Lenovo Chromebook Duet Review: Unreal Value By Chrome Unboxed

It's no secret Chrome OS on tablets. Up to this point has not been a perfect experience, and we've had a few attempts, and a lot of them have just not worked out that well and into this narrative. Lenovo has launched this. The Chromebook, duet and I. Think it's attempt to change. That story is working out quite well.

Let's get into it. Today's video is brought to you by Word VPN, to the VPN of choice for millions of consumers, because they're awesome at what they do and that's keeping your browsing safe and secure, whether you're at home or on the go. If you'd like to learn more about them and their services head over to Chrome on box comm forward, slash, Word VPN and you can learn more and get started today. Before, we jump into all the parts of this review. I want to mention one thing right up front that we normally hold towards the end, because it informs so much about what we think about this Chromebook tablet and that's the price it starts at $279.

That's what the keyboard included, and that price is just absolutely bonkers, and it changes the way that we have to look at just about everything with this device, because no matter what this thing does it's going to get a pass all over the place because of the absolutely low price and the value proposition. It adds to that. So I wanted to make sure that you understand that right up front, so we're not kind of holding that till the end of this review. Let's start with the build quality. What Lenovo has put together at this price point is kind of insane.

Honestly, when you pick this thing up, there's nothing about it that feels cheap or budget in any way, shape or form. We've got metal on the outside. The thing is super thin: it weighs less than a pound, it's glass all across the front and again the thing just exudes quality. It looks awesome just sitting there on the desk, but when you hold it in your hand, it feels secure and firm and well put together and well-thought-out, and then you add in the keyboard in the back piece that come with this device. It comes right in the box, it's no additional purchase and the magnet is nice and strong that attaches the keyboard on the bottom and the back piece that just pops into place that has the kickstand built-in snaps on easily as well, and the whole thing just cohesively goes together.

Furthermore, it looks good. Furthermore, it feels good in the hand the hinge on the back extends to multiple angles. So, depending on your situation, you can kind of stand the thing up exactly as you would like it. The keyboard feels pretty nice and well-made to again be something that's included in the box and for the first time of many times, I'm going to reference at this price point the fact that you get that keyboard and that back stand in the box with this device. It's just kind of crazy and the whole thing comes together.

It looks good. Furthermore, it feels good and punches way above its weight class here for a two hundred and eighty dollar Chromebook or tablet, depending on how you want to look at it. The thing is built. Well, it looks great. It feels great and Lenovo just absolutely knocked it out of the park.

Putting this thing together. Moving on to the screen, this is another place where Lenovo killed it. Honestly, it's a 1080p plus screen, so it's actually 1920 by 1200, which gives it a 16 by 10 aspect ratio and that helps it to be a little taller and a little more squarish and honestly just makes it feel a little less ridiculous, using as a tablet in either landscape or portrait mode. So it's a win here. This kind of resolution on that size of screen, 10.1 inches diagonal, makes for a really nice PPI, and it makes it look like there's not really any pixels on the screen at all and so from any viewing distance. It's a tablet after all, so sometimes you're holding it up close, and sometimes it's on a desk.

You know with the keyboard in front of it. It just looks great in any form or fashion, oh, and it is 400, nits and brightness, so there weren't, really any environments where I ran into a situation where the screen felt dim the colors look great. The viewing angles, look great across the board again when we start talking about a budget device, which is what this thing falls under. It's insane that the screen looks. This good budget devices usually have terrible screens, and that is just not the case at all way to go.

Lenovo. This screen looks awesome, moving on to the keyboard and trackpad. These are interesting because again, this is a tablet first and foremost, but it does come in the box, and this is, after all, a Chromebook. So it's nice to think of it as a there. When you need it sort of situation, it acts as kind of cover for the tablet, and you can just pop it off and use the tablet all you want and then, when you actually need to sit down and bang out a handful of emails, or you know, do some more serious web browsing or a handful of other tasks, and you know pop the keyboard on and get to work with it.

There are some things that need to be said about it, though the key travel is good. The key spacing is very tight, obviously because it's a 10.1-inch tablet. So there's just not a lot of space. All the keys are there, but they had to make some concessions around that. That being said, I was able to get some pretty decent productivity and typing speed on it.

Once my fingers were more used to the spacing and more used to some of the strange keys that are there and how they're kind of sized on this keyboard. As for the trackpad, it is small too, and again these are things that you would expect on. A 10.1-inch tablet keyboard, but it works pretty well things you know, gestures and sliding around on. It is fine. There are times when it misses a handful of you know two finger clicks or three finger clicks, and if it's in your lap in certain angles in certain scenarios, it can be a little finicky to get those clicks, but overall again a thing, that's kind of an accessory to a tablet.

It does alright and when it's sitting on a desk or on a table, it's actually quite nice to use to be honest with you and for what feels like just a free accessory that you're getting along with this tablet. It performs as well as you'd, expect it to I, wouldn't say that this is something you're going to do hours and hours of work on I wouldn't want to do hours and hours of work on it. But again when you need it, and you need to just pop it in and get a few things done. It does the job around the outsides of the device you'll find just a couple speaker, grilles power volume, rocker and then a single USB, type-c port. The speakers are a pretty big improvement over the tinny.

