Lenovo Ideapad 330s Review: Decent Performance, Awful Battery Life

It’s common knowledge that you have a better chance of lading a good laptop spending more than $1,000 or Rs 75,000. However, in this Lenovo Ideapad 330s review, we would like to point out how hard it can be to get a decent budget-friendly laptop.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Price And Configuration Options

Lenovo offers a wide range of devices under the name IdeaPad 330S. In India, the version running on Intel Core i5 paired with 4GB of RAM and 1000GB HDD is retailed for ₹ 28,173.

With ₹ 39,490, you can have the laptop with Core i3, 4GB of RAM, and 1000GB HDD.

Lenovo Ideapad with AMD Ryzen 5 and 8GB of RAM is retailed for ₹ 34,990.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Design

Let’s start our Lenovo Ideapad 330s 15.6" laptop review with the look of the laptop.

There is one aspect we would like to point out in this Lenovo Ideapad 330s review that is the design. Lenovo has done a good job making budget-friendly laptops feel like a premium one but for some reason, it fails to do the same for this one – the Lenovo 330s looks very bland.

However, the sturdy frame does a good job of making up for the aesthetic shortcomings of the laptop. The underside of the laptop is actually plastic but at first glance, you will think it’s metal.

One feature we have to give credit to Lenovo is the thin bezels, which makes for a more compact chassis and enjoyable viewing experience.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Ports

Although it features a quite thin chassis, the Lenovo 81fb00hkus offers a decent selection of ports.

There is an SD card slot, a lock slot, and a USB 3.0 port on the right side of the laptop. On the other side, you will find an HDMI port, a USB 3.0 port, a headphone jack, and a USB-C port.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Display

It comes as a surprise that laptops of this price range still have a 1366 x 786 resolution and for some reason, Lenovo decides that a low-res display is suitable for its 81fb00hkus laptop.

When we watch some content for this Lenovo Ideapad 330s review, fine details on the screen looked indistinct. Sometimes similar colors even blend together. The brightness is nothing to write home about and when you view from an angle, it’s hard to see anything.

The laptop’s colors aren’t bad at all but they are held back by the dim screen which peaks at 215 nits.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Keyboard And Touchpad

One of the rare perks of this midrange laptop is the keyboard. The 1.5mm of travel is of nice length and the 63-gram actuation force ensures a decent bounciness.

However, in this Lenovo Ideapad 330s review, we would like to point out two drawbacks of the keyboards. First, it isn’t backlit so some of you might have a problem with typing in the dark. The other is some shrunken keys to make way for the Numpad.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Performance

The version with Intel Core i5-8250U CPU paired with 8GB of RAM offers enough power for an average user. It shows a steady speed even with two 1080p videos on YouTube and on Twitch.

The 5400-rpm, 1TB hard drive of the device score is mediocre in our file transfer test for this Lenovo Ideapad 330s review. It takes the device 2 minutes and 51 seconds, and a speed of 29.8 megabytes/second, to duplicate files of 4.97GB.

The device also finished last in our Excel macro test, which required laptops to match 65,000 names with their addresses. The Ideapad did the task in 2 minutes 20 seconds, ranking behind the Aspire 5, Aspire E 15, and Inspiron 15.

IdeaPad 330S isn’t designed to handle games. However, if all you want is to play at a low setting, the device can totally help you with that.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Battery Life

Those who are thinking about getting this laptop will be disappointed to know that even Avengers: Endgame beats it in runtime. It can last only 2 hours and 42 minutes between charges in our tests for this Lenovo Ideapad 330s review.

To put things into perspective, an average laptop of this price point can at least last for 6 hours and 35 minutes before needing another charge.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S Webcam

Lenovo Ideapad 330s’s 720p webcam is surprisingly decent and can yield pictures with minimal noise. However, details are blurry and your face might look ghastly white in videos.

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