The IdeaPad 1 14 is rather bland-looking compared with the MSI Modern 14, and it’s a bit bigger too, despite having the same-size screen. Many of the cheapest Windows laptops and Chromebooks use eMMC flash storage for their boot drives, which is a less-capable storage medium and can contribute to hangs and sluggishness. However, what separates this IdeaPad 1 14 from the bargain-laptop sub-basement (inhabited by the likes of the $200 HP Stream 11) is a speedy SSD. Our current top pick, the MSI Modern 14, checks both of these boxes. To see why, consider that a $500 laptop will typically have 8GB of memory and use a far more capable AMD Ryzen or Intel Core processor. Anything more complex than these types of tasks will likely cause the IdeaPad 1 14 to balk. That’s enough to browse the web with a single browser tab open or edit a Microsoft Word document without any major lag or sluggishness, but only just. The IdeaPad 1 14 reviewed here features a dual-core AMD Athlon SIlver 3050e processor and just 4GB of memory. Moving from the $500 limit that we typically use to define the budget-laptop category down to the $300 level does come with some compromises, however. Or, you can start from the bottom with the IdeaPad 1, if you’re looking for a bare-bones computing experience that will still let you answer emails and browse the web in comfort.

You can find 2-in-1 convertible IdeaPad 5 laptops priced above $1,000 in kitted-out configs. All three of these laptop families offer models with multiple screen sizes and form factors. Lenovo’s IdeaPad brand is a competitor to Dell’s Inspiron and HP’s Pavilion lineups. You’ll probably miss having a modern USB-C port or two (the chassis has none), and you might mind the relatively dim screen backlight, but otherwise this laptop is one the better picks among laptops for the very tightest budgets. Plus, this 14-inch notebook is lightweight and comes with a speedy SSD for quick app-loading times. The Lenovo IdeaPad 1 14 ($299 as tested) defies them: It packs in a full HD display, a comfortable keyboard, and reassuring build quality-features you can’t often find in a $300 Win 10 machine. Expectations are often low in the extreme-budget zone of the market for Windows laptops.

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