Lenovo 3050e Athlon Silver FHD 14" / 4GB (fixed, no SO-DIMM slots) / 64GB eMMC 5.1 (storage is upgradable?) in Blue, $229.99 + $2.99 @ Newegg

[VirtualLarry]

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

iMPORTANT: These run "S Mode", and to escape S-Mode REQUIRES a "Microsoft ID". You have been warned. (Without breaking out of "S-Mode", you CANNOT install Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox!)

Just picked up a few of these for myself and family members.

I previously (and still) own the HP laptop with the 3020e around this same price, basically same specs, except the 3050e is 2C/4T, and the 3020e is 2C/2T, a bit limiting, especially when paging out to the eMMC that seems to take CPU cycles.

I've also got an HP with a 2C/4T and a real 128GB M.2 Samsung SATA SSD, and I upgraded it to 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR4-2400. It runs really sweet.
The built quality on the HPs leaves a little to be desired, though.

I'm hoping that these Lenovo 14" units, with the 3050e, will strike a happy medium with the 2C/4T APU, and better build quality than the HP laptops. Lack of an SO-DIMM slot sucks, though. Maybe I can put in an M.2 NVMe SSD though, which would accelerate paging due to the low RAM, and make it more usable.

I would have paid $300, though, for a 3050e laptop, with 8GB dual-channel socketed SO-DIMM RAM, and maybe a real 128GB SSD. Are you listening, Lenovo?

(I paid $270 at Walmart a couple of years back for the HP with 2C/4T Zen APU, 4GB SO-DIMM (2 slots), and a real Samsung 128GB SSD.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Ok, I opened, updated, and got out of "S Mode". Installed Firefox, and logged in to the forums. Everything looks peachy so far.

The 14" 1080P screen is capable of 2160P after enabling VSR in the drivers (!)

Edit: Hmm, "Lenovo Vantage" came up, apparently the warranty started on these at the beginning of Feb., so I only get 9 mos warranty as an end-user purchaser. The box had the factory Lenovo seal / sticker on it. Are these refurbished? Seemed brand new to me. My experience, though, is that the warranty starts once they first connect to internet, or are sold at retail.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Back in stock @ $229, it appears.

This has become my new daily-driver, with a 4K UHD VSR desktop, 125% resolution scale. Plenty of screen real-estate on a 14" screen, decent build quality.

Good price too, for what it is (2C/4T Zen APU), but the soldered 4GB of DDR4 is a fairly large let-down. I think maybe it's single-channel, it would be nice if it were actually 2x2GB dual-channel, but I doubt that they went to that expense.

Also, the amount of RAM that is utilized by the iGPU and not available to the rest of the system, means, that Zen APU laptops really should come with 2x4GB (8GB) of DDR4, but it is what it is. I would pay $300 easily for this same laptop, with two SO-DIMM DDR4 slots filled with 4GB modules, and an M.2 NVMe 128GB or 256GB SSD, that was upgradable. That would be an even better deal than this currently is.

We can hope, right?

Apparently, the HP 14z with the 3020e that I picked up prior, actually IS upgradable, in both RAM and storage. I have yet to take it apart, though.

 

[burninatortech4]

Sorry to necro this! I've seen these machines at OfficeMax lately so I feel this discussion is still relevant.

I was looking at getting the 11" version for a friend w/ 3050e but yea... the 4GB single channel is a deal breaker. My Stoney Ridge A6-9220e was already underwhelming and "upgrading" to single channel 4GB (even with a vastly better CPU) seems like a really bad deal.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sorry to necro this! I've seen these machines at OfficeMax lately so I feel this discussion is still relevant.

I was looking at getting the 11" version for a friend w/ 3050e but yea... the 4GB single channel is a deal breaker. My Stoney Ridge A6-9220e was already underwhelming and "upgrading" to single channel 4GB (even with a vastly better CPU) seems like a really bad deal.

Well, you might want to re-consider. At least the Lenovo one that I have, the iGPU is MUCH improved over Stoney Ridge, even with single-channel (I'm not 100% convinced that the soldered RAM is single-channel, it may be dual-channel in fact).

I can run 4K UHD resolution (VSR) on the 1080P (native) screen, AND do all of my CPU work, without bottlenecks.

When I run VSR on Stoney Ridge (can do it due to DDR4 iGPU, but stuck at single-channel makes it slower, plus bottlenecks the CPU's memory access), it's much slower.

So I would personally still go for the 3050e laptop, if it's not too much money. Yes, I really wish that it had 8GB or more of dual-channel, but for the price point it's at ($230 or so), I still feel that a 3050e with 1080P display is the best deal around right now.

Edit: So, IMHO, it's close to a night-and-day difference between Zen/Zen+ APUs, and Stoney Ridge. It really is that much better. (And better still, if you get one with a real PCI-E NVMe SSD, rather than the eMMC, the eMMC is what holds it back, at that point, considering that you'll probably spill over from RAM pretty often with only 4GB, especially with the OEM OS installation.)