Lenovo Ideapad S145 Review: Affordable But Reliable

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Lenovo Ideapad S145: At First Glance

Lenovo is a name you’ve probably heard about. Also, you may have probably seen some of the company’s laptops online or in person.

This is due to the fact that this Chinese company is one of the world’s leading laptop manufacturer.

Lenovo makes a lot of hardware and has a number of popular brands, one of which is IdeaPad. The Ideapad S145 belongs to the IdeaPad series.

The Lenovo Ideapad S145 is a productive laptop with a lot of features – the laptop also starts at a low price point. 

Specifically, it starts at a price of $345.99 in September 2021, when this review was published. However, as one might assume, the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 makes some sacrifices in order to keep the price as low as possible.

Without wasting much time of our time, let’s dive into more details about the Lenovo Ideapad S145.

Lenovo Ideapad S145: Design, Dimension & Weight

At first glance, the Lenovo Ideapad S145 appears to be fairly attractive, with a business-like or professional appearance. The Lenovo Ideapad S145 features a textured pattern on the lid as well as the rest of the laptop, which is made of plastic.

Considering the laptop’s starting price, I wasn’t surprised to find out that it was made of plastic. The good thing is that this plastic build is impressively solid and makes the laptop feel lightweight.

In terms of color, the Lenovo Ideapad S145 comes standard with a granite black finish. Unfortunately, there aren’t any other color variants available apart from the granite black color.

Furthermore, there isn’t much of a design on the lid. On the lower right-hand side, there is merely a Lenovo logo.

To open the lid and keep the laptop’s lower body in place, you’ll need both hands. Moreover, there’s a good probability that the entire lower half will tumble over if it’s not done properly.

When you open the lid, you’ll be greeted by a textured keyboard deck and palm rest that match the exterior. Also, you will find a 15.6-inch TN display bordered by thin bezels.

This display is available with multiple screen resolutions. Specifically, you either get the display with an HD (1366 x 768), or FHD (1920 x 1080) screen resolution.

My review laptop features a 15.6-inch display with an HD (1366 x 768) screen resolution. Impressively, this display screen recorded a maximum brightness of 220 nits.

However, the screen does not produce accurate or brilliant colors; instead, it produces washed-out visuals. Aside from its poor color reproduction, the screen has poor viewing angles.

As a result, the display screen isn’t perfect for watching movies or videos. It is, however, sufficient for basic tasks such as typing documents or web browsing.

Therefore, if you are a graphic designer or your job relies on color accuracy, the FHD (1920 x 1080) screen resolution is recommended.

The Ideapad S145’s keyboard is excellent, which should come as no surprise. After all, Lenovo is known for producing excellent laptop keyboards, and the one on the IdeaPad S145 is no exception.

The Lenovo Ideapad S145 features a Chiclet keyboard that isn’t backlit. The U-shaped keys on this keyboard are very tactile and have just the appropriate amount of travel.

Surprisingly, the Numpad area of the keyboard features dedicated media playback keys, such as play/pause, next track, and previous track.

Underneath the keyboard, slightly to the left, sits a multi-touch keyboard that measures 105 x 70 mm. This touchpad is big enough to perform various gestures, and its smooth surface makes navigation easy.

Additionally, just like the keyboard’s keys, the touchpad’s integrated click buttons feature a decent amount of travel. This makes them easy to use, and they also produce a pleasant clicky sound.

Moving on, the laptop’s speakers are located on the bottom-front of the laptop. The audio quality produced by these speakers is poor; even at maximum volume, the sound does not fill a room.

As for port selection, the Lenovo Ideapad S145 has a minimal but useful selection. The left side of the laptop features three USB-A ports, a charging port, and an HDMI port.

On the right, you can find an SD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack. For wireless connectivity, the Lenovo Ideapad S145 comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 AC and Bluetooth 4.0.

One thing you will surely like about this laptop is how thin and light it is. Measuring 362.2 x 251.5 x 19.9 mm and weighing 1850 g, you’ll be able to carry the IdeaPad S145 around with ease.

Comparatively, the Lenovo Flex 14 is lighter, weighing 1587 g. Regardless, the IdeaPad S145 is still one of the best lightweight laptops out there.

In conclusion, the IdeaPad S145’s design is pretty okay for its price tag. However, its display screen and audio quality would have been better.

So, I will rate the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 an eight in this design review.

Lenovo IdeaPad S145: Processor (CPU) Performance

For processing power, the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 uses an AMD Ryzen 7 3700U processor. This processor is a quad-core processor with a 4 MB cache.

Additionally, the AMD Ryzen 7 3700U runs at a base frequency of 2.30 GHz and a maximum frequency of 4.0 GHz. Moreover, this processor is a mid-range processor mostly found in mainstream laptops.

When compared to Intel CPUs, the AMD Ryzen 7 3700U is about equivalent to an Intel Core i5-8250U. In terms of performance, the AMD Ryzen 7 3700U is best for basic tasks such as video streaming or web browsing.

Furthermore, the processor can easily perform these tasks while also providing adequate power for more demanding tasks such as video editing. However, it is not a full-fledged workstation-class CPU built for handling intensive tasks.

To test the capabilities of the IdeaPad S145 with this processor, I carried out a Cinebench R15 test. Cinebench 15 is a real-world cross-platform benchmark test that assesses the processing power of your computer.

On this Cinebench 15 test, the IdeaPad S145 delivered a decent score of 138 points. This score is about 10 points higher than the 128 points received by the Acer Aspire 3 A315-41.

It is worth mentioning that the Acer Aspire 3 A315-41 uses an AMD Ryzen 3 2200U processor.

Based on all these, I will rate the IdeaPad S145 an eight in this processor review section.

