Here's why Lenovo's little Duet Chromebook 2-in-1 is a big deal By CNET

Hey everyone I just got this. This is the Lenovo IdeaPad duet Chromebook. Let me just stop talking about it and get this thing open and show you what's in there. Basically, a tablet with a 10.1 inch. Full HD screen get that off nice, blue gray. Back there camera there's your Pogo pins for attaching the keyboard, no audio jack, so Bluetooth or USB-C.

Anyway, let's see what else is in the box here: lift that up alright, so guessing this is the keyboard and keyboard alright Pogo pins on the bottom. There pull the pins there and then we'll. Just oh look at that, and this appears to be the back cover that, oh, that just snaps right into place -. So there you go. This has a built-in bendy part kickstand.

So there you go! There's that taxa! You got your full keyboard and touchpad nice click pad and let's finish off, what's in the box and see what's in there, it does not have an audio jack. Lenovo includes a USB-C 2, a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack there, and then you've got a USB cable for charging and C and a USB-C. Well, you must be charger and there you go. That's it. The only other thing in there is a Quick Start Guide.

So there you go. That's what's in the box anyway. Now that we've talked about what this is and what's in the box, let's talk about what it can do so, if you're familiar with small tablet, e2 and ones, you might think this is essentially a Chrome version of the first Microsoft Surface go, and you're not wrong. Again. This is built around a 10.1 inch display with the 16:10 aspect ratio. So you have a bit more height for work.

It's a nice display with a 408 brightness which helps with the reflections off the screen a little snap on its keyboard, and you're ready to work. The keyboard is not bad, but Lenovo cut down the size on the keys on the right side here and of particular frustration for me is the apostrophe key, which I simply could not seem to hit and instead hit the enter key. More often than not with regular use. I might be able to overcome it, but who knows also the keyboard is not backlit, which is not uncommon for cheaper Chromebooks, but it's still kind of a bummer. The small clip pad is good.

However, if you tend to drag your palms like I, do while typing you can likely look forward to some cursor jumpiness and accidental text selection, it's just one more thing: you'll have to adjust to and because I'm sure someone out their cares. You can in fact use this on your lap. It's a bit of a balancing act, but the keyboard connection is strong, and the kickstand supports it in enough positions to give you some flexibility. If you're working at home or the office I'd take advantage of the USB-C port and get a dock to connect, an external display, keyboard and mouse using it side by side with the display as an extended desktop, gives you a small screen to use as a communications device. If you want to keep slack or email or messages open or something else open, or you can use the duet as a media player, while you're working on the larger main display.

Basically, while you're on the go, you have the small device to work on. But when you need extra space for long sessions, you have the option to connect to a display. Mouse and keyboard inside is a MediaTek 8, core processor, 4, gigs of memory in either 64 or 128, gigs of storage, with no card slot for expansion and only $20 separating the two. You should probably go with the 128 gig version. If you can,, I was a little concerned about having only 4 gigs of memory.

In this thing, I used the cog system viewer app to keep an eye on memory in the duet seem to be using most of its memory most of the time, but performance only occasionally got laggy for a few seconds here and there, both on its own and when connected to an external display. But you know otherwise it was fine. Gaming was fine on it too, since you have access to the Google Play Store I stuck to android games for testing, but the duet can be paired with Google Stadia controller and service between the removable keyboard and kickstand. The duet is easy to set up for gaming with a Bluetooth controller, and it's small and light enough to play handheld as well. Battery life seems to be in the ballpark of what the Nova is promising, which is up to 10 hours.

I haven't done any formal testing yet, but based on my usage, I can see it easily getting up to 8 hours, but that's all going to depend on your screen, brightness and whatever it is you're doing. Moving on, along with the USB port on the right, you've got the volume, rocker and power button and then moving to the top. You've got the far field. Mics and stereo speakers, combined with the 2 megapixel front, facing camera. They've worked well for video.

Chats, though my wife said, I sounded a little tinny. On her end, the mics can also be used for Google Assistant for doing important things like setting reminders and playing cat videos on YouTube. The speakers are not great they're, okay for casual use, but anything more than that, and you'll want Bluetooth, headphones or speakers with the keyboard. Detached you've got yourself a nice little tablet that weighs about one and a half pounds or six hundred and seventy grams, with the back cover on Google, recently updated Chrome the OS and browser with a tablet mode and unique gestures. A long swipe up brings you to your home screen a short swipe up, brings up your pinned, apps swipe up and hold, and you'll see all your open apps, and you can then drag one to split-screen mode by dragging an app to the top or bottom and then another to the opposite side.

A bar in the middle lets you resize each side. You can also go back to the last screen by swiping in from the left and page back and forth in the browser by swiping, left and right between these updates and the Play Store access. This feels more like a mid-range Android tablet than other Chrome, 2 and ones I've tested. So that's a look at the duets features and some of what it can do now. Google updates Chrome OS every six weeks and for this it'll continue to do that for the next eight years.

So the features you have today won't be the features you'll have tomorrow after spending a little of time with it, I'd have to say as a main device. This is probably not going to get you very far, but as a secondary device. Something to supplement another computer just so that you have something to answer emails or surf the web and play some games. This is a great little device for that or if you need something, that's super mobile that you can connect really fast to a know your mobile hotspot, or whatever are for tethering instantly. This is a great option for that.

It's essentially a more accessible, more affordable version of the Google Pixel slate, especially since it only carries a price tag of $300.

Source : CNET