Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 2022 15.6″ FHD 120Hz AMD Ryzen 5 6600H

The model I received comes with a Ryzen 5 6600U, RTX 3050 4GB, 8GB of DDR5-4800 (I added another 8 gigs before doing much else so bear that in mind for performance reviews), and a 256 gig internal storage drive (I use an external 1TB SSD for games).

Not a bad laptop overall. Had some issues but some were caused by Windows, not the laptop itself.

If you’re upgrading the RAM or storage, be extra sure to make sure Windows doesn’t have any updates waiting. Windows 11 made the great decision to no longer tell users if their shutting down of a PC would also be applying updates. So unplugging the battery and adding more RAM unknowingly mid-update despite having shut down the laptop bricked my operating system and I had to reinstall. Downside is that you need ethernet upon a reinstall so you can download wifi drivers. Upside is it gets rid of the bloatware Lenovo tries preinstalling with the laptop.

The inside is pretty simple, RAM is covered by a small metal tray with thermal pads on it for heat dissipation. A free M.2 storage slot is right in the open, ready for you to add storage as needed (you will need it). Thermals seem pretty solid, fans ramp up in gaming (I barely hear them over my headset which I don’t run very loud and is an open-back headset, meaning I can hear noises outside of the headset fairly well) but rarely get too extreme.

For gaming, it’s a mixed bag. Needless to say, ray tracing will not be something you’ll use on this laptop for playable frame rates. I doubt even 30 fps is achievable without dropping to 720p or less. Rainbow Six Siege was able to handle 1080p 120 fps consistently with mixed graphics settings (90 fov, ultra LOD, Medium textures and Shadows, most else set to low) with or without DLSS enabled. Though I did experience a bug where the render scaling option said I was running at ~850p even with the render scaling set to 100… an oddity to be sure. Halo Reach struggled to achieve similar results on Forge World, with bad tearing when the fps cap was set to 120. I lowered it to 60 and all was well, though drops may not be out of the question in high-intensity situations like custom games or campaign. Minecraft Java ran mostly above 60 fps on a modded server without Optifine or any other performance enhancers. Even in a particularly-taxing area it was mostly fine when the render distance was turned down. I’m sure with the use of Optifine or Sodium it’d be a very solid gaming experience.

Windows 11 is a bit of a chore. Upon first installing Steam, I realized that my default Documents folder pinned to my Quick Access in the File Explorer was labeled under OneDrive. I never gave OneDrive permission to backup anything on my PC, as the measley 5 GB it gives you isn’t enough for anything I would use a computer for. But it forces a backup, and deleting from the OneDrive cloud deletes it from your PC as well for… some insane reason. So be wary if you use Windows 11, make sure you remove the tabs from the Quick Access bar in File Explorer and replace them with the actual local file locations (Documents, Pictures, Music, etc).

The keyboard is… weird. I’ve used mechanical and membrane alike in plenty of scenarios, but this one just feels weird compared to either. It’s not unusable by any means but it takes getting used to. The trackpad is fine, I prefer having mouse buttons with my trackpad but it’s not unusable even without them.

The speakers are tinny. For 2W speakers it’s not bad but it’s not going to have the amazing sound quality the description would lead you to believe. Would suggest using headphones.

The I/O is alright. Type-C with full DisplayPort functionality is nice to have, HDMI 2.0 is plenty for what this laptop is capable of, and the back-facing Ethernet and charging ports are quite handy in most situations. I’ve always been a fan of Lenovo’s chargers as well, for some reason the reversible square shape just feels right. My only complaint would be a lack of USB ports, and the lack of SD/MicroSD. I know the latter is getting up there in age which makes it more a personal preference, but the former can make it difficult to use with numerous external devices (keyboard, mouse, storage, controllers, etc) since you are limited to 3 max only if you have type-C connectivity, otherwise you get two ports for peripherals and nothing more. An extra USB 2 port would have been nice to have.

Overall it’s a solid deal. Boot times are fast, gaming feels alright, the wifi signal is solid (though I did notice some lag while using a bluetooth Xbox Series controller with wifi, need to test and see if the lag is still present while using ethernet) and the laptop is easy to modify for basics like RAM and storage for the most part. A solid system from Lenovo.

*Update 2/11/2023 – Found out that this laptop actually does support VRR via AMD Freesync. However, this is not listed anywhere the laptop can be found. I had to install AMD’s graphics software in order to enable it, despite the laptop having an Nvidia GPU inside. This helped immensely with stuttery FPS in various games, though issues with Nvidia control panel’s FPS limits caused other issues unrelated with the laptop itself.