Hey Apple, this is the laptop you can actually buy for the price of the new iPad

This impressive laptop costs less than Apple’s new $329 iPad

By Alex Blake September 12, 2019 9:35AM PST

Apple iPad 7th generation on stage | Apple September 2019 Event Keynote

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Apple’s special event on September 10 wasn’t just about the iPhone 11. Apple also unveiled a revamped iPad costing $329, which now boasts a higher resolution 10.2-inch display and Smart Connector support, so you can attach Apple’s Smart Keyboard and use it like a laptop.

In typical Apple form, it even compared the new iPad favorably to a clunky-looking, “best-selling Windows laptop” on stage. We don’t know exactly what laptop was used in the comparison, but we had a feeling Apple was being a little disingenuous.

So, we wanted to know: How much laptop can you actually get for the price of an iPad right now? And can the new iPad really outshine a similarly priced PC laptop?

A diamond in the rough

$329 isn’t a lot of money to spend on a laptop — Apple’s right about that much. There’s an absolute ocean of clunky laptops at this price range with an Intel Celeron or Pentium processor and 4GB of memory. That doesn’t, however, mean you have to resort to whatever laptop Apple was flexing against in its keynote.

After a lot of searching, we came upon a great deal for the Lenovo IdeaPad S340, which is currently on sale for $319. That bags you a 15.6-inch 1080p display, a dual-core Intel Core i3-8145U processor, 8GB of memory, and a 128GB SSD.

That’s a lot of laptop for just over $300. It doesn’t even consider the extra price of the Smart Keyboard Folio, of course, which would add some significant cost to your new iPad when comparing it directly to this laptop.

this laptop costs less than apples new ipad ideapad s

Let’s start with the display. The new iPad has a 10.2-inch 2,160 x 1,620-pixel resolution screen, giving you 264 pixels per inch. The Lenovo gives you a much more spacious 15.6-inch display, but its resolution is only 1080p, so you get a much lower pixels-per-inch rating of 141.

You’ll generally be further from a laptop than you will be from a tablet, so that PPI difference isn’t as huge as it first appears, but it’s clear the iPad will have the crisper screen. The iPad also has an IPS display, whereas the Lenovo relies on the weaker TN technology, giving it inferior color reproduction and viewing angles.

Lenovo IdeaPad S340 15.6

The Lenovo IdeaPad S340 is a capable laptop that competes with the iPad 10.2