If you saw that video, where I just deemed those speakers pretty much garbage. These speakers are a big improvement over those, and we're gonna work in quite a few scenarios: they're loud they're kind of tinny, but for tablet speakers they do pretty well and give you decent stereo separation, the USB type-c port, while I wish there was a headphone microphone jack alongside it, it will act as your headphone microphone jack with the included dumbbell that they put in the box. It also acts as your charging port. You know your data transfer port and your display out port on the inside. This tablet is rocking the MediaTek p60 t, processor, otherwise known as the 81-83 as it was in development for gigs of ram 64 gigs of internal storage, or you can bump that up for 20 bucks to 128, gigs of internal storage and, frankly, that's the one I would recommend that you go get.

It's the only one- that's been available so far at Best Buy. So for $299 you double your storage, that's just kind of a no-brainer, because there's no external storage options here. What that all comes together to mean is a pretty decent software experience that I think is only going to get better with time, because, let's face it, you get eight years of updates with this tablet. So if you buy one, it's probably going to be around for a little and all of these new gestures that Chrome OS has introduced for tablet mode like swipe up to go home and swipe up and hold for multitasking and swipe in from the left to go back and split screen mode and all that kind of stuff. Those things are all kind of new, honestly right now, and they're behaving quite well on this tablet, already they're only going to get better, and ultimately it's made for a really nice kind of fun.

Tablet experience and that's just not been something I've been able to say about Chrome OS tablets. Honestly, it's always been lurching and slow and sluggish and dropped animations and even with a processor. That's not, you know, top of its class and best-in-class and the fastest thing you've ever used. This thing gets along pretty well, and I get to use all those gestures and kind of move stuff around, and it feels I, don't know, dare I, say it a little more iPad issue and that's in a good way, because iPads are nice and smooth they're fast, and they're the experience on tablets. A lot of people are used to, while this isn't as smooth as an iPad I.

Don't want to say that the gesture and navigation system that is being used now kind of does feel like that, and it mimics what you see on Android now and what is starting to feel cohesively as the way that you move around a touchscreen device, and so I'm glad to see the developers for Chrome OS start to implement all this stuff, and I'm glad to see that the Lenovo Chromebook duet actually uses all of these gestures well and does a good job at rendering all of them on screen. Another benefit here is battery life and I. Think Lenovo says something like 10 to 12 hours, and I was easily getting that of use time, if not more sometimes I mean there were times. I was clicking on the battery in the bottom. It said something like 16 or 17 hours left at like 90% I, don't think you're going to get this kind of numbers, but if you're looking the crews above 10 hours of use time, this thing is going to do that easily and that's pretty awesome, and that's thanks mainly in part due to that ARM architecture that arm that's inside, because they are very, very easy on the battery and while you may lose a tad bit of performance because of that you're gaining a ton of battery performance here- and this thing is an all-day champ, no questions.

Another benefit to that arm. Architecture- that's running in here is the fact that Android games run really, really well and Android apps across the board. Do because ultimately, Android apps are written for ARM processors first, and then they can add x86 or Intel type chips support later and because of this, I was able to run all sorts of games and applications way better than I would have expected to and honestly some games, like Call of Duty mobile, for instance, that I can't even get to get past like the main menu screens on intel-based Chromebooks not only ran on this thing, but was completely playable super enjoyable actually to jump into matches and play, and so it's worth thinking about again. This is a tablet first, so a lot of people are going to be installing Android apps on here, and it runs Android apps really well. Another benefit that you get here again.

This is a tablet. First, is the ability to use a USI stylus once they become available, and I have to throw that in there, because, as we're filming, this they're very hard to get your hands on Lenovo hasn't even released their own USI stylus. They say this coming very soon, so, hopefully, in the next few weeks, maybe a couple of months we'll see Lenovo's own branded, USI stylus, so I can't really say much about this stylus support and how well it does or doesn't work at this point, because I don't have their stylus to use with it yet, but eventually you'll just be able to buy a USI stylus pick up this tablet jot notes and Google keep or squid or whatever your note-taking app is of choice or if you want to draw or doodle or any of those types of things. This thing will support all styluses that are USI certified. So at this point it's pretty clear to see this is a well-built attractive fun to use crazy, affordable, Chromebook, tablet and I.

Think Lenovo has done a great job here and changing this narrative where I honestly, up to this point to this device, have thought in a Chrome OS on tablets. I just don't know where the benefit is I. Don't know that it's something I want to use. I feel like the duet, is changing that, and it's changing it for me, I'm not even a tablet, guy I'm someone who I'm either on my phone large screen phone or I'm going to pick up my Chromebook and while that's still the case for me, I, don't know that I'm going to go to this device all the time for everything. Furthermore, I found myself using it in situations.

Furthermore, I, probably wouldn't have thought of using a tablet before sitting on the couch. Looking up some stuff doing some shopping, checking social media reading the news casting YouTube TV, some of those things that I've relegated to my phone and wished I had a bigger screen on it's been nice to be able to expand that screen and not have to feel like I've got to get out of it Chromebook to do so. So, if you're, a tablet user, and you're in the market for something you can get a few extra things done on. This is a great device if you're a Chromebook user, and you're. Looking for a quick on the ghost small thing that can be stowed in the back, this is a great device.

If you're looking for something for your kids, that's super affordable, it looks great it's going to perform well. This is a great device. It's going to fit in well to a lot of people's use cases and I think that's what Lenovo was going for. It and I think they've kind of hit the nail right on the head, especially at this price point so when it does become available and there are more in stock because right now, it's hard to find this is something I would easily say and go and buy it. If you look at it and think I'd, like this thing, you're probably going to like it, and it's easy to recommend at this kind of price point, but guys, that's it for this one.

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Source : Chrome Unboxed