You don’t need to spend $2,000 on a laptop anymore to get good performance and build quality. Amazon occasionally runs massive discounts on popular machines like this Lenovo Ideapad Slim 3, and right now it’s hitting an all-time low that you won’t find on Lenovo’s own website: This early Black Friday exclusive deal cuts the price from $1,699 down to $649, putting a legitimate Windows 11 laptop with a Ryzen 5 processor, 1TB SSD storage and 24GB of RAM at the same price point as generic no-name mid-range machines.
Performance that Gets Real Work Done
With six cores and twelve threads running between 3.3GHz and 4.55GHz, the processor in the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS has plenty of oomph for demanding tasks well beyond web browsing. Video editing in Premiere or DaVinci Resolve is smooth with 1080p footage, and the chip doesn’t choke when controlling multiple Chrome tabs alongside Slack, Spotify, and Office apps. Programming environments like Visual Studio Code open instantly and even lighter design work in Photoshop or Illustrator remains fluid.
The 24GB of DDR5 RAM gives you serious multitasking headroom that most budget laptops can’t match: You can run virtual machines for development work, keep dozens of browser tabs open for research and switch between heavy applications without hitting memory bottlenecks. DDR5 runs faster and more efficiently than the DDR4 found in similarly priced machines, meaning snappier performance across the board. The 1TB of PCIe NVMe storage comes configured as two 512GB drives, and gives you flexibility in how you organize your files or set up dual-boot configurations if needed.
The 15.3-inch WUXGA screen runs at a resolution of 1920×1200 and gives you more vertical real estate than the usual 1080p displays. The extra pixels make all the difference when working with documents, spreadsheets, or code editors since you can see more content without scrolling. The IPS panel reaches 300 nits of brightness with anti-glare coating, making it fine for brightly lit rooms or use near windows. And the 60Hz refresh rate is fine for handling normal productivity tasks quite well.
The connectivity options pretty much cover the bases without needing a collection of dongles: you get two USB-A ports and one USB-C port that supports both power delivery and DisplayPort output, which means you can charge the laptop and connect an external monitor with just one cable. An HDMI 1.4 port provides the ability to hook up a second display or projector for presentations. An SD card reader is useful for photographers or anyone transferring files from a camera, and the headphone jack with mic combo handles your audio gear.
The 720p webcam comes with a physical privacy shutter that mechanically blocks the lens in case you are not on calls. The camera provides acceptable quality for video meetings sans the grainy, washed-out look of cheap webcams. Dual digital microphones pick up your voice well enough for calls and recordings. The full-size keyboard is complete with a numeric keypad for faster data entry and spreadsheet work.
You also get Windows 11 Home pre-installed, complete with the Copilot AI assistant accessible by a keyboard key.
For $649, you’re paying entry-level laptop money for decent performance specs and premium build quality that usually costs way over a grand.
