DECEMBER 2019 PCWorld 83before) suffers from poor
viewing angles. Indeed, the
S340’s display looked a little
blown-out and contrast-
deprived even when I was
viewing it dead-on. Once I
started moving my head in
one direction or another, the
screen almost immediately
began to fade. The colors
went inverse when I looked
down at it from a 45-degree
angle. In short, the display
on this version of the S340
offers a poor viewing
experience, whether you’re working on an
Office doc or watching a Netflix video.
Keep in mind, however, that there are
S340 models with IPS (in-plane switching)
displays that should (on paper, anyway) look
much better. In fact, there’s an S340
configuration (SKU: 81QF0005US (go.
pcworld.com/81qf)) that’s identical to this
one save for an upgraded IPS screen, and its
“instant” savings price is $550, or just $40
more than the model we’re reviewing here.
That additional forty bucks would be money
well spent.
KEYBOARD, TRACKPAD,
AND SPEAKERS
The S340’s backlit keyboard felt comfy and
refreshingly snappy to my fingertips, with
enough travel (that is, the distance the keys
move when they’re struck) to keep them from
feeling too shallow, along with a nice tactile
bump and a springy rebound. You also get
Alt-enabled hotkeys for disabling the
microphone and webcam, plus dedicated
media keys above the numeric keypad.
Speaking of which, yes, there’s a 10-key
numeric keypad, although it looks a little
squished compared to the rest of the keyboard.
The medium-sized trackpad on the S340
sits centered below the main keyboard, which
means it’s placed a bit to the left of the overall
chassis. The trackpad let me move the cursor
precisely without too much jitter, and it also
did a nice job of rejecting accidental inputs
from my palms. It takes a fair amount of
pressure to click the trackpad, but that’s pretty
standard when it comes to laptops in this
price range.We liked the Lenovo IdeaPad S340’s comfy keyboard, and you get a
dedicated numerical keypad, too. No fingerprint reader though.