Lenovo Chromebook Duet review

Our Verdict

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is a long lasting ii-in-1 that actually includes its keyboard.

For

Excellent battery life
Sharp, colorful screen
Surprisingly affordable
Especially with keyboard included
ChromeOS tablet optimizations

Against

Cramped keyboard
Hinge is a bit flimsy

Tom'southward Guide Verdict

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is a long lasting 2-in-i that actually includes its keyboard.

Pros

+
Excellent battery life
+
Precipitous, colorful screen
+
Surprisingly affordable
+
Particularly with keyboard included
+
ChromeOS tablet optimizations

Cons

-
Cramped keyboard
-
Hinge is a bit flimsy

Lenovo Chromebook Duet Specs

Toll: $249 (64GB eMMC)
CPU: ii.0GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio P60T
Graphics: ARM G72 MP3
Display: x.i inches, 1920 x 1200 pixels
Retention: 4GB
Storage: 64GB eMMC, 128GB eMMC
Size: ix.64 x vi.66 10 0.71 inches (docked)
Weight: 2 pounds (docked)
Ports: USB-C
Wi-Fi: 802.eleven a/b/g/n/ac

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is, in a mode, exactly what I've wanted Apple and Microsoft (amongst others) to release. Information technology's a $249 tablet with a detachable keyboard that comes included by default, so y'all're not paying extra for the laptop experience. We're too pretty impressed by its fantastic bombardment life, as well equally some neat new tablet optimizations for Chrome.

The biggest problem I institute while writing this Lenovo Chromebook Duet review is that its typing experience is hampered by a weird keyboard layout and weak-feeling keys. That being said, the Lenovo Chromebook Duet'south a must-consider for families looking for a shared device effectually the house; the low price tag, packed-in keyboard, and lengthy battery life effectively get in one of the best ii-in-1 laptops you can buy when price is paramount. It's so practiced, in fact, that it won the honour for best budget laptop and a recommendation for best Chromebook in our Tom's Guide Awards 2021.

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Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Price and availability

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet came out in May 2020, with an original MSRP of $279.

Lenovo at present sells the Chromebook Duet for $249. A year of accidental damage protection bumps the pricing up to $271.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Design

The Chromebook Duet is an all-in-1 parcel, just you can see where some costs were cut to get to that $249 starting price. For example, the kickstand it uses to stand upright isn't every bit strong or rigid as that of the Surface Go ii.

While its tablet shell is made of aluminum blend — which is dandy, don't get me wrong — that material is subconscious past the overall casing, as the back plate has a fabric cloth and its keyboard'southward underside is plastic. Later on attaching the keyboard and back cover slice to the tablet, and holding it in my hands, I immediately noticed how the keyboard didn't desire to stay in identify, and moved around as I held the docked tablet and keyboard in my hands.

The setup process, connecting the tablet, cover and keyboard, couldn't be easier. The fabric-covered back plate snaps on with potent magnets, and the keyboard attaches magnetically besides, connecting to the tablet via pogo pin connectors — simply like the Surface Become Type Comprehend and iPad Smart Keyboard. Detaching the tablet from the comprehend and keyboard is one stride also complicated, as yous take to remove each item separately.

The Chromebook Duet'due south comprehend is necessary because you need its kickstand, which works most of the fourth dimension but feels a trivial frustrating. Several times when trying to deploy the kickstand, I've pulled on the unabridged back plate, because the fiddling edge where your fingers are supposed to grab onto for the kickstand is ever then slight, almost equally if they're optimized for kids' fingers.

Minus the keyboard and back plate, the Chromebook Duet tablet measures 0.3 inches thick and weighs simply nether a pound. That'due south slightly lighter than the 2019 10.2-inch iPad (0.3 inches, i.i pounds) and the Surface Get 2 (1.2 pounds, 0.3 inches). Attached, the Chromebook Duet measures 0.vii inches thick and weighs 2.1 pounds, which makes it lighter than the Samsung Chromebook 4 (0.7 inches, two.6 pounds).

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Ports

Lenovo'southward gone a bit light on ports, keeping information technology simple with only a single USB-C, which you'll use for charging and connecting any accessories, such as the included headphone adapter. Ability and volume buttons sit on that same edge.

