Laptop Review: Lenovo Ideapad S145 81UT00NKIN

Lenovo Ideapad S145 81UT00NKIN

The Lenovo Ideapad S145 81UT00NKIN Laptop powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 3500U and Vega 8 Graphics (2000/3000 Series) with 8 GB of RAM and 512GB SSD storage. The display here is a 15.6 Inch (1920×1080) FHD Resolution.  The Specs on this laptop is are great for day-to-day use with decent multitasking capabilities which makes it a great laptop for students and most office productivity use cases. With its Specs, it should be able to handle entry-level Editing and CAD workloads without a problem but anything beyond that will give the machine some trouble. 

Design and Ports

The Lenovo Ideapad S145 81UT00NKIN weighs in at about 1.85 kg weight and 36.2 x 25.2 x 2 cm profile. As we talked about earlier Lenovo has gone for a full-body plastic design for the Ideapad S145. The plastic body construction on this one not only results in slight flexing but also makes the chassis prone to scratches. The hinge is a little stiffer than it should be and requires you to use two hands to open the lid. The lid has a slight flex to it but it is within the acceptable limit. The thin bezels around the display contribute greatly to its sleek design. The base of the laptop while typing heavily shows a substantial amount of flex. The ventilation grills and speaker cut-outs are placed at the bottom with the exhaust is placed between the base and the lid at the backside. The plastic chassis has a brushed finish on the keyboard deck and the lid.

Ports

• 1x HDMI
• 2x USB 3.0
• 1x USB 2.0
• 4-in-1 card reader
• 3.5 mm audio jack

Keyboard and Trackpad

The chiclet-style keyboard on the Lenovo Ideapad S145 81UT00NKIN comes with the U shaped keys found on the Lenovo business laptops. However, the keyboard here is nothing special. The keys here have a clear actuation point but the keycaps themselves are a bit shallow. The lack of backlight and keyboard flex in my opinion are the biggest drawbacks of this keyboard. The multitouch trackpad here which measures it at about 10.5 x 7 cm is large enough and covers up for the fact that it is a tad bit slow but still accurate. The trackpad is smooth enough to perform gestures without any issues. At the bottom of the trackpad, there are two mouse buttons which are a welcome addition.

Charger and Battey

The Lenovo Ideapad S145 81UT00NKIN doesn’t consume more power than its 45 Watt charger provides so you won’t lose any charge while connected to the power supply even when under maximum stress.  The battery here is a small 35 watt-hour with an average brightness of 120 nits should last you about 5 to 6 hours under moderate internet usage.

Performance

The Lenovo Ideapad S145 81UT00NKIN is powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 3500U which is about 8 percent faster than its predecessor Ryzen 5 2500U and 5 percent slower compared to 8th Gen intel core i5 8250U. The Quad-Core 3500U is a very capable processor and should be able to handle your day to day tasks as well as entry-level editing workloads. Vega 8 sits between Intel UHD 620 and mx150 in terms of performance and is capable of light Gaming as it is one of the most powerful iGPU that can be found in a laptop. You should be able to play GTA 5 at 60 FPS with medium settings and 30+ FPS in the case of PUBG and Fortnite with medium settings. The 8GB of dual-channel memory and 512GB of SSD makes it a relatively balanced laptop in terms of performance.

Display: AUO B156HTN06.1

The IPS display from AU Optronics operates at 1920×1080 with Anti Glare technology and a peak brightness of 250 nits. The contrast ratio is 420:1 and an sRGB rating of 54%, 60Hz Refresh Rate with a decent viewing angle. The choice of screen is crucial for photo editing, technical capabilities will prove vital if your line of work requires accurate color and detail. The optimal viewing distance is over 60 cm or 24 inches beyond this distance individual pixels are not visible.