Lenovo IdeaPad S145: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Lenovo IdeaPad S145 comes with two DDR4 RAM slots, with a standard memory of 4 GB in one slot. The slot that features the standard memory of 4 GB is onboard.

Therefore, it is not removable or upgradable.

However, you can increase the memory up to a maximum of 12GB by adding 8GB RAM on the second slot. My review laptop came with 8 GB RAM – 4 GB standard memory and an additional 4 GB on the second slot.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S145 I reviewed was a multitasking beast with its 8 GB RAM. This laptop was able to juggle between a dozen of Chrome tabs.

It does this while playing candy crush in the background and streaming music on Spotify. The Lenovo IdeaPad S145 performed these tasks seamlessly without showing any sign of lagging or slowing down.

Moreover, the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 didn’t just perform brilliantly while multitasking. The laptop also performed exceptionally on a PCMark 8 test.

PCMark 8 is a benchmark test that measures how a computer can perform handling common tasks like word processing. On this PCMark 8 test, the IdeaPad S145 bagged an impressive score of 2805 points.

Comparatively, the Acer Extensa 2519-P35U got a lower score, recording only 1794 points.

In conclusion, the IdeaPad S145 is more than capable of multitasking. Also, it crushed one of its competitors on a PCMark 8 test.

For these reasons, I will be rating the IdeaPad S145 a nine out of ten in this memory review section.

Lenovo IdeaPad S145: Storage Options & Performance

The Lenovo IdeaPad S145 offers multiple storage options for users. It offers a PCIe SSD or SATA HDD.

The PCIe SSD can take up to a maximum storage capacity of 512 GB. The SATA HDD, on the other hand, supports a whopping 2 TB maximum storage capacity.

My review laptop came with a 256 GB PCIe SSD. The PCIe SSD is the best storage option when purchasing the Lenovo IdeaPad S145.

This is because SSDs deliver faster speed than HDDs. However, for users who prefer storage to speed, it is best to go for the HDD as it offers a larger storage capacity.

As a means of assessing the speed of the PCIe SSD on the IdeaPad S145, I ran a CrystalDiskMark test. CrystalDiskMark is a test that determines how quickly an SSD or HDD can read (copy or open) and write (save) data.

On this test, the IdeaPad S145 records a sequential read speed of 1547 MB/s. Additionally, it records a sequential write speed of 953.3 MB/s.

Comparatively, the HP 250 G7 has a slower sequential read speed but a faster sequential write speed. Specifically, the HP 250 G7 has an 1184 MB/s sequential read speed and a 1265 MB/s sequential write speed.

In conclusion, the IdeaPad S145 offers multiple storage options, which is quite impressive. Also, its PCIe SSD storage is pretty fast.

Therefore, the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 gets a rating of 8 in this storage review section.

Lenovo IdeaPad S145: Graphics Card Performance

The Lenovo IdeaPad S145 comes with an AMD Radeon RX Vega 10 Graphics. This graphics has a base GPU frequency of 1400 MHz – it does not feature boost frequency.

Furthermore, the graphics card is an integrated graphics card within the CPU and doesn’t have a dedicated VRAM. Therefore, this GPU shares the RAM with the laptop’s processor.

As a result, the graphics card won’t be able to handle graphically demanding applications or games. Thankfully, the IdeaPad S145 is also available with an AMD Radeon 530 graphics card, which came with my review laptop.

This graphics card features a 2 GB GDDR5 dedicated VRAM, unlike the AMD Radeon RX Vega 10 Graphics. Additionally, the AMD Radeon 530 also has a 730 MHz base GPU frequency and a 1024 MHz boost GPU frequency.

It is worth mentioning that if you need this laptop for graphics tasks, you should buy the model that ships with AMD Radeon 530.

Thanks to its dedicated VRAM, the AMD Radeon 530 is capable of running most title AAA games. For example, when I played FIFA 20, my review laptop delivered a modest frame rate of 90 fps.

Furthermore, I ran a 3DMark test on my review laptop to further determine its graphics performance. The 3DMark test evaluates a computer’s 3D graphic rendering performance.

Based on the 3DMark test outcome, the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 scored 1043 points. Comparatively, the Acer Aspire 3 A315-21-651Y which uses AMD Radeon R4 graphics scored 992 points.

Finally, I will rate the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 an eight out of ten. This rating is based on the AMD Radeon 530 graphics performance.

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Lenovo IdeaPad S145: Battery Life & Performance

Just like the storage and graphics, the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 comes with multiple battery options. You can either buy the laptop with a 30 Wh Li-Polymer battery or a 35 Wh Li-Polymer battery.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S145 I reviewed came with a 35 Wh Li-Polymer battery. Lenovo claims that this battery can last 4.5 hours, which I think is poor.

However, to verify Lenovo’s claim, I carried out a video playback test. The video playback test involves looping an HD video on VLC with the laptop’s brightness is set to 50%.

At the end of the video playback test, the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 lasted only 4 hours. Comparatively, the Lenovo Flex 14 performed better, lasting 8 hours on the video playback test.

In conclusion, the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 is pretty poor when it comes to battery life. However, I guess that is what you get from a low-cost laptop.

Therefore, I will rate the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 a seven for its below-average battery life.

Frequently Asked Questions  

Conclusion

The IdeaPad S145 has a number of drawbacks, including a bad display, poor audio quality, and limited battery life. Apart from these flaws, the laptop is a highly productive and efficient machine.

Additionally, it features a decent AMD processor, multiple storage and graphics options, and a decent number of ports. Also, when it comes to multitasking, this laptop is exceptional.

Moreover, I believe the IdeaPad S145 is a pretty straightforward laptop. Therefore, if you are on a budget and you need a laptop to get work done, I recommend the Lenovo IdeaPad S145.

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