Lenovo IdeaPad D330 Review: A Cheaper Surface Go Alternative

The Lenovo IdeaPad D330 is a new 10.1-inch Windows tablet that directly competes with the Microsoft Surface Go. Starting at around 300 US Dollars it is much cheaper. Among its highlights are Intel Gemini Lake processors, up to 128GB of storage, optional LTE, and a keyboard dock. Well, how good is this inexpensive Windows tablet? I’m Andrzej for MyNextTablet.com and this is my Lenovo IdeaPad D330 review.

Design & Build Quality

As is common at this price range, the Lenovo IdeaPad D330 has a full plastic body. Even though it is well built, it does not feel as high-end as the Surface Go. On the top, it is quite thin but gets thicker towards the bottom with 9.5mm. It weighs 594g which is heavier than most Android tablets but not too bad for a Windows device.

We get two speakers underneath the screen and the sound quality is acceptable but not really good. It’s lacking a decent bass.

Because the front-facing camera has a low resolution of 2-megapixels, you won’t be able to take detailed selfies. But it’s good enough for video calls. The 5-megapixel camera on the back behaves similarly. It is fine for snapshots but certainly not great.

On the right side, we get a connector for the power and a USB 3.1 Type C port which you can use to charge the tablet too. Above that, we get the volume controls and a power button. On the left side, there is a standard headphone jack. And all the way on the bottom we get a connector for the keyboard dock. There is no fingerprint scanner.

Next to the connector for the keyboard sits a microSD card slot. If you have the LTE version, that is where your SIM card fits as well. I tested the LTE with an O2 SIM card in Germany and the connection is fine.

Keyboard Dock

Let’s get to the keyboard dock of the Lenovo IdeaPad D330. That one is made of plastic too, weighs 512g and is quite thick again with 8.5mm. I like that we are getting two additional USB 2.0 ports on the sides. So, in total, the tablet has three USB ports which are enough to connect a lot of accessories.

Because of the 10.1-inch screen, the keyboard is noticeably smaller than a standard notebook keyboard. I typed quite a lot on it though and you certainly can get used to it.

My only real complaint about this tablet is the upper row of the keyboard. Lenovo kind of squished the ESC and delete key onto the numbers row. Because of that, the numbers and special characters are not where they normally are. Well, as I said, you can get used to it.

There is a touchpad underneath the keyboard which is quite big for a tablet of this size. It works just as it should.

Read: The Best Tablets With Keyboards

Display: HD or full HD

The Lenovo IdeaPad D330 has a 10.1-inch IPS display that has a resolution of 1280 x 800 or 1920 x 1200 pixels – depending on the version you are getting. Usually, I think a full HD resolution is fine on 10 inches. And that is the case here with my review unit. Texts and icons look sharp if you use it normally.

If you decide to get the HD versions, you probably will notice a big difference compared to your smartphone. Usually, HD screens can look a bit blurry. Well, at least if you are used to something else.

However, in both cases, we do get IPS screens with wide viewing angles. Again, my review unit has the full HD screen and the display is great. Colors and contrast are good, and it is bright enough. I also like that it is laminated.

According to Lenovo, you can use the Lenovo Active Pen on some versions of this tablet aimed at business customers. As far as I know, it works with the 81H3004GGE und 81H3004JGE versions only.

Hardware & Performance

As with the screen, you can choose different hardware options with the Lenovo IdeaPad D330. You can get it with an Intel Celeron N4000 or Intel Pentium Silver N5000 Chipset.

The N4000 is a dual-core chip with both cores clocked at 1.1GHz to 2.6GHz. On the other hand, the N5000 is a quad-core chip with four cores clocked at 1.1GHz to 2.7GHz.

Other options are 2GB or 4GB of RAM and a 32GB, 64GB or 128GB internal flash storage. My review unit is the one with the Intel N5000, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and LTE. In Europe, that one costs 499 Euros.

