LENOVO CHROMEBOOK DUET REVIEW: IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT CHEAP

Lenovo Chromebook Duet is flawed. When assessing a $279 item, the question isn’t “Is this perfect?” Is this product superior to similar ones?

HP’s Chromebook 14 and Chromebook x360 12b are clumsy, inexpensive Chromebooks. Acer Aspire, Acer Swift, or the Motile 14 are your Windows alternatives. There are also simple iPads and Android tablets without keyboards. Biggest sale available on chromebook black Friday deals.

CHROMEBOOK DUET’S PRICING

Lenovo took shortcuts to lower the Chromebook Duet’s pricing. As a professional griper, I will complain. They feel like shortcuts, not huge mistakes that cripple the gadget. After many days as my main driver, the Duet seems more like a Surface Go with certain sacrifices than an ultra-budget PC.

PROS

• Extreme portability and a long-lasting battery (11 hours)
• Comprised of a Keyboard and a Kickstand
• Our pricing is unbeatable.

CONS

• Keyboard and touchpad cramped
• A single port (and it’s not a headphone jack)
• Quite simply, it doesn’t have the processing capability to do many tasks at once.

When compared to modern tablets or high-end Chromebooks like the Pixel book go, the Duet Chromebook is noticeably inferior. However, the cost of such gadgets rises significantly (especially when you include the keyboard covers). To put it another way, the Lenovo Chromebook Duet is the greatest convertible you can buy for less than $300 that sort of has a foot in both doors.

STORAGE

Lenovo Chromebook Duet starts with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space in its most basic configuration. Unlike the Surface Go or any iPad device, the pricing includes the keyboard and kickstand. In my testing, I used the $299 model, which has the same CPU and RAM as the cheaper model but only 128GB of storage space.

If you intend on downloading a lot of applications, films, or other material, I suggest upgrading to the more expensive plan with the additional storage if you can afford the extra twenty bucks.

PRICE

 

The main thing to know about this Lenovo Chromebook Duet other from its eye-popping price, is that it is compact. Although its 10.1-inch screen size is standard for tablets, it becomes cumbersome if you attempt to use it in the same manner as a professional laptop. Even though I was able to complete this whole evaluation on the Duet, switching back to my own computer with its 13-inch 3:2-aspect-ratio display was like entering a another dimension.

DIMENSION

The touchpad’s dimensions of 3. 4 by 1. 9 inches won’t come as a surprise. Everything about it is good, and it glides smoothly (though I have small hands). Occasionally, two-finger clicks would register as single-finger clicks, and I frequently had problems clicking and dragging (I resorted to using the touchscreen). In addition, the keyboard would sometimes shift in my lap, rendering the clicker inoperable—an issue known to everyone who has used a cheap keyboard cover. The Duet supports USI styluses, so you can use it with the screen if you’d like.

INTERESTED IN CONTINUING: LENOVO CHROMEBOOK DUET

These days, before you can use any kind of smart technology, you have to agree to a long list of terms and conditions that almost no one ever bothers to read. Each and every one of these contracts would be too time-consuming to read and fully evaluate. Since these are agreements most people don’t read and certainly can’t negotiate, we’ve begun keeping track of how many times you have to tap “accept” to use devices when we review them.

In order to use the Lenovo Chromebook Duet, you must accept the following terms and conditions:

• A wireless network connection may be made.
• Google’s Chrome OS Service Agreement
• Sync Chrome (porting over history, bookmarks, passwords, and other settings from your Google account)
• Customized Google products and services
• Agreement to Serve Terms for Google Play
• It is not required that you agree to the following terms:
• Use your Google account to send Google usage and diagnostic information
• Save to Google Drive backups
• Give access to your device’s location to applications and services that need it.
• Harmony with the Google Assistant’s Voice
• Allow Assistant to provide contextual details about the current view.
• Get link up with an Android device
• Overall, there are five required pacts and seven elective ones.

GAMING

Even playing video games was enjoyable. Both Flipping Legend and Monster Legends had some hiccups here and there, but they were usually rather fluid. On the 1920 x 1200 display, they seemed crisp as well.

The Light room picture editing was another area where the Duet excelled. The editing experience was approximately on pace with midrange Intel-powered Chromebooks I’ve used in the past; it wasn’t lightning fast, but it wasn’t excruciatingly sluggish, either. (The panel’s low brightness makes it unsuitable for any kind of intensive creative work, and the glare made it difficult to see the screen outside.)

STANDARD CHROME OS WARNINGS APPLY.

And here’s the interesting part: Google has also tweaked Chrome OS to make it work better on convertibles. According to Google, the Duet is the first tablet to ship with a version of Chrome that has been specifically designed for touchscreen use.

The Pixel Slate has been discontinue. When the keyboard is connected, it is in Type Mode; when the kickstand is extended and the keyboard is removed, it is in Watch Mode; and when neither is in use, it is in Browse Mode. As far as I can tell, Watch Mode and Browse Mode are equivalent.

The primary improvement in Lenovo Chromebook Duet Browse Mode is the implementation of a gesture-based interface. Swiping all the way up takes you home, a partial swipe brings up the app drawer, and holding the gesture displays all the currently active windows.

Split the screen by swiping up and releasing on a window you want to move to the side; swipe right to go back a screen. In comparison to the iPad, I wouldn’t say these motions were very smooth. But they are the foundation of a system that I can foresee getting extremely refined in the future, and they did facilitate tablet surfing to some extent.