Lenovo IdeaPad 1 Student Laptop, Intel Dual Core Processor, 12GB RAM, 512GB SSD + 128GB eMMC, 15.6″ FHD Display, 1 Year Office 365, Windows 11 Home, Wi-Fi 6, Webcam, Bluetooth, SD Card Reader, Grey

Simple Computer for a simple job.
This Lenovo was on sale for less than some of the others. I needed an inexpensive laptop as a security camera monitor. I struggled with a problem that has nothing to do with Lenovo and everything to do with software that ONLY runs on Internet Explorer, and took me 2 days to get it running under Edge’s Internet Explorer simulator. I knew it could because I can do it on my personal Surface Go. But it’s running! This is my first time with Win 11 and so far, I find it far more difficult to use than Win 10 or even Win 7. It doesn’t let you run CMD.EXE unless you exit S mode (which I did). Again, not the Lenovo’s fault. Microsoft wants everyone to move from Office to Office 365, which requires a subscription and basically gives them access to what you’re doing. I uninstalled it.Pros: Inexpensive, Light, Straight-forward, and the screen is big enough I don’t need an external monitor anymore, nor a base station. I still have more to set up (access to the home NAS, wired ethernet rather than WiFi, and upgrading from Windows Defender to Trend Micro.)Cons: Worst touchpad I’ve ever used. Not crazy about touchpads. The early ones had separate R&L buttons, this has the right in a tiny lower corner.Keyboard’s so far back from the edge of the machine that it’s difficult to use.Shockingly, there is no facial recognition capability. The camera just cannot do it.Those are my sole complaints.The laptop it replaces cannot run Win 10 and is stuck in Win 7. Edge cannot be installed on Win 7 and as Internet Explorer is not supported, and the security under Win 7 is inferior to Win 10 and 11, it was time to upgrade.So far, so good!

Nicer Than Expected
So Hubby has needed a laptop for a good minute. We usually buy his refurbished bc he doesn’t use a computer as much as I do. A #TB hard drive and top-shelf or even mid-level graphics card would be wasted on him, but he does need a laptop to access work files from home and general computer tomfoolery.So his last system was a refurb/open box Lenovo Ideapad, 4g RAM, and 1T hard drive. We got it from BestBuy Outlet a few years ago. It was so nice I told my sister about it and she got the same one.Fast forward to last December and the age was showing. I think the manufacture date is 2019, and it’s showing the age. I was using it for work (WFH) bc he didn’t need it. But then he DID need it so I had to go to a backup until he got me a desktop (see review).The BB Lenovo was slow, so very slow it was like Chinese water torture. Booting it up took time, yeah, 2-5 minutes depending on its mood. I’m not talking from shutdown. I mean from sleep/hibernation to lock screen to desktop. Painfully slow, so we needed to upgrade him. We couldn’t shell out a lot of money for it, though, so I went shopping.This system has good storage for him. He doesn’t take enough pix or do enough browsing to need more than 512G so the extra 128G is just gravy. The 12G RAM is a major step up and he’s no longer grumbling about how slow his computer is.Yay.I’m a little jelly. This thing is sleek. At this price, we could afford to grab another. I just got a gamer desktop, though (see review!) so it’s not practical.Pros: See abovePlus: That card slot is a good thing since it doesn’t have a CD/DVD tray at all (see pic).The camera cover/lock is NICE (see pic). I always tape a little paper over webcams but there’s no need with this.One of the USB ports is a USB-C (see pic), which is nice since things seem to be moving that way.I thought I was settling for the 15.6″ screen but it’s not as small as I thought it would be. My desktop system monitors are 22 and 24 inches respectively and my last laptop was 17″, so 15″ feels small to me until I actually see it.As stated: Hubby doesn’t care. This laptop is the same size as his old one and even the same manufacturer, so yeah. He’s good.Cons:No disc tray. Anything he needs to physically add has to be on an SD card, thumb drive, or downloaded. Please note: Hubby doesn’t care.For my geeky/gamer heart, it’s not nearly enough HD space, but for Hubby it’s perfect.The preinstalled bloatware insists on being used even when you uninstall it, but isn’t it always?Minimal ports. I need way more USB ports and no ethernet is a deal breaker for me.Caveat: This laptop isn’t for me, since I have a gaming/work desktop system. Hubby doesn’t care about this at all, so it’s just a “that would be nice” thing.Anyway, I like this machine a lot. It’s light and clean and a fantastic value for the price. I think it will serve Hubby well.9/10 would recommend.

Solid laptop
Great computer, not the fastest but does the job

Good laptop
Good for school aged kids