Review Laptop Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15ARR (Ryzen 3 2200U, Vega 3)

An affordable Ryzen notebook. The Lenovo IdeaPad 330 offers a DVD drive, supports fast charging and has an AMD CPU. However, some angles are cut to the price of only $ 430. This has affected the quality and appearance of the letters. Find out what else IdeaPad 330 has to hide in our review.

Lenovo uses the name "IdeaPad 330" for affordable 14, 15, or 17-inch notebooks with various configuration options. The price range starts around $ 250 and can reach more than $ 1000. Thus, configurations that may be very diverse, and individual models can often only be separated by their names. Our test unit is currently called the "IdeaPad 330-15ARR" and this is a 15-inch notebook with AMD Ryzen CPU.

Buyers will receive the Ryzen 3 2200U processor from AMD, the Radeon RX Vega 3 integrated GPU, 4 GB RAM and 1 TB HDD for more than $ 400. For a little more money, the IdeaPad 330 is also available with other processors until AMD Ryzen 7 2700U. There are also Intel models available.

Of course, there is quite a lot of competition in the affordable notebook segment.

Lenovo IdeaPad 330-15ARR-81D2005JGE

• ProcessorAMD Ryzen 3 2200U
• Graphics adapterAMD Radeon RX Vega 3
• Memory4096 MB  
• , DDR4, Single-Channel
• Display15.6 inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel 141 PPI, BOE07A3, IPS, glossy: no
• MainboardAMD CZ FCH
• StorageSeagate Mobile HDD 1TB ST1000LM035, 1024 GB  860 GB free
• Weight2.2 kg ( = 77.6 oz / 4.85 pounds), Power Supply: 214 g ( = 7.55 oz / 0.47 pounds)
• Price 400 Euro

Case & Connectivity - Lenovo notebook with DVD-RW drive

The IdeaPad 330 case is made of plastic that looks stable and is available in platinum gray, snow white, midnight blue, brown and black onyx. Work seems very good without anything to criticize. Lenovo notebook cover is also very stable and will only curve under high pressure. The base unit weight is only high enough to allow you to open the device with one hand.

The IdeaPad 300 bottom plate can be removed after removing a few screws. This gives you access to the hard drive. Our test unit also has a free RAM slot hidden under metal sheets, which means you can expand working memory if desired. Before opening the case, you must also remove the optional DVD-RW drive.

Lenovo only includes the most important ports, even though there is a USB Type C port, which gives you the possibility to connect a docking station with further ports. The internal card reader accepts cards in SD, SDHC, SDXC and MMC formats. However, they all stood out from this case with more than one centimeter. Card readers only reached a below-average transfer rate in our tests with our reference card, Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II. However, our comparison devices all have very slow transfer speeds.

An integrated Wi-Fi adapter is similar. Perform below average in our Wi-Fi test and place our test unit in the last place in our comparison table.

Input Devices - Loose ClickPad

The IdeaPad 330-15ARR comes with a good keyboard. The key has a good pressure point and the surface offers sufficient grip strength. Typing is very quiet, which means the device can be easily used in a quiet environment.

The replacement of the IdeaPad 330 mouse is in the form of a ClickPad. Its smooth surface allows good navigation, but unfortunately the touchpad sits quite loosely in its enclosure and makes a rattling sound every time you tap twice to click. Even harder when clicking by putting pressure on the touchpad. Besides this toy, you can hear the click of a real mouse button.

Performance - great for office applications

Our test unit configuration is suitable for office and simple multimedia applications. The integrated AMD Ryzen 3 2200U and Radeon RX Vega 3 can handle video streaming and typing every day without difficulty. There are also 4 GB of RAM and 1 TB of HDD. Users must also be able to play casual games, but it will not be possible to play more demanding games with this hardware.

Users who need to use a more demanding application can also buy IdeaPad 330 with AMD Ryzen 5 2500U or Ryzen 7 2700U. Apart from the integrated Radeon RX Vega, the manufacturer also offers a variety of special graphics options up to Radeon RX 540.

Processor

Lenovo has equipped the IdeaPad 330 with the Ryzen 3 2200U cellular two-core processor from AMD. It supports dual-channel RAM and includes an integrated Radeon RX Vega 3 graphics unit. The adjustable consumption of this CPU makes it very suitable for thin and light notebooks - its maximum performance depends heavily on individual model cooling systems.

The Lenovo notebook only managed to maintain its thrust performance for a short time in our Cinebench loop. After that, benchmark results dropped by around 22%. This means that long-term performance is much lower than in running a single test.

Verdict - performance remains below expectations

Our impression of IdeaPad 330 was quite good after our review. The modern Type C USB port, proper port selection and optical drives are definite plus points - especially if you consider the price. Ryzen CPU performance is also sufficient and allows the system to run smoothly. This device can handle most office applications and light games.

Potential buyers must also be aware of the fact that 1 TB ClickPad and HDD swings significantly slow down the system. Although the latter can be exchanged for SSDs, affordable notebook buyers may want to avoid the additional costs that will be incurred. In addition, Ryzen 3 2200U's performance did not reach its full potential.

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