Introduction

Lenovo IdeaPad S340-15IWL review. S340-15IWL model is the versatile version built for fast performance, a great viewing experience, and long battery life. It is the best-selling product, launched in 2019, available in the market in two sizes of 14" &'' 15" according to the compatibility requirement.

Design and Configuration

Although the S340 maintains a somewhat elegant look, while considering the design of Lenovo, we typically imagine the black, boxy and stylish ThinkPads. The IdeaPad S340 is made of polycarbonate, mostly with carbon fibre long threads interwoven throughout. Although we don't anticipate true fibre at this price, it is unfortunate that you couldn't tell by looking at the gadget. Theoretically, it keeps the plastic safer, but the S340's lid has a gorgeous aluminium gloss. The S340 is pleasantly slender but has weighty little dimensions of 14.1 x 9.6 x 0.7 “ &'' weighs 3.9 lbs (or 4.4 lbs if you add the AC adaptor). The laptop's exterior is Platinum Gray (greyish Blue is also an option), and it has a flat, simple case with a little Lenovo name and logo.

When the lid is opened, a 15.6” screen with a thin upper and side width bezel and a somewhat thicker bottom bezel are visible. It's not particularly noteworthy that the grey keypad and palm rest include a power button that is located directly above the upper right of the keypad, which makes it far less similar than you'll accidentally click it.

Price and Specifications

Models in Lenovo's 15-inch &'' 14-inch S340 series range in price from $630 - $830, while Lenovo's ongoing "instant" discounts sometimes knock several hundred dollars or more off the manufacturer's suggested retail pricing. For instance, the official website for our review model lists it for $730, and we can readily check the pricing there.

Here’s what you get with that price tag:

• Display: 15.6 inches display with the best resolution of 1920 x 1080
• CPU: tetra-core i5
• Random Access Memory: 8GB RAM
• Storage: 256GB SSD
• GPU: UHD Graphic card 620

If you can get the S340 for its $510 discount price, there are some on-paper fairly good specifications. For simple photo editing and perhaps a game of chess, the inbuilt graphics core is enough but no more than that.

However, one main improvement in this version for this specific configuration is the TN approached display. While TN panels are well-responsive, they also disadvantage their bad angular views, which shows that they seem blown up unless you're facing them directly. There are other variants of S340 that has the same fundamental specifications, with the exception that it features a dual-core i3 CPU instead of a tetra-core CPU.

Performance and Graphics

As we've already established, there are several Intel and AMD variations of the IdeaPad S340, even without the 15-inch models. It's straightforward to pick between a Ryzen 3, 5, or 7 on the AMD side. Although it starts with the Pentium Gold, Intel eventually moves to the Core i7. However, 8th-gen processors are used in the majority of the models. You have the option of using integrated graphics as well. Still, the Core i7-8565U contains a GPU from Nvidia GeForce featuring model number MX250 if you want something additional to aid in tasks like video editing.

Keyboard &'' Trackpad

Although the backlight keyboard is optional in this model version, it is comfortable and convenient. It has a 6-row-contained keyboard with multimedia Fn keys. On the side, there is a 10-key numeric keypad available.

Below the keyboard is a buttonless Myler surface multitouch keypad with smooth cursor control and compatible in size; not too large nor too small. It occasionally exhibits a slight delay in responsiveness, but nothing major, and overall it performs admirably with good palm rejection. It takes some pressure to register a click, but at this price, this is not surprising.

Sound System: Speakers

The sound system ensures the quality of this model as it has Dolby Audio, which allows you to switch between the Movie, simulator games, and audio-Music modes. Although the soundstage is slightly improved, bad speakers can only accomplish so much; therefore, it would be preferable to use headphones in this situation.

Special features &'' Defects in Lenovo IdeaPad S340-15IWL

Lenovo had created one of the greatest low-cost laptops on the market, as we believed when we first played with the S340. It looks great, has a good keyboard, lots of convenient connectors, and a great battery life, all for a very low price. Performance is restricted to simple jobs, but if you want more oomph, this laptop's more potent varieties are available. The display, which is quite basic like many cheap computers, is the biggest letdown. If this irritates you, go for an IPS model.

Pros

• It has a modern style.
• It can perform single-core, and many cores are lively.
• It has a sleeky and comfortable keyboard.

Cons

• Poor display and viewing angles on the configuration we tested
• Disturbed battery life

Performance

The S340 has all the makings of a productivity powerhouse as it has a quad-core Core I5 CPU, 8GB storage, &'' integrated graphics. In other words, it's like a machine gliding through Office tasks and sometimes pushing the foot on the accelerator whenever multi-core processing is necessary. The S340 doesn't let us down, as it will be there in our benchmark, so we were pleasantly delighted by a few of its mentioned chart outcomes.

The Bottom Line

We wouldn't judge the Ideapad S340 based on the specific configuration we examined because it isn't the first reliable laptop company to offer lower-end TN-equipped variants. Blaming a TN panel for having terrible picture quality is like taunting a turtle for moving slowly; it's either that or nothing. If you choose the next step-up model, you can replace the TN panel with an IPS display for a reasonable price, so you're probably looking at an outstanding deal.