MYW 17.3" 3500U, Ryzen 5 3500U, 8GB, 512GB SSD, Gray

The MYW 3500U is a budget 17.3-inch laptop with a big Full HD screen, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. It's fine for streaming and light office work at $399, but the 2019-era Ryzen 5 3500U processor and weak reliability scores make it a tough sell for anything more demanding. If you need a cheap big-screen laptop and know its limits, it works. Otherwise, look for something newer.

Let's talk about what this thing can actually do. The Ryzen 5 3500U is a 4-core, 8-thread chip with a base clock of 2.1GHz and a boost up to 3.7GHz. In our database, it sits around the 18th percentile for CPU performance among laptops. That's not a typo. It's slower than the vast majority of machines we track, and it was never a powerhouse even when it launched. For basic tasks like web browsing, email, and document editing, it's fine. You'll get through the day without wanting to throw it out a window, as long as you keep your expectations in check.

The integrated graphics are even weaker. Gaming performance lands at 7.6 out of 100, which puts it in the "one of the worst we've seen" category. You can play older indie games or maybe some light 2D stuff, but anything 3D from the last decade will struggle. The 8GB of RAM is also a bottleneck. It's enough for one or two apps at a time, but multitasking with a browser, a video call, and a few documents will have you staring at a spinning wheel. The 512GB SSD is the one bright spot. It's not the fastest drive out there, but it's a real SSD, and it makes boot times and app launches feel much better than a spinning hard drive would.

Stacked against the competition, the MYW 3500U is in a completely different league, and not in a good way. The Apple MacBook Air M4 absolutely destroys it in every category that matters. CPU performance, battery life, build quality, screen quality, you name it. But the MacBook Air also costs three to four times as much, so that's not really a fair fight. The Lenovo Slim 7 and Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition are similarly out of reach for someone shopping at this price point.

A more realistic comparison is something like a used ThinkPad or a budget Acer Aspire. Those machines won't have a 17.3-inch screen, but they'll often have newer processors, better reliability scores, and more RAM for around the same money. The ASUS Vivobook S16 is another option if you want a big screen without the ancient internals, though it costs more. The point is, the MYW 3500U only wins if your budget is hard-capped at $400 and you absolutely need a 17-inch display. Otherwise, there are better ways to spend your money.

At $399 in the US, the MYW 3500U is cheap, and that's the main argument in its favor. You're getting a large screen, a real SSD, and a backlit keyboard for less than half the price of a MacBook Air M4. But value isn't just about the sticker price. The European listings we found are all over the place, with prices around 1,001 to 1,031 EUR in Spain and Italy, and 558 GBP in the UK. At those prices, this laptop makes almost no sense. You'd be paying mid-range money for entry-level performance from five years ago. If you can find it for under $400, it's a reasonable budget pick for light use. Anything more, and you should look elsewhere.

The MYW 3500U is a budget 17.3-inch laptop that tries to cover a lot of ground for not much money. At $399 in the US, it's aimed at people who want a big screen for streaming, light office work, or just having a machine that doesn't cost as much as a flagship phone. The headline specs are an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U processor, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB SSD, which on paper sounds like a reasonable everyday setup.

But here's the thing. The Ryzen 5 3500U is a chip from 2019, and it shows. This isn't a modern laptop hiding behind an old name. It's a budget build with a big display and a backlit keyboard, and that's about where the excitement ends. The 17.3-inch Full HD IPS screen is the main selling point, and for watching Netflix or working on spreadsheets, it does the job. Just don't expect it to feel snappy when you have a dozen browser tabs open.

We dug through our database and the numbers tell a pretty clear story. This laptop lands in the bottom quarter for CPU performance, RAM, and reliability. The social proof is actually decent, which suggests buyers who knew what they were getting are mostly happy. But if you're comparing this to anything from the last three years, you'll feel the age immediately.

Skip this if you need a laptop for gaming, video editing, programming, or any kind of heavy multitasking. The Ryzen 5 3500U and 8GB of RAM will hold you back constantly. Also skip it if you're in Europe, where the pricing we found is wildly inconsistent and often way too high for what you get. If you need a big screen for work and can stretch your budget, look at the ASUS Vivobook S16 or a used ThinkPad with a newer processor. And if portability matters at all, this 17.3-inch machine is not compact. It's a desktop replacement in the most literal sense, and it's not a particularly good one.

Should you buy the MYW 3500U? If you need a big screen for watching videos, doing light office work, or just having a basic machine for the kitchen counter, and you can get it for around $399, then sure. It'll do those things. The 17.3-inch Full HD display is genuinely nice for streaming, and the 512GB SSD means it won't feel sluggish when you're just opening apps and browsing the web.

But if you plan to do any real multitasking, run modern software, or play games, this laptop will frustrate you. The Ryzen 5 3500U is old, the 8GB of RAM is limiting, and the reliability scores in our database are a red flag. This is a machine for people who know exactly what they're getting and don't expect more. If that's you, go for it. If you're hoping for a budget laptop that punches above its weight, this isn't it.