HP 340S G7 review – the affordable business solution

On this rather warm February day, we are going to share our thoughts on the HP 340S G7. Basically, it is a business notebook that targets value as its most important feature. It really looks simple and non-obnoxious, while it packs quite the punch in the form of the 10nm Ice Lake processors from Intel.

Additionally, you can pick from a 768p TN panel and a 1080p IPS one, and given the subtle price difference, we would certainly recommend the latter. By the way, this is one of those notebooks that come with some bloatware, such as an Amazon store app, Dropbox, an antivirus program and more, preinstalled. Of course, you are free to remove everything you don’t need, and honestly, we are fans of clean Windows installations, so… the choice is yours.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-340s-g7/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP 340S G7 - Specs

  • CMN14FF
  • Color accuracy  6.5  3.7
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 512GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, No OS
  • Battery
  • 41Wh, 3-cell
  • Body material
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate
  • Dimensions
  • 324 x 225 x 17.9 mm (12.76" x 8.86" x 0.70")
  • Weight
  • 1.47 kg (3.2 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • 1.4b
  • Card reader
  • SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5 mm combo
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Dual-Array Digital Microphones
  • Speakers
  • 2 Stereo Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

All HP 340S G7 configurations

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, you are going to find a 45W power brick and a plastic bag holding all of the mandatory paperwork


Design and construction

So, let’s start by saying that this notebook sits very comfortably both in your hands and on the lap. It has a weight of 1.47 kg and a height of 17.9mm, which makes it both thin and light. On the other side, its only disadvantage is the plastic material, used to build its body. However, this is not the biggest problem, as we’ve seen very rigid ThinkBooks made entirely out of plastic. No. Here the build quality is poor. The body squeaks and pops when you try twisting it.

Its lid, cannot be opened with a single hand, but after you lift it from the base, the weight of the hinge becomes very balanced. Once again, the structural integrity is not the best. However, it is good to see thin side bezels, and a camera placed above the display.

Moving to the base, we see the power button, which is placed above the “Escape” key, so prepare for spontaneous shutdowns, every once and a while. Beside the power button, there is a long grill, which houses the speakers. It is great to see front-firing speakers on a budget product.

Next, there is the keyboard. If you see on HP’s official website, the option to include a backlight costs 21 bucks, and we think that it is definitely worth it. Additionally, the key travel is very long and the feedback is clicky. Ultimately, this is a very comfortable keyboard to use. Do you know what else is comfortable? The touchpad. It is short, but wide and is very responsive. Honestly, HP is doing a very good job with their touchpads on their latest laptops. By the way, the 340S G7 also comes with the option for a fingerprint reader.

Since the speakers are at the top, you can only see a ventilation grill on the bottom plate, while the hot air is fired towards the hinge cover.

Ports

On the left side there is only the SD card reader, while the right side is home to the power plug, an HDMI connector, two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports and one USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, and an audio jack.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

Not again… HP has once again tried to trick us, ladies and gentlemen. As soon as we saw the bottom panel on this device we felt a cold sweat run down our foreheads. There are only four Phillips-head screws naked to the eye. However, you need to remove the two long rubber feet as they house four more screws. Thankfully, our plastic pry tool is exactly the same size as the feet, and we were able to easily remove them, without destroying them.

So, cooling is nothing extraordinary. Only one, rather thin, heat pipe and a medium-sized fan.

This device has two RAM SODIMM slots for up to 16GB of memory in total. Additionally, you can upgrade the storage with an M.2 PCIe NVMe drive, and a 2.5″ SATA drive slot.

While the battery is not the biggest, seen on a 14-inch laptop, it is also not the smallest – 41Wh.


Display quality

HP 340S G7 has a Full HD IPS display, model number Innolux CMN14FF. Its diagonal is 14″ (35.56 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 157 ppi, their pitch – 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 56 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Its viewing angles are excellent. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 277 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 257 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 12%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6470K (average) – almost matching the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6380.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 80% Brightness (White level = 139 cd/m2, Black level = 0.126 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is good – 1100:1 (1070:1).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is an essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows HP 340S G7’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers just 51% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of HP 340S G7 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 22 ms


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

HP 340S G7’s display uses PWM to adjust its brightness levels up until 72 nits. Additionally, the flickers have a high-enough frequency to not be harmful in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusions

HP 340S G7’s display has an IPS panel with a Full HD resolution, wide viewing angles, good contrast ratio and comfortable backlight in terms of PWM. Sadly, it covers only 51% of sRGB.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP 340S G7 configurations with 14.0″ CMN14FF (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

HP 340S G7 produces a relatively loud sound with good quality. Its low, mid and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://support.hp.com/gb-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-340s-g7-notebook-pc/30268685

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. As we mentioned, the battery size on this device is 41Wh.

