Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 CB 14M868 review The MediaTek Kompanio 520 introductory Chromebook

We purchased our new test device during Black Friday on Amazon for an unbelievable US$110. Currently, the laptop's prices range from US$200 to US$230 and it was the cheapest laptop of December 2023. In order to reach this low price, Lenovo has, as expected, had to make quite a few savings. Inside the Chromebook, you can find hardware usually known from smartphones, namely a MediaTek ARM SoC, 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of slow eMMC flash storage.

Thanks to its frugal ChromeOS, the hardware doesn't have to be a dealbreaker. Optionally, you can also get the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook (14" MediaTek) with 128 GB eMMC and an IPS touchscreen. The IPS panel's better viewing angles may prove to be a particularly big reason to upgrade from our test device's TN touchscreen.

However, in the region in which this laptop was tested (DACH region), this isn't currently available. Instead, you can only find an Alder Lake N based model 14IAN8 with a Core i3 N305, 8 GB RAM and 256 GB flash storage. At over US$700, this is a whole other price range. Thankfully, you can find the model with an IPS panel in the United States.

Here, this version retails for about US$270. In the support area, Lenovo has also listed this device as the "IP Slim 3 Chrome 14M868 Type 82XJ". Visually, the MediaTek Chromebook's plastic case feels better quality than its price would make you think. As it is also used for much more expensive devices, you will greatly benefit from this.

The design is clearly inspired by Apple's MacBook Air and looks great thanks to its sleek shape. Because of its tapered edges, the case appears slimmer than it actually is. Unfortunately, the plastic used for this device is quite prone to attracting scratches. Despite being very careful, we already noticed a few visible scratches on the top part of our test device's case.

Compared to Apple's aluminum cases, the IdeaPad may not be able to keep up in terms of haptics or stability, but especially when taking into account its low price, we are very happy with our test sample's case. One small weakness is that you can hear a clicking noise when picking the laptop up by one of its corners, as well as when using the touchpad (although it doesn't seem to make use of an actual button click).

Moreover, our test device doesn't sit totally evenly on its two feet. Compared to its visual inspiration, the Apple MacBook Air, the IdeaPad Slim 3 is considerably thicker and its dimensions sit between the 13 and 15 inch models. In comparison to the similarly inexpensive Asus Chromebook CM14, the IP Slim 3 is a little smaller.

Apart from a Kensington port on the right side of the device, all its other ports are situated on the left—practical for right handed people. The USB C port is also used to supply the laptop with power, meaning you may be reliant on a docking station at times to use it. However, like the other USB A port, the Chromebook only supports USB 3.2 Gen 1 (previously USB 3.0 and therefore 5 Gbps = 400 MB/s).

With its headset port and microSD slot, you are actually only missing an HDMI port. As the MediaTek chip's video output is limited to Full HD, the same restrictions apply to external monitors, should you wish to connect one. The installed microSD card reader achieved below average results in our benchmarks.

Compared to Asus' introductory model, Lenovo has pulled the short straw—however, its performance is fine for occasionally transferring photos and files. When used as a fixed storage medium, its data rates are quite limiting. The integrated WiFi 6 modem (plugged in M.2 2230 2x2 module Lenovo 5W11H85391) worked perfectly in our test, but it also didn't achieve any record speeds.

The installed webcam takes medium quality images at 1280 x 960 pixels using ChromeOS. If there is enough light, the camera is good enough for video conferences. The mechanical cover situated above the webcam allows you to manually block the lens. The IdeaPad Slim 3 CB only comes delivered with a small 45 watt USB C charger in a box made from recycled cardboard.

However, the laptop is secured using polystyrene. The Chromebook can be opened up relatively easily via the bottom. The cover is held on by 9 Torqx screws and some plastic clips. Inside, you can swap out the WLAN card, screwed in battery as well as the speakers. The IP Slim 3 Chrome 14M868 is covered by Lenovo's limited warranty.

This can be looked up for individual products using their serial numbers via Lenovo's website . Warranty upgrades are available. The IdeaPad's keyboard features the standard layout for ChromeOS laptops. The individual chiclet keys are 15.5 x 15.2 mm in size and offer a sufficient lift of 1.4 mm.

If you aren't used to a Chromebook, then you might have to get used to the short distance separating the Enter and "#" keys. Apart from this, the layout is comfortable. Haptically, the individual keys feel a little cheap and tend to rattle a bit. The author of this article managed to type fast on this keyboard (92 words per minute) and without any mistakes.

The keys feature white labelling which can be read easily, but they aren't backlit. The installed clickpad is quite big (12 cm diagonally) and despite its plastic surface, it feels nice and smooth. Furthermore, the touchpad can be pressed down by 0.7 mm on the bottom 4/5 of its surface, which results in a satisfying and visually noticeable click effect.

Within the introductory model, the display's only redeeming quality is its resolution. Its 1920 x 1080 pixels offer nice sharpness, in particular because ChromeOS can scale the user interface well and depicts text nicely. Its maximum brightness of 281 cd/m² in the middle of the screen is bright enough for indoor use, but even its matte display surface isn't much help in the sun.

Plus, it isn't lit the most evenly; the bottom third was a little darker than the rest. Its black value is okay, resulting in a contrast ratio of 624:1. In terms of color depiction, the AUO 208D panel didn't achieve the best values. Its color deviations of 12.4 (average DeltaE) leave a lot to be desired.

Another big disadvantage of the TN panel is its poor viewing angle stability. Even when you move your head a small amount, you notice the screen's brightness varying. As a result, our photo of the laptop's viewing angles shows a pattern on the display. We were happy to note that Lenovo doesn't use PWM to dim the screen.

