Chromebooks have gotten so sophisticated lately that it's a little underwhelming to see one that harks back to the early days of the category, with a petite 11.6-inch screen and paltry 1,366-by-768-pixel instead of full HD or higher resolution.
But the Lenovo Chromebook C340-11 is nevertheless ready for consumer or classroom duty, especially since it's a flip-and-fold convertible.
And at $269.99 in my test unit's Sand Pink version ($20 less in Platinum Grey), it's $130 under the list prices of a comparably equipped Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1 Education or Acer Chromebook Spin 11.
(To be fair, you can buy the Acer for $299 at Walmart.) It's a fair deal if the screen size and its modest resolution work for your purposes.
DisARMing Its Predecessor
Next to the Lenovo Chromebook C330 we reviewed a year ago, the C340-11 costs $30 less with 4GB of memory and 64GB of eMMC flash storage.
It loses the older model's HDMI port, obliging you to plug an HDMI or DisplayPort dongle into a USB Type-C port if you want to connect an external monitor, but it gains an aluminum lid instead of the C330's all-plastic construction.
It also trades the first convertible's MediaTek ARM processor for a dual-core Intel Celeron N4000.
At 0.7 by 11.4 by 8.2 inches, it's barely smaller than the Spin 11 (0.82 by 11.7 by 8.1 inches) and weighs slightly less (2.65 versus 3.09 pounds).
Lenovo and Chrome logos decorate the smooth lid, and thick black bezels surround the IPS touch screen, leaving room for your thumbs to grip the device in tablet mode.
Two small hinges let you fold the display all the way back for use as a tablet, or partway back for an easel- or kiosk-style stand mode or A-frame tent mode.
The screen wobbles when tapped in laptop mode, but the system feels fairly sturdy, without much flex when you grasp its corners or press the keyboard deck.
On the convertible's left side, you'll find a USB 3.1 Type-C port, a USB 3.1 Type-A port, a microSD card slot, and an audio jack.
On the right are the power button, a volume rocker for use in tablet mode, another USB-C port, another USB-A port, and a security lock slot.
The AC adapter plugs into either USB-C port.
Stylish, But No Stylus
The glossy 11.6-inch screen is all right but not impressive.
Its low resolution means that fine details look fuzzy and text looks slightly pixelated, especially if you use the Settings slider to make items on the display appear larger.
(You can use the native 1,366 by 768 resolution, or choose among faux resolutions ranging from 1,518 by 813 pixels to 911 by 512.)
The screen isn't very bright, so backgrounds aren't dazzlingly white and colors are tepid.
Touch-screen movements are reasonably precise and responsive, but the Lenovo doesn't come with a stylus pen as the Acer Spin 11 does.
The keyboard is not backlit, so typing in dim rooms is no fun.
It follows the standard Chromebook layout with browser and system control keys along the top row and a search/app launch key instead of Caps Lock.
The Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Escape, and Backspace keys are comfortably large, and the cursor-arrow keys are in the proper inverted T.
Typing feel is shallow but snappy, with somewhat loud, clicky feedback.
The buttonless touchpad glides smoothly and responds well to one- and two-finger taps.
(The latter equals a right-click.) Clicks are quiet and don't require too much pressure.
The 720p webcam captures dark, blotchy images with a good deal of static.
Audio from the bottom-mounted speakers is also poor, managing to sound simultaneously faint, flat, and hollow even with the volume maxed out.
Highs are harsh and bass is swallowed up.
Between Sluggish and Sprightly
The Celeron N4000 features a base speed of 1.1GHz and turbo speed of 2.6GHz, as well as Intel UHD 600 integrated graphics.
The Lenovo convertible felt neither slow nor fast during everyday, casual use; it streamed single YouTube videos without a hitch, though two at once was too much, and played several Android games.
Since the C340-11 balked at the WebXPRT 2015 benchmark we've used in the past, I compared its performance to a set of consumer Chromebooks—all priced above the Lenovo—that we've tried with Principled Technologies' CrXPRT (a suite of simulated Chrome OS productivity apps) and more recent WebXPRT 3 (a browser-based test of HTML and JavaScript throughput).
The Acer Chromebook 315 is an inexpensive touch-screen system with the same dual-core AMD A4-9120C processor found in the HP Chromebook 14.