We got 9 hours and 30 minutes of Web browsing and 10 minutes more when playing an HD video on loop.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

HP 340S G7 41Wh, 3-cell

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

HP 340S G7 41Wh, 3-cell

CPU options

This notebook comes with a choice of the Core i3-1005G1, Core i5-1035G1 and the Core i7-1065G7.


GPU options

For the first two processors, you get the Intel UHD Graphics, while the flagship features the Intel Iris Plus Graphics.


Gaming tests

Obviously this laptop is no gaming device, so don’t expect anything too fancy from it.

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS39 fps23 fps– fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS55 fps30 fps– fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-1035G1 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
HP 340S G72.71 GHz (B+171%) @ 92°C2.42 GHz (B+142%) @ 93°C1.77 GHz (B+77%) @ 72°C
Acer Swift 5 Pro (SF514-54GT)2.88 GHz (B+188%) @ 80°C1.62 GHz (B+62%) @ 64°C1.65 GHz (B+65%) @ 67°C
Dell Inspiron 55932.53 GHz (B+153%) @ 99°C2.14 GHz (B+114%) @ 94°C1.88 GHz (B+88%) @ 87°C
Dell Inspiron 17 37932.75 GHz (B+175%) @ 98°C1.97 GHz (B+97%) @ 91°C1.79 GHz (B+79%) @ 89°C
Intel Core i5-1035G4 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Lenovo Yoga S740 (14)2.64 GHz (B+140%) @ 100°C1.89 GHz (B+72%) @ 83°C1.66 GHz (B+51%) @ 69°C

As it happens, the HP 340S G7’s cooling is doing a pretty good job in cooling down the Core i5-1035G1. Well, it does run a little bit warm in the first two checkpoints, but in the end, it stabilizes both at a decent frequency and not too high temperature.

Comfort during full load

Interestingly, the fan works even during file transfers and app installations, although at a very low speed. However, with the higher load, the fan speed increases and becomes clearly audible, if not a little loud. As of the temperature on the base, you can see the hottest point on the IR images below.


Verdict

In a few words, this notebook was really fun to work with. It is swift, responsive and comfortable thanks to its amazing keyboard and touchpad, M.2 SSD and quick 10nm processor inside.

What else is great is that you have the opportunity of upgrading it via its two RAM SODIMM slots, M.2 NVMe slot, and 2.5″ SATA drive bay. How many 14-inchers can boast with that? Well, yes, you need to do some gymnastics with a plastic pry tool in order to gain access to all of the screws, but at least the glue on the feet is not too hard and you don’t risk damaging them.

If you are traveling a lot, or you do most of your work away from the office, you will be glad to hear that the battery should last you through an entire workday. We got 9 hours and a half of Web browsing and around the same time during video playback.

HP 340S G7’s display has an IPS panel (CMN14FF) with a Full HD resolution, wide viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and comfortable backlight in terms of PWM. Sadly, it covers only 51% of sRGB.

At this price point, naturally, there is one thing that will suffer – build quality. While the HP 340S G7 is light and relatively thin, its plastic body produces a lot of noises when you handle it by the edge or try to twist it. We are not sure how it is going to impact the longevity of the components inside, but one would certainly want to be extra cautious with this one.

So, if you are interested in buying such a device, the HP 340S G7 is definitely not a bad choice. Just make sure you get the IPS version of the display as it will bring a lot more value to the laptop.

Pros

  • Very comfortable and responsive keyboard and touchpad
  • Thin and light body
  • Has an SD card reader
  • Great upgradability and optional WiFi 6 support
  • Its IPS panel has comfortable viewing angles and good contrast ratio (CMN14FF)
  • Doesn’t use aggressive PWM for brightness adjustment (CMN14FF)
  • Decent battery life


Cons

  • Flimsy plastic body
  • The fan kicks in even during file transfer
  • Covers only 51% of sRGB (CMN14FF)

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-340s-g7/

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Lou Von Esh
Lou Von Esh
3 years ago

This was very helpful to me and believe I will purchase the 340S G7.

Yoav
Yoav
3 years ago

Thanks for the review.
These guys copied your review, the automatically generated voice is from your text:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y6YdQNHOVi8

siplano
siplano
3 years ago

Hello, in your review you stated that it is possible to upgrade the storage with an M.2 PCIe NVMe drive, and a 2.5″ SATA drive. Can you pleas explain to me how ? I have purchased the laptop because of your review an would like to install an 2.5″ SATA whit the existing M.2 drive.

Vic Merida
3 years ago

Thanks, but I can’t see the 2.5 SATA slot… where is it??? I need to add a slave SATA SSD to this laptop and I can’t find the way to do it.