That USB-C port supported the USB-C hub I utilise to extend my MacBook Pro's brandish, providing a dual-screen experience and letting me utilise my wired keyboard and wireless mouse with the Duet. The only flaw I hitting there was that keyboard shortcuts didn't piece of work equally predictable, and then I'd need to download a key mapping extension for customization.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Display

Watching the Fast & Furious 9 trailer on the Chromebook Duet's 10.i-inch, 1920 x 1200-pixel panel, I noted crisp picture quality and solid color reproduction. The panel is sharp enough for me to come across the interlocking links of Dom's silver chain (even when viewed from a distance) and his cherry red tractor rendered accurately. Similarly, woods ferns surrounding a humvee rendered in a verdant dark-green and Dom'southward long-sleeve shirts bore a crisp white, as if they were fresh out of the wash.

Our colorimeter rates the Chromebook Duet every bit producing 106% of the sRGB spectrum, which is close to the 105% rating from the iPad and the 107% rating from the Surface Go 2. The Samsung Chromebook 4 notched a lowly 64%.

The Chromebook Duet emits upward to 372 nits, which enables a wide range of viewing angles, as I saw colors only slightly darken when I viewed videos from over 30 degrees to the left and right. The Duet proved brilliant enough for clear film quality, but not strong enough to eliminate the glare and reflections picked up from natural lighting in every spot in my apartment. The iPad (450 nits) and Surface Become 2 (408 nits) get brighter, while the Samsung Chromebook 4 is much dimmer.

Navigating the net and Chrome OS, I found the Chromebook Duet'due south touchscreen display accurate at registering touches and swipes. Dragging icons around the screen, I noticed a little bit of lag, specially moving apps around the drawer, but it's the kind of functioning issue you can accept at this price.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Keyboard and touchpad

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet'due south keyboard will be swell for some, and tricky for others. I clicked my mode to 67 words per minute with 90 pct accuracy on the 10fastfingers typing test. That's a bit of a fall from my fourscore wpm/98% averages, and I aspect those dips to the keys not having much feedback at all and how the layout feels a little cramped.

Those with smaller hands, especially children, might non mind the keyboard layout, just I rapidly realized I'd have a tough time. That's because of the keyboard's comma, period, minus, equals, bracket, semicolon and apostrophe keys are all narrower than the normal keys. I'd probably adapt to information technology if a parent handed me this keyboard when I was a kid, but I have no affinity for this keyboard today.

The Chromebook Duet'southward 3.iv 10 1.9-inch touchpad proved acceptable at enabling scrolling web pages and navigating Chrome Bone. I even discovered that ChromeOS has a "see all open apps" function, where you swipe up with 3 fingers.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Sound

Listening to Fiona Apple's album "Fetch the Commodities-cutters," make full my relatively large living room on the Chromebook Duet, I fabricated notes virtually the good, the bad, and the non-there. While her vocals were clear and well-baked enough, loftier pitched instruments sounded a footling precipitous and the album'south bass was non existent.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Performance

The Chromebook Duet runs on a Mediatek Helio P60T 2.0GHz octa-core CPU and 4GB of RAM, which provides enough speed for low-cal multitasking. I was worried near how poor it would perform (Mediatek processors take never inspired much confidence), so I started off slow, splitting my screen between a 1080p YouTube video of J. Kenji López-Alt cooking smashburgers and a few Chrome tabs.

The Duet stayed snappy and responsive as I moved between tabs and scrolled up and downwardly. Operation stayed reliable as I added more tabs, including the Google Doc for this review. Only once I hit 11 tabs open up alongside cooking videos, the Duet started to lag. Tabs paused slightly while loading, as I navigated between them. The bigger frustration I constitute came while watching YouTube, every bit it took nearly ii.v seconds for videos to resize.

Benchmark testing showed how the Chromebook Duet is outclassed by the slightly more than expensive competitors. For instance, the Duet earned a 5,526 on the Geekbench 4 full general operation criterion (running via Google Play emulation), which fell under the vi,815 from the Surface Go 2 (Intel 8th Gen Core m3 processor, 8GB of RAM), merely above the iii,613 from the Samsung Chromebook four (Intel Celeron 3000N processor and 4GB of RAM).

