Best Budget Entry Level Gaming Laptop

There’s a lot of gaming laptop and pc out there with all kinds of brands too, but not all people could afford such a high-end gaming laptop or especially pc, but not all of them are pricey. Here’s our review of Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3, best budget entry level gaming laptop.

People want as many frames per second as possible while gaming, but not many of us can afford such gaming PCs, especially the higher-end ones with RTX graphics cards and the latest processors. Sure, you can build a low-cost PC for gaming, but not everyone can; building a PC takes time to learn, to know which component is the best and where to buy it for the best price, not to mention the risk of making a mistake that will cost you a component, which is where laptops come in. 

A laptop will give you a plug-and-play-ish experience, which is ideal for someone who only wants to play with their friends, needs to be on mobile, and does not want to bother assembling every component on it. Right now, at the time this article is written, there are tons of gaming laptops out there, and obviously the best gaming laptops cost your wallet, and not all people can afford that. With that in mind, the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 comes at a competitive price for its class.

It was released back in June of 2020 and comes packed with a solid 35 x 26 x 21 cm size and weight of around 2.3 kg; for comparison, the HP Victus 15 weighs 2.4 kg, so, respectively, it’s light if not the lightest gaming laptop around.

It includes an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H (6 core, 12 Thread, 3,3/4/2 Ghz) processor which equivalent to Intel i7-1260p, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, a 512GB M.2 SSD, and a dedicated NVidia RTX 3050 with 4GB of GDDR6 memory. This very laptop is the best you can get for its class, especially with the RTX 3050 graphics card, and not only that, it also has an additional SODIMM DDR4 slot of memory, another additional slot for M.2 2242 up to 512GB, and M.2 2280 up to 1TB of storage.

While the laptop is unquestionably worth it for gaming, the display is also excellent for content creators, with a 15.6" FHD (1920x1080) display with IPS technology and 300 nits of brightness, 100% sRGB, and 120 Hz. The contrast ratio is okay within the typical range of IPS panel of 913:1. It is not the ideal for viewing content in low light because of the relatively low contrast, which causes blacks to seem gray in dim environments. The 165Hz and 60Hz screens performance will be comparable. Individual units contrast ratios can differ, but the difference is typically negligible and undetectable.

It also has a 4-zone RGB lighting keyboard as well. Not to mention the wireless connectivity, using Mediatek MT7921 chipset, it supports Wi-Fi 6/Wi-Fi ax and Bluetooth v5 for the best wireless experience. It also comes with an integrated battery of 45Wh, 1x Gigabit ethernet, 1x HDMI, 1x USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 and DC in on the left side. On the right side it has 1x 3.5MM audio combo jack, 2x USB 3.1 Gen 1.

With the RTX 3050 installed, it can handle AAA games like Shadow of Tomb Raider with highest settings with average 49 frames per seconds. Grand Theft Auto 5 with 61 frames per seconds, The Red Dead Redemptions 2 benchmark show us at 39 frames per second at average. Borderlands 3 with badass setting which is highest setting at 42 frames per second, when we lowered the setting to high it reaches around 75 frames per seconds which is great.

We also need to mention that Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3’s serviceability is great. You can easily access internal component inside; you only need to unscrew 10 Philips screws and undo the clips with prying tool. The Philips screw have two different sizes but both of them are easily identifiable. The model with RTX 3050 have extra m2 storage inside like we mentioned before. It also has replaceable battery and wireless adapter, so it’s a plus point for its serviceability. Opening the back panel and changing storage or add more ram doesn’t make the warranty void.

So, with all that in mind, is it still worth it to buy the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 in 2023? Our answer is yes, this laptop is still worth buying for 2023. It’s a good laptop for gaming with AMD Ryzen and a dedicated Nvidia graphics card for smooth 1080p gaming like we mentioned above; just make sure to upgrade to 16GB of memory. The battery lasts about 4 to 5 hours of general use, which is enough, but you still need to bring the charger for longer use.