 Budget gaming laptops keep getting better in 2022 seems like a turning point for the market. One of the more popular lineups, the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 series has gotten a total overhaul. With a new design that ties the notebook to the Legion family, and improved internals, should you entrust this Lenovo with your hard-earned money? Sit tight to find out. While the laptop is still 100% plastic, it does offer a sturdy base, which extends past the lid and houses the heat vents, which look pretty good, especially with those blue accents. On the other hand, the lid is flimsy, but when the laptop is closed shut, it should handle being carried around with ease. The laptop is a bit slimmer now, with a profile of 21.8mm, while weighing 2.32kg. Being a gaming device, the keyboard is very important. It has stayed the same over the last few years and we can't be happier about it. With long key travel, clicky feedback, and large keycaps, the lines between the IdeaPad and the Legion 5 grow thinner and thinner. While you will be using a mouse most of the time, it's nice to see that the touchpad is of good quality and has a smooth gliding surface. Similar to the Legion series, some of the input output has been moved to the back, which is better for cable management. As for what you get with it, there are two USB type A 3.2 Generation 1 ports, a single Thunderbolt 4 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, a LAN connector, and a 3.5mm audio jack. While the performance of a laptop is important, you need a good screen to experience it properly. The IdeaPad comes with three offerings, two FHD panels and one QHD option. The FHD displays come with either 120Hz or 165Hz and are plucked right from the Legion 5. We tested the base spec, which is good purely for gaming but lacks any significant color coverage and accuracy to be used in the creator world, so if you want something to satisfy those needs, check out the 165Hz option, which does offer such pleasantries. The 45Wh unit inside is too small for the 12-core Core i5-12500H, resulting in poor battery life. It lasts for 3 hours and 25 minutes of web browsing, or 3 hours and 27 minutes of video playback. You can learn more about our testing conditions in the written review in the description. Only 2 per 100 people watching this video are subscribers. If you decide to just start following us, we'll be able to reinvest more in our laboratory thus making even more helpful videos for you. Thank you, you're awesome! While battery life might not be great, the performance is, as the 12500H dwarfs its 2021 competition by a large margin. On the GPU end, we are a bit bummed to see GPUs with lower TGPs, but that is how it goes in the entry-level market. Still, the RTX 3050 that we tested utilizes all of its 85W. In other words, it is powerful enough to run shadow of the Tomb Raider with 75FPS on average. Going back to the cooling, we have two heat pipes shared between the CPU and GPU, and a third one solely for the processor. There are also four heat sinks and two fans. In the CPU stress test, the Core i5-12500H drops its clock speeds rapidly but still keeps them relatively high in the long run, while hovering around 70°C in the later stage. The GPU reaches and manages to maintain a stable and high clock speed of around 1,900MHz. The noise levels can get high during long gaming sessions, but the outside temperature remains tame, maxing out at 43°C. The insides of the laptop are quite colorful, with parts of the cooling painted in bright blue. Getting to them is a bit tricky, as first, you have to remove the shroud on the back, and then unscrew 12 screws. For more info check out our teardown video. Upgradability is good, thanks to two Sodom slots that fit DDR4 RAM, which is the sweet spot currently. For storage, there are two M.2 slots, with one 42mm slot that fits generation for drives and an 80mm slot that supports only generation 3 SSDs. The IdeaPad Gaming 3i is a fine gaming notebook, but its closest competitor is also pretty good. The Nitro 5 provides longer battery life and slightly more performance, so look into it as well, before making a final decision. Of course, we've done a lot more tests and you can check out all the results in our in-depth review on laptopmedia.com. You'll find the link in the description below the video.