As recently as five years ago, gaming laptops weren’t special, often bulky, having terrible battery time, and not even being able to run games on high-quality graphics. While the battery isn’t much better, gaming laptops have made many great strides since then. Companies like Lenovo have released the Ideapad Gaming 3, a great budget gaming laptop that can run most modern games, even with few graphical compromises. Even better, you can grab one of the best Lenovo laptop brands for just $550, rather than the $900 it usually goes for, although the deal will end soon, so you should grab it quickly!
Why you should buy the Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3
Right off the bat, the Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 comes with an RTX 3050 Ti, an upgraded entry-level GPU that is still pretty good for its weight class. Luckily, the 15.6-inch FHD monitor that runs at 120Hz won’t tax it too much, so you can play quite a few games at medium-to-high graphical settings. Even better, Lenovo throws in an AMD Ryzen 5 5000, which is not only an excellent mid-range CPU, it’s also more efficient than intel equivalents, which means it will save you some battery power with heavy use. In terms of memory, you get 8GBs of RAM, which isn’t too bad for most uses, although we’d probably upgrade it with an extra 8GB down the line for the extra dual-channel performance.
In terms of build, the Ideapad Gaming 3 is excellent for a budget gaming laptop, with little to no flex on the keyboard and great typing experience. The overall look is also pretty minimalist, meaning it will fit just as easily in an office as in a school or home, which is an aesthetic we appreciate. As for battery life, you’ll see around eight hours or so of light use and possibly two to three hours of gaming, which is standard for gaming laptops. You could certainly use it as a desktop replacement if you grab one of these gaming monitor deals.
Overall, the Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 has an excellently balanced specification that still manages to play games at reasonable graphical settings while being budget-oriented. A lot of how good the value of this laptop is relies on the deal from Best Buy, bringing it down to $550 from $900, so if you like what you see, grab it quickly. Otherwise, check out some other great gaming laptop deals if you missed this one.
Editors’ Recommendations