Lenovo IdeaPad 1 14 (81VU0079US) Review

Every student needs a good laptop for school, but some of these machines can be obviously expensive for students shopping on a tight budget. The Lenovo IdeaPad 1 81VU0079US is an affordable alternative that caters for this demographic, and so are most Chromebooks.

If you’re planning to use the IdeaPad 1 only for basic home, office and college tasks, the 81VU0079US can be described as “very usable”.

Its spec-sheet is suitable for light computing duties like web browsing, MS Office apps, music and movie playback, and related tasks. Of course, there are a couple of better alternatives you should consider, we will list them in this review.

Design

The Lenovo IdeaPad 1 81VU0079US is an entry-level laptop with a simple design that should suit most people very well. There’s nothing particularly eye-catching about it save for the Ice Blue color, but the laptop has an allure of simplicity that we like. The plastic chassis is nice and sturdy, and it should be lugged around t lectures and study halls on a regular basis without any issues.

Connectivity is also basic, no USB-C, but you still get enough ports for your peripherals and other digital devices. You get two Type-A 3.2 ports, one HDMI port, an audio combo jack and an SD card reader. That’s it.

Display

The 14-inch screen has a maximum resolution of ‎1366 x 768 (HD), which some may consider a weak point for this laptop, but it all comes down to your expectations and needs. Neither the contrast nor the brightness is more than category average, but its’s still very usable for basic tasks like working with documents and spreadsheets.

However, if you’ll be doing. Serious photo editing and video editing, you might as well consider the Acer Aspire 5 A515-46-R14K with a full HD resolution and better overall screen brightness.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard is perhaps the best feature on this IdeaPad 1. It has a crisp and tactile feel to it, with fairly good travel for a laptop this cheap, along with satisfying clicky sound that feels just right and isn’t too loud. This is obviously important for students who need to use this laptop to take notes in class and to study at the library, and the IdeaPad 1 81VU0079US should be perfect for that.

The touchpad would have been bigger, but that’s expected for a laptop in this price range, and it works well. It does carry a feel of cheap to the mouse clicks, but over all it does function well and seem reliable.

Performance

We are happy to report that the Lenovo IdeaPad 1 14 feels snappy ad handles multitasking very well. All that’s true for as long as your tasks are basic, anything complex will throw the Intel Celeron N4020 Processor off-balance. The Celeron N4020 is a basic cheap meant for budget systems, which together with 4GB RAM, 64GB SSD storage ad Intel UHD graphics 600 on this IdeaPad 1 offers reliable performance.

It should work fine for basic daily tasks, like web browsing, MS Office apps, music and movie playback, and related tasks that are typical for school or the home-office. Obviously, gaming isn’t a focus for this laptop, but Minecraft works fine, so it’s possible to do some light gaming in between studying on this laptop – just don’t set your expectations too high.

Battery Life

Battery life is great. A full charge will give you up to 7 to 8 hours of juice over browsing the web, streaming online content and word processing. Having a budget laptop last a full day worth of work is especially great for students who need to take notes in class without having to carry along a charger.

Alternatives to theLenovo IdeaPad 1 14

In the same category, there are more capable laptops including the ASUS VivoBook 15, the.  Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-36UT and the Lenovo Flex 5, both with better performance, vivid resolutions and even longer battery life – worth considering if your budget can stretch a little further. Alternatively, if you don’t mind a device running on Google’s Chrome OS, the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 is a great alternative.

Bottom line

If you search for the cheapest device in Lenovo’s line-up, you’ll find the IdeaPad 1 14 laptop. It uses the some of the most affordable components currently available in the market – an intel Celeron chip, 4GB of RAM, 64GB SSD storage and a middling HD TB display – but still manages to wow in design and reliable performance on basic tasks.

Its keyboard is rather good, the Ice Blue color contrasted with black keys on the keyboard looks great, and because there’s no fan, it runs completely during operation. The battery life is equally great, adding more reason why you should consider it, especially if shopping on a tight budget.

That said, if all you need is a super-cheap way to get your online fix then the Lenovo IdeaPad 1 81VU0079US is an ideal budget laptop. It’s reliable, comfy to use and will handle all your day-to-day browsing and video watching needs with ease – it can even be used as a work laptop and is definitely a perfect first laptop for school.