On the JetStream 2 benchmark, which tests web browser awarding performance, the Chromebook Duet posted a 31.9. That'southward less than the 49 from the Samsung Chromebook 4, the 74.9 from the Surface Go 2 and a fraction of the iPad's 91.9. The WebXPRT 3 examination, which tests with HTML5 and JavaScript-based scenarios, handed the Chromebook Duet a score of 58. The iPad (92) and Surface Get 2 (139) posted much college scores.

To test its gaming chops, I downloaded 2 Android games: the cartoonish Alto's Adventure and the more-realistic Asphalt 9 racing game. While both ran at playable speeds (neither is exactly ultra enervating), the latter ran with a small stutter, even in its opening credits.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Battery Life

The Chromebook Duet provides serious endurance, enough to be passed around the family all twenty-four hours long. On our battery test (web surfing at 150 nits), the Duet posted a fourth dimension of 12 hours and 47 minutes, which beats the iPad (10:07), the Surface Become 2 (eleven:38) and the Samsung Chromebook 4 (10:36).

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Webcam and camera

Tablets are not great cameras, and neither is the Lenovo Chromebook Duet. Yes, even in the work from home era, the 2-megapixel front-facing photographic camera is best described as adequate. Selfies I shot on the slate show that while you'll await recognizable, in that location won't be much detail, and then don't expect this to be the device you shoot your quarantine vlog on.

The rear-mounted 8MP camera in the Duet is also not smashing, peculiarly when daylight hits its sensors. When I took information technology exterior for a brief walk in downtown Manhattan, all the shots I took were washed out or blown out, if the blue heaven was involved. Only closeups of flowers looked at all decent, though they lacked detail, with a fuzzy look.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: ChromeOS evolves for tablets

Chrome OS' first big pivot was to Android apps, with Google Play access. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet marks the platform's push to bear on, with tablet mode optimizations yous'll only see when the keyboard is detached. My favorite of these features is the new tabs interface in Chrome. Tap the number box (a 1 within a box, if you accept no tabs) and you'll open up a row of tabs at the peak of the screen, with a big + button for new tabs. It's a groovy way to brand utilise of the large tablet screen.

Navigation gestures (edge swipes to go backwards and forwards) aren't actually a big revelation, but I am happy to run into that web apps in Chrome act similar their mobile app counterparts. Take YouTube, for example, where taps on the left and right sides of the screen rewind and fast forward. I still want Desktop Chrome to offer this.

While you lot've been able to split the ChromeOS screen betwixt two windows, they've added a new drag and drop way to do it. Swipe up from the lesser of the screen to see the blackness bar, which shows you all of your open up windows. Then, drag open windows to each side of the screen.

Google Assistant'southward still proving clever in ChromeOS. The pair of far-field microphones in the Chromebook Duet make it easier to set things up by saying "OK, Google," and making some verbal commands. When I asked nearly my calendar appointments for the rest of the calendar week, it fifty-fifty got a piddling cute, saying "At 6pm tomorrow you have yoga, namaste."

Lenovo Chromebook Duet review: Verdict

This Lenovo Chromebook Duet review shows why information technology should garner deserved attention for its value proffer, giving you a ii-in-1 with a solid screen and long endurance for less than the iPad or Surface Go 2 toll, before their keyboards. If only its keyboard weren't and then cramped and its swivel felt a bit more solid.

Those who opt for the Surface Go two for its faster functioning and superior 2-in-1 pattern, you'll be dropping about an hour of battery life and paying at least $221 more than afterward throwing in the Blazon Cover keyboard. Simply for families looking for a device that everyone can use, from kids watching YouTube to parents drafting emails, the Lenovo Chromebook Duet is a compelling option.

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Henry is a senior editor at Tom's Guide covering streaming media, laptops and all things Apple, reviewing devices and services for the by six-plus years. Prior to joining Tom'southward Guide, he reviewed software and hardware for TechRadar Pro, and interviewed artists for Patek Philippe International Magazine. He's also covered the wild world of professional wrestling for Cageside Seats, interviewing athletes and other manufacture veterans.