Lenovo Ideapad 330S Laptop Review

Ideapad series has been perhaps the only notebook series from Lenovo that caters and has something for every buyer in the market. Over the years Lenovo has worked on refining the Ideapad. 

The newer models have an added A in their model number suggesting that, it's a new and improved model with Slim profile and Ultra portability. 

Lenovo Ideapad 330S sits in the mid-range segment of the Line-up and can be considered part Business part casual notebook. This notebook starts at Rs 36,999 and goes upto Rs 75,000 for different processor and memory variants. 

 
 

Specifications

Lenovo IdeaPad 330S- 15IKB 81F500BVIN

Processor: Intel Core i5-7200U

Graphics adapter: Intel UHD Graphics 620

Memory:  8GB, 4GB soldered, 1 of 1 slot occupied

Display: 15.6 inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel 141 PPI, IPS LED, glossy: No

Mainboard: Intel Kaby Lake-U Premium PCH

Storage: 1 TB HDD 5400RPM

Soundcard: Intel Kaby Lake-U/Y PCH - High Definition Audio

Connections: 2 USB 3.0, 1 USB Type C Gen 1, 1 HDMI, 1 Kensington Lock, Audio Connections: Combo audio, Card Reader: 4 in 1 SD

Networking: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 (a/b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth 4.1

Battery: 52.5 Wh Lithium-Polymer (3 cell)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64 Bit

Camera: Webcam: 720p

Additional features

Speakers: Stereo, Keyboard: 6 row chiclet, Keyboard Light: yes, Lenovo Active Stylus,

Weight:  1.87 kg

 

Design 

The Ideapad is following the latest trend of bringing aluminium shell design to mid-range market. The whole chassis is made out of aluminium. Lenovo has gone with a simpler overall design, nothings fancy here. There's a small laser etched Lenovo logo on the bottom left side of lid. The aluminium palm rest adds a strength and lush feel to the notebook. 

Another Lenovo logo can be found underneath the display. 

Interestingly the hinge on this one can be adjusted up to 180 degrees. We don't really know why Lenovo choose this, since it's not a touchscreen display. There’s no noticeable creaking sound while adjusting the hinge, other than a click sound and you cannot open the display with just one hand.

 

OEMs have been pushing the narrow bezels design of laptops too and Lenovo is no different. The newer Ideapad 330S comes with narrow bezels display, where in the side bezels have been chopped quite a bit, but the bottom section still feels a bit chunky. 

The overall profile of the Ideapad 330S is slim and compact making it ideal for use while traveling. 

 

Connections 
 

We feel like Lenovo kind of skimmed here a bit. On the left side, there’s a USB 3.0 port, a HDMI slot, a USB Type C port and an audio jack. On right side, there’s a SD reader and a USB 3.0 port. The USB Type C port used here is a generation 1 port, meaning it offers neither DisplayPort nor Thunderbolt 3. 

We did feel a lack of ports, there should have another USB port or a Type C port with perhaps more functionality. 

 
 

Software 

The Ideapad 330S comes with the Windows 10 Home out of the box and we highly suggest you to upgrade it to the Pro version. Due to it being a little more fluid and snappy. The only thing missing here is the fingerprint sensor, which would have been an added touch. Though Lenovo has added a quality web cam with array mic in order to use the Windows Hello. 

Apart usual Microsoft Apps, Lenovo has added a bunch of their own apps onto this like Lenovo App Explorer, Lenovo Companion, Lenovo Settings, McAfee LiveSafe, Microsoft Office trial. 

 
 

Keyword & Touchpad 
 

Lenovo has always been able to provide a quality keyboard for best typing experience and the one used on the Ideapad 330S is no exception. Keyboard on the Ideapad 330S is a breeze to type on. The backlit keyboard (two steps backlight) offers a sufficient stroke. 

The touchpad here is more of a clickpad with integrated keys. The size of the clickpad is adequate. Windows gestures work great and we didn’t encounter any error with it. Click works great and there’s no loud sounds. 

Display 

Lenovo has gone with a 15.6-inch display that has an FHD resolution of 1920x1080 pixels with a density of 141 pixels per inch. The display here has marginal bezels on the top and the sides, but the bottom chin is very chunky. Lenovo has tried to squeeze a 15inch display in a 14inch display laptop. The images are crisp for the most part but you’d feel a little difference since people now a day are used to the crisp images from the smartphones.  

The display is bright enough. The colors come out great. Since it’s a non-reflective display so viewing angles take a hit, the picture will pop until you are in front of the display. 

Overall, we are quite impressed with the display quality on the Ideapad 330S. 

Performance 

The new Ideapad series is available in a bunch of configurations. The model we have comes with the 8th Generation i7-8550U processor. The i7-8550U variant comes with 8 GB of RAM, with Intel HD 620 integrated graphics. For power users there is a dedicated AMD Radeon 540 with 4GB of GDDR5 graphics storage. Out of the 8 GB memory, 4GB can be swapped out with a maximum of 8GB stick, while the other 4GB is soldered to the board. 

Storage wise our unit came with a 1TB HDD but considering the price Lenovo should have at least added a 128GB SSD, providing an overall hybrid storage system. 

Coming to the benchmarks the i7-8550U used here performed as expected. This chip is packed with some serious computing power.

Storage

The Ideapad 330S comes with a 1TB HDD and there's no mention of either a PCIE or M.2 slot. At the price that it is being offered, some of its rivals either provide a Hybrid Storage solution out of the box or at least have a M.2 slot. 

Talking about the storage speeds, the speeds are typical of what you would get from a HDD. 

Graphics

This part is where things do downhill. The Radeon 540 chip used here feels very dated and sluggish. We think that Lenovo could have done better in this area. Most of Ideapads rivals use the Nvidia MX150 which is much more capable in pushing graphics than the Radeon 540. 

You can do casual editing or gaming at low graphics but nothing more demanding than this. Some of the games we tested ran smoothly at 720p settings but were very sluggish at medium graphic settings. 

Battery 
 

The Lenovo Ideapad 330S packed a 3-cell 52.5 Wh battery, which is quite adequate for most users. Lenovo has added fast charging as well, so topping the battery won't be a hassle. The battery took about 2 ½ hours to charge which is average. 

Since it being a quite large battery we did get manage to get a decent battery backup. The idle usage (without WLAN and low brightness) was close 7 hours. With heavy usage the Ideapad 330S lasted for about 3 hours. 

Verdict 

Overall, we did like the design and material choice that Lenovo has gone with here. Some things like the battery, FHD display and weight show the positive side of this product but considering the price, things like missing fingerprint sensor, lack of ports and no hybrid storage gave us some second thoughts. 

We would only recommend this product to people looking for a good browsing and typing experience but that too only if you manage to get a good deal. We found all sorts of pricing for this product online, while the Official Lenovo store is selling this for Rs 72,999, Paytm Mall has priced this product at Rs 65,990 with a discount of Rs 6,599 on top of this. Making the effective price Rs 59,400, at this price it's a steal deal.