Unfortunately, it seems that the panel is a cheap 6 bit panel, as we noted some Temporal Dithering when it came to gray values in our slow motion video. A unique feature is that the Lenovo Chromebook makes use of the inexpensive and relatively new MediaTek Kompanio 520 SoC. It is based on ARM and integrates a CPU and GPU from ARM.

The SoC accesses 4 GB of soldered on LPDDR4X 3600 RAM and is manufactured in 7nm. As is usual for ChromeOS, there are no options to control the CPU/GPU performance. Details about the SoC are also barely available. As Android and Linux run using a virtual machine, these also don't make many details available.

The processor part within the MediaTek Kompanio 520 consists of two clusters and a total of eight ARM based CPU cores. The performance cluster houses two bigger ARM Cortex A76 cores known from older smartphone processors such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 . There are six small ARM Cortex A55 cores within the efficiency cluster.

All cores have a maximum clock rate of 2 GHz. When it comes to CPU performance, the small ARM cores can only keep up with the old Intel Pentium N5030 (Gemini Lake Quad Core at max 3.1 GHz) . The new Alder Lake N processors, such as the Intel N100 , are considerably faster. Our comparisons were unfortunately restricted to the old Geekbench 5.5, as the newer 6.2 resulted in reproducible crashes.

The MediaTek system's system performance is also limited to absolute introductory levels. The Kompanio 520's total CrossMark score could only keep up with the slow Celeron J4125 , remaining far behind newer CPUs. The Celeron N4020 , often used in older introductory level laptops, was left in the dust.

Its CrXPRT 2 performance paints a similar picture. The Kompanio came just behind a Celeron N4500, but ahead of an AMD 3015Ce. These weak benchmark results can also be felt in everyday use. Loading websites is a bit laggy and pages load quite a bit slower than on faster systems. In addition, watching YouTube videos at over 1080p leads to dropped frames and lagging playback.

However, as the Chromebook doesn't support output at over 1080p, this negative point shouldn't be too important. As a storage device, the Lenovo Chromebook relies on slow eMMC 5.1 chips that are soldered on. The introductory model has 64 GB, of which only 46 GB are free to use. A further 10 GB will be needed for Crostini, which really doesn't leave much space for Android and Linux apps or for your own photos and videos.

The MediaTek Kompanio 520's graphics card is the small ARM Mali G52MP2 iGPU. Users have access to only two of its possible six cores and this iGPU is often used in older smartphone SoCs. Its performance (e.g. in GFXBench Aztec ruins Normal Offscreen) is comparable to the smartphone variants and has a similar speed to a UHD Graphics 600 inside the Celeron N4000 (e.g.

Lenovo Chromebook S340 ). During the DMark Wild Life stress test, we didn't see any signs that the GPU was throttled. On the other hand, the Stress Test app revealed that the CPU was slightly throttled and under longer NPU load, it was throttled more severely. The weak graphics unit is only suitable for a handful of simple Android games.

PUBG , for example, didn't run smoothly at all during our test—even at the lowest detail setting—while Asphalt 8 could be played well. Roblox achieved between 20 and 40fps, depending on the game. The latest version of Steam wasn't available on our test device. As the small MediaTek processor is cooled passively, the Lenovo Chromebook remains silent even under full load.

Despite the SoC's passive cooling, the laptop's surface temperatures remain very low. We measured a hotspot of only 33°C on the bottom of the device after longer 3D graphics load. The laptop's two 2 watt stereo speakers are only suitable for simple uses such as listening to podcasts or YouTube videos.

Music isn't terribly enjoyable. We would recommend using the integrated headset port (which, unfortunately, also doesn't deliver the best quality, but it at least doesn't produce any audible background noise). The weak ARM SoC not only has some advantages when it comes to temperatures, but its power consumption values are also a big plus for the Chromebook.

Still, compared to the rest of the class featuring a Snapdragon 7c or a Celeron N4500, the values don't particularly stand out. The Kompanio is a good companion when it comes to runtimes, too. Lenovo managed to squeeze 14.5 hours out of its 46 Wh battery during our test at 150 nit brightness, and just over 11 hours at full brightness.

This means a full working day should be no problem without the power supply. This also beats the Asus Chromebook CM14 with the same SoC but only a 42 Wh battery. The Chromebook takes about 2 hours for its battery to be fully replenished. At 50 watts, it charges very quickly during the first 45 minutes, then it quickly sinks down to 30 watts, followed by it gradually nearing zero from the one hour and ten minute mark.

In our test, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook proved to be one of the cheapest laptops currently on the market. Visually, the device impressed us with its high quality feel. With regard to its price, the laptop is built well and its choice of materials is good, however, the top case is very sensitive to scratches.

Due to its weak hardware configuration, you will have to make quite a few compromises in how it operates. For lesser demanding tasks such as surfing the web and for office uses, its performance is enough. On the other hand, the SoC quickly nears its limits when playing more demanding games downloaded from the Play Store.

Its smaller and slower eMMC storage also limits your use quite a bit. In addition, the laptop's speakers can only be classed as introductory and are barely suitable for listening to music. Thankfully, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook's long runtimes—plus its silent and cool operation—speak for the device.

It masters this even under load. Its Full HD panel unfortunately suffers from very poor viewing angles as a result of the TN technology used. Its color depiction isn't all too great either. Still, it is surely good enough for simple office tasks and thanks to its 1920x1080 pixel resolution, its depiction is nice and sharp.

One big advantage is the laptop's guaranteed update support until June 2033 and ChromeOS's security offerings. We got our IdeaPad Slim 3 CB during Black Friday on Amazon for an unbeatable US$110. Currently, you can find it for about US$230 . The version with an IPS touchscreen is currently on offer for US$220 ..