Image: Amazon
When I hunt down Chromebook deals for Prime Day, I’m looking for the best value deal I can find — but without any compromises that you’ll regret later. This year, that Chromebook is the Lenovo IdeaPad 3i, on sale for $192.88 at Amazon. That’s a savings of $100.
When researching PCWorld’s best Chromebook deals for Prime Day, I did find a bargain-basement price: an HP 14-inch Chromebook on sale for $129 at Best Buy — a cool $200 off. That’s fine for those who just want to pay as little as they can. But that HP Chromebook has a 768p screen, which is grainier than the 1080p displays you’re used to. Plus, 4GB of RAM means that it could start gasping for breath with a number of browser tabs open.
Lenovo’s IdeaPad 3i, by contrast, offers both a 1080p screen (and a pretty big 15.6-inch one, at that) as well as 8GB of RAM. It includes an Intel Celeron N4500, which is pretty much the default standard for a low-end Chromebook — not bad, not great, just ubiquitous. Lenovo also has solid keyboards, and this one even has a dedicated number pad, too. The port selection is better than I’d expect: USB-A, USB-C, microSD, and an external HDMI 1.4 port are all included.
Lenovo touts a 10-hour battery life for this Chromebook, which is the only thing I’d eye a bit cynically. I’d expect something more like eight hours instead, which is honestly just fine for most purposes.
I’d love to see this Chromebook fall even further in price, but I sincerely doubt it will. As far as I can tell, this is the best Chromebook deal you’ll be truly happy with for all of Prime Day. (And for other deals on other tech products, check out the best of PCWorld’s Prime Day deals.)
Snag this great all-around Chromebook for $192.88 at Amazon
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers’ News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.
