Lenovo IdeaPad S340 15 Budget Thin & Light Laptop (15.6″, Intel or AMD CPU)

The Lenovo IdeaPad S340 15 is a budget-oriented 15.6-inch laptop. Starting at around $500 on the Lenovo US Store, it features lower-mid-range and mid-range components packed in a fairly slim and elegant chassis.

Depending on customers’ choice, the display of the Lenovo IdeaPad S340 can be either a basic non-touch TN panel with narrow viewing angles or an IPS wide viewing angle panel with touch input support. In both cases the display features the decently sharp Full HD resolution.

Inside the slick 0.7″ thin “Platinum Grey” plastic chassis, the 4-pound S340 packs either Intel’s or AMD’s processing technology. The available processor options are the Intel Core i3-8145U and i5-8265U, both with the Intel UHD 620 integrated graphics, or the AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with the Vega 8 integrated graphics. All of the offered CPU options are great for the daily computing tasks. The Intel Core i5 and AMD Ryzen 5 additionally offer very decent performance for more demanding duties like video editing, although they are not high-end workstation-class chips. If you are into gaming, the best option among the three processors is the Ryzen 5, since its Vega 8 graphics is better at 3D game rendering than the Intel UHD 620. However, neither of them is close performance-wise to the full blown gaming-class video cards you can find in gaming laptops. Lenovo offers well balanced RAM and internal storage. The notebook comes with 8GB of RAM (4GB soldered on-board and 4GB in the single RAM slot) for comfortable multi-tasking and a fast solid state drive with decent 256GB capacity for storing data.

As for the battery, Lenovo has equipped the IdeaPad S340 with a capacious 52.5 WHr unit. The 52.5 WHr battery can provide up to eight hours of run time, according to Lenovo.

Another nice feature included is the keyboard backlight, which isn’t commonly found in 500-dollar laptops.

Here are the IdeaPad S340 configurations with prices, available on the Lenovo Store:

• 81N8003TUS: No touchscreen, Full HD TN display, Intel Core i3-8145U CPU, $629.99
• 81NC001AUS: No touchscreen, Full HD TN display, AMD Ryzen 5 3500U CPU, $649.99
• 81N8003SUS: No touchscreen, Full HD TN display, Intel Core i5-8265U CPU, $729.99
• 81QF0005US: With touchscreen, Full HD IPS display, Intel Core i5-8265U CPU, $829.99
• 81QG0002US: With touchscreen, Full HD IPS display, AMD Ryzen 5 3500U CPU, $749.99

As already mentioned, all configs are with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD.