It’s always a pleasure to say the word affordable alongside gaming laptop in the same sentence. Legion introduces the new affordable IdeaPad Gaming 3 powered by AMD and Nvidia. This laptop is designed for users to get an optimal portable gaming experience on a 15.6 inch FHD IPS display at 1920 x 1080 resolution starting at $649.99. This specific model is Shadow Black featuring an AMD Ryzen 5 6600H, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, 8GB of DDR4 ram, 1 TB M.2 SSD, a 720P HD webcam, Wi-Fi 6 2×2 AX, and Bluetooth 5.1 or above compatibility.
Always a fair mention for those not familiar with Legion products that you can always be confident in the design and look. A Sleek stealth-like minimalistic look generally in a black or grey color that always gives off a next-level technology vibe. This specific outside case design resembles the recently reviewed Legion 7 Slim but is a bit thicker. Its rear exhaust vent has an afterburner-like look similar to the Legion 7 Pro. I am not sure if they did this for functionality or looks but there is an awkward blue-colored heatsink visible inside the vents. I have never seen this on a Legion laptop, and I don’t like how it takes away from the stealthy black vibe we all love.
Onboard you will find a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, 2 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1’s, an HDMI 2.0, an RJ45 ethernet port, a headphone/mic jack, a Novo hole, and obviously a power input. A Novo hole is a feature you don’t see often on a laptop that allows you to access the Bios from the case. Unfortunately, the IdeaPad Gaming 3 rocks a 720p webcam, so sadge. I am not sure about the logistics behind adding a 1080p webcam, but I feel in this current generation every laptop should have one. For those who want to enjoy without the weight of a headset Legion equips two 2W stereo speakers powered by Nahimic Audio for Gamers.
A quick glance at the hardware will show you a solid graphics card in the GeForce RTX 3050 4GB supporting NVIDIA Max-Q Technologies: Advanced Optimus, Resizable BAR, Dynamic Boost 2.0. Also expect a quality processor in the AMD Ryzen 5 6600H clocking in at 3.3 GHz, up to 4.5 GHz Max Boost, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, and a 16 MB Cache. This laptop is built to run within its ecosystem and can play any triple A title on its own display on moderate settings. Legion always nails its gaming laptop panels, this 15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS, anti-glare, 250 nits, 120Hz will make your visual gaming experience top tier. Below we have the results from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s benchmark system on ULTRA graphic settings.
While the game asks for medium settings, we decided to turn them up all the way to max. At this price point don’t expect to be running titles like these on ULTRA settings. This GPU simply does not have the memory at 4GB to make this happen. This does not mean a quality gaming experience cannot be achieved on this laptop. We also ran the benchmark test at recommended settings and were pleased with the results peaking at up to 151 Frames per second with memory to spare. The gameplay was solid we experienced no stutter or lag issues throughout the second test.
Legion always gives you options to upgrade your laptop so the features of this specific model can be upgraded. No RGB keyboard was present on this model, however, it did feature a white backlighting system (Can be upgraded at purchase). As mentioned before, Legion has a phenomenal customer support system that is available 24/7. In all honesty, you are getting more gaming experience than you are paying for here in the IdeaPad Gaming 3.
