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Lenovo Ideapad 330 15-inch Review – Budget gaming and school laptop with Nvidia GTX

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lenovo ideapad 330 review

Either you’re a student, style-conscious, value seeker, or even a gamer on a budget, you might want to check this out – Lenovo Ideapad 330. It claims to be a gaming-level processor, has a powerful NVIDIA GTX graphics and fast charging. Seems legit? Lets find out.

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Full Specs of Lenovo 330 Ideapad

14-inch 15-inch 17-inch
Processor Celeron; upgradable to Pentium, 7th- or 8th-gen Core i7 7th- or 8th-gen Core i5 / i7 7th- or 8th-generation Core i5 / i7
Display 1,366×763; upgradable to 1,920×1,080 1,366×763; upgradable to touch and touch/nontouch 1,920×1,080 1,600×900; upgradable to 1,920×1,080
Graphics integrated; upgradable to Nvidia MX110 or MX130 integrated; upgradable to Nvidia MX110, MX130 or MX150 or GeForce GTX 1050 integrated; upgradable to Nvidia MX110, MX130 or MX150 or GeForce GTX 1050
Storage 128GB SSD; up to 2TB in various combinations of SSD and HDD 128GB SSD; up to 2TB in various combinations of SSD and HDD 128GB SSD; up to 2TB in various combinations of SSD and HDD
Memory 4GB; up to 12GB 4GB; up to 16GB 4GB; up to 16GB
Weight Starts at 4.6 lbs (2.1kg) Starts at 4.8 lbs (2.2kg) Starts at 6.2 lbs (2.8 kg)
Dimensions 13.3 x 9.8 x 0.9 in (338 x 250 x 23mm) 14.9 x 10.2 x 0.9 in (378 x 260 x 23mm) 16.5 x 11.5 x 1.0 in (418 x 293 x 25mm)
Starts at $250 $250 $500

DESIGN

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Our test unit is the Lenovo Ideapad 330 15.6 inch 81FK model. This laptop doesn’t feel cheap even it is covered with plastic. The palm rest assembly is made of metal chassis with matte aluminum finish, has rounded corner and won’t scratch easily. As it is sitting on my lap, it doesn’t feel hassle to use though it’s kinda heavy because the weight is balanced on all sides. It weighs 3.18 kg.

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Flipping it to the left side, there are full-sized HDMI, USB-A and Ethernet ports, so you won’t need a dongle. Unfortunately, the USB-C port only works for data transfers, not display-out or charging. All the hubs are placed at the left.

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The keyboard and touchpad are spaced just right, fitting with the large chassis. The keys aren’t stiff or loose. What I love about this product is there’s backlighting. The track pad also fits well and supports two-finger scrolling. It doesn’t have DVD-RW drive.

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It comes in pretty colors like platinum gray, onyx black, mint green, midnight blue, blizzard white and chocolate. Plus, in addition to the 14- and 15-inch models, you can get it in 17 inches as well. It still has the traditional bezel that surrounds the screen and doesn’t support touchscreen. My test unit comes from 15.6-inch variant.

The built-in microphones are serviceable for video calls. It is paired with the superior sound quality of Dolby Audio to turn up the volume without distortion (you’ll really hear every detail). This is another thing I liked about this laptop unlike its distant cousins Ideapad 100 series, the Ideapad 330 provides a dramatically enhanced entertainment experience. But unsurprisingly, the webcam is bad at 720p.

DISPLAY

The processor of Lenovo notebook is paired with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 graphics. This GPU is sufficient to run games on 1080p resolution, handling simple graphics tasks and watch your movies on 1080p. The visuals quality are sharp and clear, making this laptop ideal to play games and watch movies with a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920×1080) anti-glare display.

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PERFORMANCE

While the product boasts its outside appearance, performance and value for money are also the main appeals of this laptop because it performs better than anything else at this price point. Purchasing this one like getting the same processor that’s in the thousand-dollar laptop range. It runs decently because Lenovo paired the great i5-8300H CPU and 4GB RAM of Ideapad 330 to 1TB HDD. But if you want to achieve its full potential, you may opt to upgrade to SSD or upsize the RAM. While using it, I experienced some momentary lags when I opened a lot of tabs but it’s tolerable.

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BENCHMARK

CPU PERFORMANCE- #8
  • Intel Core i7-6820HK (@ 4 GHz) +1.3%
  • Intel Core i7-8700 +20.5%
  • Intel Core i5-8300H
  • Intel Core i5-8400H 0.7%
  • Intel Core i7-7820HK (@ 3.8GHz) 1.3%
3D RENDERING
  • Intel Core i7-6820HK (@ 4 GHz)
Alienware 17 R4
PRICE
$4999.11
PERFORMANCE
733.00 -14.5%
  • Intel Core i7-8700
MSI WT75
PRICE
$7049.00
PERFORMANCE
1187.00 +38.5%
  • Intel Core i5-8300H
Lenovo IdeaPad 330
PRICE
$250
857.00
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP
  • Intel Core i7-6820HK (@ 4 GHz)
Alienware 17 R4
PRICE
$4999.11
PERFORMANCE

10.17 -13.4%

  • Intel Core i7-8700
MSI WT75
No information available
  • Intel Core i5-8300H
Lenovo IdeaPad 330
PRICE
$250
PERFORMANCE
11.75
  • Intel Core i5-8400H
Dell Latitude 15 5591
PRICE
$1406.19
PERFORMANCE
8.57 -27.1%
RAW PERFORMANCE
  • Intel Core i7-6820HK (@ 4 GHz)
Alienware 17 R4
PRICE
$4999.11
PERFORMANCE
15560.00 – 0.6%
  • Intel Core i7-8700
MSI WT75
No information available
  • Intel Core i5-8300H
Lenovo IdeaPad 330
PRICE
$250
PERFORMANCE
15661.00
  • Intel Core i7-7820HK (@ 3.8GHz)
Alienware 17 R4
Dell Latitude 15 5591
PRICE
$5499.11
PERFORMANCE
16045.00 +2.5%

Source: LaptopMedia

BATTERY LIFE

Running out of battery and short on time? The Ideapad 330 boasts up to *5.5 hours’ battery life (3 cell Li-Polymer 45Wh) so that you can make the most of your time. In my experience, it lasted 4hrs on a full charge on continuous use with multiple tasks open. It took me 3 hours to fully charge.

*Based on testing with MobileMark 2014. Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage, & other factors.

Check out more laptops price under $400 here.

CONCLUSION

The Lenovo Ideapad 330 has a capable, fast 8th gen. Intel processor suitable for some demanding tasks, and mid-range graphics card, suitable for modern 3D games in light detail settings. The fit and finish are good. But not really recommended for demanding gamers and creative professionals. It is budget-friendly and great for students and offers satisfactory overall performance.

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