The HP Chromebook 15 features a dual-core, four-thread Intel Core i3 CPU.
The Google Pixelbook Go has a dual-core, low-wattage Core i5-8200Y.
The Lenovo narrowly edged the two AMD-powered Chromebooks, but fell well behind the portables with Intel Core processors—landing, in other words, about where you'd expect given its Celeron CPU.
JetStream 2 is another performance test; it combines 64 JavaScript and WebAssembly benchmarks to measure a browser's (in this case, the default Chrome's) suitability for advanced web applications.
Interestingly, last year's ARM-based Lenovo Chromebook C330 tied the C340-11 in this exercise, though it trailed in CrXPRT with only 99 points.
Again, the Lenovo finished in the middle of the pack, or the lower middle if you want to be fussy about it.
The system also scored a ho-hum 7,673 points in UL's PCMark for Android Work 2.0 benchmark, compared to 10,280 for the HP Chromebook 15 and 11,948 for the much more expensive, Core i5-powered Dell Latitude 5300 2-in-1 Chromebook Enterprise.
Finally, to test a Chromebook's battery life, we loop a locally stored video with screen brightness set at 50 percent, audio volume set at 100 percent, and Wi-Fi disabled until the laptop conks out.
The C340-11 did much better in this benchmark, finishing second only to the Pixelbook Go with stamina that should easily get you through a workday or school day plus an evening's Netflix or casual gaming.
Having the fewest pixels to illuminate certainly helped.
Compact and Capable
The Lenovo Chromebook C340-11 feels a little retro despite its convertible design—a larger screen with 1080p resolution is more or less table stakes for Chromebooks as it is for Windows laptops nowadays.
It also feels a little underpowered, despite adequate memory and storage for Chrome OS.
But it's reasonably priced, reasonably good-looking, and easy to throw into a briefcase or backpack.
I find myself giving it an extra half a star on our ratings scale.
Lenovo Chromebook C340-11
Cons
Dull, small, low-resolution display.
Not exactly peppy performance.
The Bottom Line
Remember 11.6-inch Chromebooks? Lenovo's C340-11 revives the genre with a compact convertible that's more likable than its low screen resolution and low-powered CPU might suggest.
Chromebooks have gotten so sophisticated lately that it's a little underwhelming to see one that harks back to the early days of the category, with a petite 11.6-inch screen and paltry 1,366-by-768-pixel instead of full HD or higher resolution.
But the Lenovo Chromebook C340-11 is nevertheless ready for consumer or classroom duty, especially since it's a flip-and-fold convertible.
And at $269.99 in my test unit's Sand Pink version ($20 less in Platinum Grey), it's $130 under the list prices of a comparably equipped Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1 Education or Acer Chromebook Spin 11.
(To be fair, you can buy the Acer for $299 at Walmart.) It's a fair deal if the screen size and its modest resolution work for your purposes.
DisARMing Its Predecessor
Next to the Lenovo Chromebook C330 we reviewed a year ago, the C340-11 costs $30 less with 4GB of memory and 64GB of eMMC flash storage.
It loses the older model's HDMI port, obliging you to plug an HDMI or DisplayPort dongle into a USB Type-C port if you want to connect an external monitor, but it gains an aluminum lid instead of the C330's all-plastic construction.
It also trades the first convertible's MediaTek ARM processor for a dual-core Intel Celeron N4000.
At 0.7 by 11.4 by 8.2 inches, it's barely smaller than the Spin 11 (0.82 by 11.7 by 8.1 inches) and weighs slightly less (2.65 versus 3.09 pounds).
Lenovo and Chrome logos decorate the smooth lid, and thick black bezels surround the IPS touch screen, leaving room for your thumbs to grip the device in tablet mode.
Two small hinges let you fold the display all the way back for use as a tablet, or partway back for an easel- or kiosk-style stand mode or A-frame tent mode.
The screen wobbles when tapped in laptop mode, but the system feels fairly sturdy, without much flex when you grasp its corners or press the keyboard deck.
On the convertible's left side, you'll find a USB 3.1 Type-C port, a USB 3.1 Type-A port, a microSD card slot, and an audio jack.
On the right are the power button, a volume rocker for use in tablet mode, another USB-C port, another USB-A port, and a security lock slot.
The AC adapter plugs into either USB-C port.
