Best Lenovo IdeaPad L340 Review

If you click on links in this article, we may earn a commission, at no additional cost to you.

KEY FEATURES
Intel Core i5-9300H Processor
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Graphics
15.6” (1920 x 1080) Display

Quick Summary

When reviewing the Lenovo IdeaPad L340 we quickly discovered that they have put together a gaming laptop with the common user in mind.

If you have ever struggled to play games on your standard, middle of the road, laptop and wished for something just a little more powerful and a little more fluid, you could be interested in our Lenovo IdeaPad L340 review. 

This laptop is a perfect entry point for anyone looking to get into the gaming laptop space. It does not overwhelm the user with features, numbers, and colorful lights and it offers good performance at a fair price.

For what it is, and what it tries to do, it does a very good job at. Lenovo is a great company with a long history of making quality machines and this is another entry into that pedigree. 

THE FEATURES

With the Lenovo IdeaPad L340 you are getting a budget gaming laptop and all that entails.

They have included an upgraded NVIDIA graphics card, 8GB of RAM, a fully solid state hard drive, and a high resolution, large screen to display your favorite games.

It has enough to lift itself above the standard school and work laptops but does not offer enough to be considered by serious gamers. 

DESIGN

First, I want to say that this laptop is beautifully designed.

It is simple, sleek, elegant, and not obnoxious in the slightest. Some entry-level laptops try to lure in prospective buyers with tons of lights, custom laptop lids, and other gimmicks that do nothing for the actual performance of the machine.

Lenovo skips all of that and goes with a timeless design that is unassuming. I fell in love with the aesthetics as soon as I saw it. 

Such a fantastic design would fit perfectly in any school or office setting.

While this laptop bills itself as a gaming machine, it also does all of the standard laptop tasks really well and can be used in the classroom or the boardroom and the look ensures you will fit right in anywhere. 

GRAPHICS AND DISPLAY

The graphical output of the Lenovo IdeaPad L340 gives you everything you need to game or stream comfortably.

It has a large screen that is adequate for the size of the laptop without being overly cumbersome. And yes, there are laptops who have screens that are too big.

The resolution is sharp, the colors are rich and it is fully capable of gaming or streaming in flawless 1080p. 

This is due to the NVIDIA GTX 1650. As far as graphics cards go, this one is definitely better than any standard out of the box card that is not aimed at gaming.

However, in terms of a gaming card, it is merely alright. It only has 4GB of card RAM (the max amount of RAM a graphics card can utilize) which will limit its performance on the latest and greatest games coming out.

It will be able to run them without a problem but you might not be able to run the best games on the highest settings. In terms of older games that have come out in the past few years, it will handle them without any problems and it will look great while doing so.

RAM, STORAGE & PROCESSOR

The Lenovo IdeaPad L340 features 8GM of onboard RAM and 512GB of SSD storage space. A couple of years ago, this would have been a fantastic set up for almost any gamer.

In 2020, it is starting to look a little bit thin. The 8GB of RAM should be more than sufficient to handle most games on the market but more and more titles are starting to request you have 16GB of RAM to get the best performance.

The processor is a solid Intel model that gives you a good amount of speed out of the i5-9300H.

However, it is not the latest model and it lags behind some of the newer i7 processors in terms of overall performance.

Either way, you can’t go wrong with the fluid pairing of Intel and NVIDIA, the parts get along very well inside the machine. 

In terms of raw storage, it has a 512GB drive. 512GB is nice for a solid state hard drive, but, again, if you are looking to get the latest and greatest, those games are quickly ballooning in size when it comes to disk space requirements.

It is not uncommon for games hitting the market today to require 50GB, 75GB, or even 100GB of storage. While the solid state drive runs lightning fast and boots up in a flash, it will quickly be bogged down by large game files. 

If you are worried about filling up the laptop too quickly, you can always bolster the storage by getting an affordable external hard drive.

Terabyte drives are going for extremely cheap nowadays and that would be an easy fix to managing the capacity of the solid state drive on this machine.

WHAT WE LIKED AND WHAT NEEDS WORK

We love the overall look and feel of this laptop. The design is great and the full sized keyboard is a must-have for any gamer. We can’t stand when a laptop tries to claim to be a gaming machine but does not have a full number pad included in the keyboard.

The battery life is good, even when gaming it lasts more than a few hours which is a nice plus. The computer is weighty but thin enough that the extra pound or so over similar sized laptops does not stand out.

Overall, it just works. Netflix looks great, it has no connectivity issues in terms of hooking up to my home network or my Bluetooth devices.

When I’m casually gaming on some of my favorite titles from the last few years, it looks fantastic.

The quality is good, I don’t drop frames and the laptop manages to stay cool during the peak of play which is a nice touch.

My biggest overall gripe is with the offset mousepad. The touchpad is shifted a little to the left of the center on this laptop which drives me nuts sometimes.

When gaming, I have my hand hovering over the WASD keys at all times and this design puts the touchpad directly under my left wrist.

I occasionally bump the pad during gaming which can cause all sorts of problems. I wish they had left the touchpad centered, or even better, offset to the right a little so it is closer to the number pad and not my WASD keys. 

WHO IS IT FOR AND WHAT DOES IT COST?

This laptop is for anyone who has always been curious about gaming laptops but has never had one before.

It is for the person who sees the upscale gaming laptops at the store but shirks away from the often sky-high price tag.

The Lenovo IdeaPad L340 is for the person who has tried to cram games onto their work-level computer and been frustrated by the looks and performance of the machine. 

Any entry level or casual gamer is going to love this laptop. That is because it comes in at a very reasonable price for what you get.

A good graphics card, large SSD, huge 1080p capable screen, and hours of battery life. These specs usually come in at a much higher price. The Lenovo IdeaPad L340 is available in the range of $800-$900. 

That puts it a good $300-$400 lower than a standard gaming laptop and about half that of what most consider to be a good gaming laptop.

That being said, anyone who is looking for a serious gaming laptop, one that can handle the newest games as they come out, someone who is looking to do serious competitive gaming for the next few years is going to want to look at investing in a more expensive machine.

Not everyone needs the latest and greatest to be happy but for those that do, the Lenovo IdeaPad L340 is not for you. If this laptop is even a bit too pricey for you, check out our Best Gaming Laptops under $500.

 

OUR VERDICT

For what it offers and for the price it offers it at, the Lenovo IdeaPad L340 is a great buy. As long as you know what you are getting, this is a fantastic purchase.

I loved the look and feel of the machine’s design, minus the oddly positioned trackpad, it was a flawless gem. 

The screen looks great, the games run smoothly and there is potential for hours upon hours of fun with this machine.

I only worry that as games continue to come out and get bigger, more intensive and more advanced, that this laptop is quickly going to be left behind.

Currently, a 9th gen i5, 8GB of RAM and 512GB SSD can get by. In a year from now, I’m not so sure. 

For the casual gamer or cash strapped consumer, there is a lot of value and a lot to love with the Lenovo IdeaPad L340. If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative from Lenovo, then give our in-depth review of the Lenovo Chromebook S330 a look over.

But if you’ve got your eyes set on the Lenovo Ideapad L340 and wanna see it in action, this video below has the latest review of the laptop: