Lenovo IdeaPad 1i 15.6" Abyss Blue

A confusingly-named laptop with a surprisingly good i5 chip, but the 8GB of RAM is a dealbreaker at full price. Buy it on sale for a solid, no-frills 15-inch workhorse.

The 10-core i5-1235U is the real surprise here. It's a genuinely capable chip for office work, streaming, and having a million browser tabs open. It sits in the 36th percentile overall, which sounds mediocre, but for this class of laptop it's more than enough to feel snappy. The real drag is the 8GB of RAM, which lands in a disappointing 13th percentile. You'll feel that ceiling the moment you try to do anything ambitious like editing photos or running a few heavy apps at once. The integrated Iris Xe graphics are solid for what they are, but don't even think about gaming, our database puts it at a brutal 13.1 out of 100 for that.

Stacked against something like the HP OmniBook X Flip or the Microsoft Surface Laptop, the IdeaPad feels decidedly more budget-conscious. Those competitors offer better build quality, brighter screens, and often more RAM for a similar or slightly higher price. The ASUS ROG Flow Z13 is in a completely different universe for gaming and power, but also price. The IdeaPad's main advantage is that bundled storage and a full number pad, which you won't find on sleeker ultrabooks. It's a practical, no-frills workhorse where others are show ponies.

At $699, the value is a bit of a head-scratcher. You're getting a solid i5 processor and a ton of storage, which is great, but you can find competitors with 16GB of RAM at this price. That 8GB of memory is a serious compromise that makes this feel overpriced. If you can snag it on sale for closer to $500, it becomes a much more compelling deal for a student or home office warrior.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 1i is a classic case of 'what you see is NOT what you get' from the spec sheet. The listing is a confusing mess that mixes up a Pentium N6000 Chromebook with the actual Intel i5-1235U Windows 11 model you'd be buying. Assuming you get the i5 version, you're looking at a perfectly competent 15.6-inch touchscreen laptop for basic daily grind stuff. It's not going to blow your hair back, but for $699, it bundles a decent processor, a big 512GB SSD, and even throws in a weird 160GB docking station set for extra storage. Just know you're buying a budget machine with a mid-range price tag, and that 8GB of RAM is going to be a bottleneck sooner rather than later.

If you're a multitasker who keeps dozens of tabs open while streaming music and editing photos, skip this. The 8GB of RAM will have you pulling your hair out. Go find a model with 16GB of RAM, like a higher-end HP Envy or a MacBook Air, even if it means giving up some storage space.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 1i is a capable daily driver for students or anyone who lives in a web browser and Microsoft Office, but only if you can live with 8GB of RAM. The i5 processor and generous storage are its saving graces, making it feel fast for basic tasks. Just don't pay full price. Wait for a discount that brings it down to a level where that RAM compromise doesn't sting as much.