Stylish, But No Stylus
The glossy 11.6-inch screen is all right but not impressive.
Its low resolution means that fine details look fuzzy and text looks slightly pixelated, especially if you use the Settings slider to make items on the display appear larger.
(You can use the native 1,366 by 768 resolution, or choose among faux resolutions ranging from 1,518 by 813 pixels to 911 by 512.)
The screen isn't very bright, so backgrounds aren't dazzlingly white and colors are tepid.
Touch-screen movements are reasonably precise and responsive, but the Lenovo doesn't come with a stylus pen as the Acer Spin 11 does.
The keyboard is not backlit, so typing in dim rooms is no fun.
It follows the standard Chromebook layout with browser and system control keys along the top row and a search/app launch key instead of Caps Lock.
The Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Escape, and Backspace keys are comfortably large, and the cursor-arrow keys are in the proper inverted T.
Typing feel is shallow but snappy, with somewhat loud, clicky feedback.
The buttonless touchpad glides smoothly and responds well to one- and two-finger taps.
(The latter equals a right-click.) Clicks are quiet and don't require too much pressure.
The 720p webcam captures dark, blotchy images with a good deal of static.
Audio from the bottom-mounted speakers is also poor, managing to sound simultaneously faint, flat, and hollow even with the volume maxed out.
Highs are harsh and bass is swallowed up.
Between Sluggish and Sprightly
The Celeron N4000 features a base speed of 1.1GHz and turbo speed of 2.6GHz, as well as Intel UHD 600 integrated graphics.
The Lenovo convertible felt neither slow nor fast during everyday, casual use; it streamed single YouTube videos without a hitch, though two at once was too much, and played several Android games.
Since the C340-11 balked at the WebXPRT 2015 benchmark we've used in the past, I compared its performance to a set of consumer Chromebooks—all priced above the Lenovo—that we've tried with Principled Technologies' CrXPRT (a suite of simulated Chrome OS productivity apps) and more recent WebXPRT 3 (a browser-based test of HTML and JavaScript throughput).
The Acer Chromebook 315 is an inexpensive touch-screen system with the same dual-core AMD A4-9120C processor found in the HP Chromebook 14.
The HP Chromebook 15 features a dual-core, four-thread Intel Core i3 CPU.
The Google Pixelbook Go has a dual-core, low-wattage Core i5-8200Y.
The Lenovo narrowly edged the two AMD-powered Chromebooks, but fell well behind the portables with Intel Core processors—landing, in other words, about where you'd expect given its Celeron CPU.
JetStream 2 is another performance test; it combines 64 JavaScript and WebAssembly benchmarks to measure a browser's (in this case, the default Chrome's) suitability for advanced web applications.
Interestingly, last year's ARM-based Lenovo Chromebook C330 tied the C340-11 in this exercise, though it trailed in CrXPRT with only 99 points.
Again, the Lenovo finished in the middle of the pack, or the lower middle if you want to be fussy about it.
The system also scored a ho-hum 7,673 points in UL's PCMark for Android Work 2.0 benchmark, compared to 10,280 for the HP Chromebook 15 and 11,948 for the much more expensive, Core i5-powered Dell Latitude 5300 2-in-1 Chromebook Enterprise.
Finally, to test a Chromebook's battery life, we loop a locally stored video with screen brightness set at 50 percent, audio volume set at 100 percent, and Wi-Fi disabled until the laptop conks out.
The C340-11 did much better in this benchmark, finishing second only to the Pixelbook Go with stamina that should easily get you through a workday or school day plus an evening's Netflix or casual gaming.
Having the fewest pixels to illuminate certainly helped.
Compact and Capable
The Lenovo Chromebook C340-11 feels a little retro despite its convertible design—a larger screen with 1080p resolution is more or less table stakes for Chromebooks as it is for Windows laptops nowadays.
It also feels a little underpowered, despite adequate memory and storage for Chrome OS.
But it's reasonably priced, reasonably good-looking, and easy to throw into a briefcase or backpack.
I find myself giving it an extra half a star on our ratings scale.
Lenovo Chromebook C340-11
Cons
Dull, small, low-resolution display.
Not exactly peppy performance.
The Bottom Line
Remember 11.6-inch Chromebooks? Lenovo's C340-11 revives the genre with a compact convertible that's more likable than its low screen resolution and low-powered CPU might suggest.