Since I don’t have the cheapest version with the N4000 and 2GB of RAM, I cannot test the performance of that one. However, I did use similar devices in the past and it should be fine for light office work and light web browsing. Because it’s a dual-core chip and it has 2GB of RAM only, it won’t be that great for multitasking though.

Read: These Are The Best Windows Tablets

Again, my review unit has the Intel N5000 with 4GB of RAM and that one is fine for some multitasking and even light Photoshop work. I even tried to edit videos in Adobe Premiere Rush. Well, this tablet is not ideal for that at all. You kind of can, but have to be very patient. It takes just under 4 hours to render a simple 20-minute 4K video. While it works much better for editing HD videos, you probably should invest a bit more if you really want to edit videos or play games on here.

However, you obviously can play some games on the D330. I couldn’t get Fortnite going but that one is too demanding for this platform anyways. Simpler ones like Asphalt 9 run quite smoothly though and the graphics look nice too.

The Lenovo IdeaPad D330 is mainly suited for office work. And that is the case for all versions of this tablet. If you can, you probably should go for the version with the Intel N5000 and 4GB of RAM. That one is a bit better if you want to use two apps at the same time like Photoshop and Word with Chrome and YouTube running in the background.

Lenovo IdeaPad D330 Benchmarks

In the Geekbench 4 benchmark test the single core performance is just a bit weaker than the Surface Go. Really just a tiny bit. And it is quite impressive that the IdeaPad D330 is noticeably faster than Microsoft’s competition in the multi-core test. Remember, the Surface Go has a dual-core chip only.

On the other hand, the graphics performance of the Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y of the Surface Go is better in the Cinebench benchmarks. It means that apps and games which can use the graphics chip should run noticeably better on the Surface Go. But then again, the CPU of the IdeaPad D330 is faster and that is what the Cinebench CPU test shows too.

By the way, the performance of the N5000 is also a bit better than tablets with an N4200 processor. We’ve seen that one in devices like the Acer Switch 3 (review).

Battery Life

The battery life of the Lenovo IdeaPad D330 is a welcome surprise. In fact, in my standard battery test, it got a runtime of 11.5 hours. For this test, I’m always looping an HD video at 50 percent brightness.

As you can see in my comparison, this is a really good result compared to other Windows tablets and especially compared to the Surface Go too.

While you can get a battery life of over 10 hours when watching videos locally, that is not the case if you play games, stream YouTube or do most everyday tasks. Usually, I got a real life runtime of 6 to 8 hours. It always depends on what exactly you are doing. But especially when considering its price, the battery life is very good.

Lenovo IdeaPad D330 Review: Final Verdict

So, is the Lenovo IdeaPad D330 a good Windows tablet? Considering its price, it is a very good tablet. Yes, we get a plastic body only but it is much cheaper than the Surface Go. At the same time, the performance is pretty good, at least if you need it for office works or light web browsing only. The full HD display looks nice too, the optional LTE works great, and the battery life is pretty good as well.

Again, I didn’t review the cheapest version for 299 Euros with the N4000 and 2GB of RAM. You have to remember that with this one, you will get a bit weaker performance and weaker display.

I would not recommend the IdeaPad D330 as a real notebook replacement. I think it is to small for that. But if you are looking for a portable and affordable Windows tablet for office works, I think you will be happy with the D330. If you ware looking for that, you don’t have many alternatives anyway. Let’s take a look at some.

Obviously, a direct competitor is the Microsoft Surface Go (review). I mentioned that one a couple of times already. It is an interesting alternative if you are willing to pay much more for a much better build quality. The design of the Surface Go is excellent. Some apps that need the graphics chip will run better too. However, including the keyboard, it usually costs at least 50 Euros more. Even the highest-speced version of the D330 with LTE is cheaper.

If you want to spend even less, you could check out the Chuwi SurBook Mini (review). While that is a China tablet available at import shops only, you usually can get it for under 300 US Dollars including the keyboard. It features a full HD screen and a metal body. However, since it is available from China only, you probably won’t get any local warranties.