The core i3 is just a step up from a Pentium because it has Hyperthreading. It's still mostly a dual core CPU without much in the way of mutli-tasking performance. It's not terrible doing basics and I think if you don't ask it to do much all at once it works fine. I think it's better suited for those who want good battery life over performance. I certainly see times on my Modern 14 MSI notebook with the 10110u and 8Gb RAM where even heavy web pages hiccup scrolling as redrawing the page pauses. Otherwise 1080p video is fine with only occasional frame drops if you are doing other things. These days a core i5 is really minimum if you really want a good performing CPU. You also get a decent bump in GPU performance with i5.