from a sleek chassis to strong operation and a comfy keyboard
At $499, the IdeaPad 330S doesn't agree upwards well against the Aspire E 15, a sub-$400 laptop with a 1080p display and nearly 9 hours of battery life. If you're OK with a smaller display, nosotros recommend the Surface Get, a 10-inch tablet with a bright, loftier-res panel. While the IdeaPad 330S is more powerful than both of these machines, short bombardment life and a poor display ruin the feel.
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Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Specs
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth four.1 |
| Make | Lenovo |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-8250U |
| Carte Slots | SD memory reader |
| Company Website | https://www.lenovo.com/united states/en/ |
| Display Size | 15.half-dozen |
| Graphics Card | Intel UHD 620 |
| Hard Bulldoze Size | 1 TB |
| Hard Drive Type | HDD |
| Highest Available Resolution | 1366 x 768 |
| Native Resolution | 1366x768 |
| Operating Organization | Windows 10 Abode |
| Ports (excluding USB) | SD card slot, Lock Slot, Headphone/Mic, HDMI 2.0, USB Blazon-C, USB 3.0 Always On |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Size | xiv ten ix.v x 0.8 inches |
| Touchpad Size | 4.one x 2.7 inches |
| USB Ports | 3 |
| Warranty/Support | one-twelvemonth warranty. |
| Weight | 3.9 pounds |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11ac |
| Wi-Fi Model | Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 |
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Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-330s
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