Lenovo - Chromebook Duet - 10.1"- Tablet - 128GB - With Keyboard - Ice Blue + Iron Gray

This is a great little device. Build quality is excellent. Screen is bright and colorful. Performance is snappy on the browser, and even better with Android apps/games (never quite realized how an ARM processor on a Chromebook can make such a difference compared to an Intel in this regard). Google Stadia games run great as well. Keyboard is quite good, despite the cramped punctuation keys on the right side, and the magnetic attachment is very secure. Stereo speakers are a bit tinny but plenty loud. Battery life is supposed to be great as well, although I haven't had it long enough to put it through its paces. Lenovo advertises 10 hours on a charge, but many reviewers have been observing 10-12 hours, depending on the activity. The included charger is not a fast charger, but that's ok -- I have plenty of fast chargers lying around at home that are compatible. Software support is terrific -- this is one of the first Chromebooks to have a guaranteed 8 years of Chrome OS updates (through June 2028), which is up from 5-6 years for previous Chromebooks. I think Lenovo did a a bang-up job with this device -- one almost wonders if it was a mistake (given the astonishingly low price) or if the higher ups in the company just let the Chromebook division do whatever it wanted to do without really paying attention. It really is the spiritual successor to the Pixel C (or what the Pixel C was supposed to be in the first place -- a Chromebook), and is now an excellent option for those bemoaning the lack of good Android tablets.

I purchased two of the Lenovo Duet Chromebooks (to replace two aging ASUS Flip C100P Chromebooks)--one for each of our school age boys. While the ASUS provided a great starter Chromebook experience to introduce our boys to a blend of web and android apps, it was starting to noticeably age and programs were not working as well anymore. When I heard about the Duet earlier this year, I immediately started to follow the news and preordered two from BB at the end of April. After all the wait and hype, I was not disappointed. For my kids, this is by far the best value for the money and gives them everything they need for virtual school and beyond. Prior to having the Duet, our boys would use a mix of their Chromebooks and Amazon Fire Tablets for school/apps/media consumption. Now with the Duet, they are no longer interested in their Amazon Fire Tablets and use their Chromebooks for all school/apps/media consumption. The screen quality as well as the included keyboard and kickstand make this a great device for them and relatively easy to use. As a parent, having controls that are easy to set up and maintain over what they can access on the web through supervising their accounts with Google Family Link makes the experience of a Chromebook highly preferable to either pure Android/Apple devices (and I own and use both). In addition to the Lenovo Duet Chromebook, we purchased two of the HP USI Rechargeable Styluses (directly from HP as they are not yet available through BB) to augment their Duets. I'll also briefly mention that access for a line-in audio only through the one USB-C port does not hinder our ability to use the devices as our boys use reasonably priced Bluetooth Headphones (EasySM brand from Amazon) which pair and stay connected without any problems. The combination of the Duet, the USI Stylus, and Bluetooth Headphones is an amazing blend that all work well together. So glad that we found the Lenovo Duet Chromebook and I would highly recommend it for those looking for both a great value and high quality Chromebook for their kids!

I brought it to my grandson Clayton yesterday. He set it up himself and is having fun finding out all that he can do with it! He will be doing his class school work on it daily.

Disclaimer: I have never owned a tablet, so some of my comments may be over/under critical, or just general to tablets. Will probably update this review after more time with it, but these are my initial impressions. First off, I bought the Duet because I have been wanting an alternative to my laptop that I could take on both fun trips to check/write emails and watch movies on flights, but also work trips to get light work done and give presentations. Going to list the pros and cons I’ve encountered so far, but you can skip to the end for my overall thoughts. Pros - Really nice and bright display - Super light tablet without the keyboard and cover I was hesitant about the forced style choices (Blue accent and cloth cover), but I actually really dig it in person. Really good looking device. - The sound is not nearly as bad as I expected. I use bluetooth headphones nearly 99% of the time anyways, but it’s good to know the sound quality is decent without them; just don’t expect them to be loud. - Quick responsiveness and no real lag with apps (although I’ll get more into that in the cons...) - Love the auto unlock feature when your phone is nearby The boot speed is very fast, makes me second guess whether I actually turned it off - The keyboard is fantastic. Nothing will ever beat my Thinkpad X1 keyboard, but the quality here is great and it’s very easy to type on despite the size. Surprised to hear that people are facing issues with it. - Battery life is solid. We’ll see how this changes when I actually use it for its intended purpose, but around the house it has barely drained. Cons - The cover: It is surprisingly heavy. Feels as if the weight doubles when you put it on, and you really need it on most of the time since it has the kickstand. Really wish the kickstand was just part of the device, but I guess it’s a nice protection. - The weight in general: When everything is connected, this guy weighs 2 lbs ( just 1lb less than my laptop). It’s not terrible, but it’s surprising. I appreciate that the tablet is < 1lb, but after using it for a bit, I really feel like I’ll have the cover and keyboard on it more often than not. - The camera: I’m not planning on really taking pictures with it, but I was hoping for a bit more from the front-facing camera since I might use it for video conferences. - Apps: This is where we get into maybe general Android territory. Some apps behave very strangely in landscape mode. When the keyboard is connected, Instagram crops to portrait mode which... looks silly. If you take the keyboard off and enter tablet mode, the Duet refuses to rotate to landscape mode at all. With Facebook, the app does enter landscape mode, but you can’t scroll from the left side of the screen, only the right. Most apps work normally in either view, but this is a little annoying. - Display resolution: This is issue has been better described here (https://chromeunboxed.com/lenovo-chromebook-duet-extended-display-broken-usb-c/), but long story short, the Duet limits the resolution when your try to mirror the display on a larger screen. When I tried to test showing a presentation, it was noticeably boxed (see pictures attached with comparison to my laptop) which makes me hesitant about using it for work presentations. Overall: Let’s be honest, in the end the price is fantastic and makes many of the cons acceptable. The Duet is a solid little device that does exactly what I need it to do, albeit with some limitations (the most important of which can potentially be fixed with software updates?). Great display, portability, speed, and functionality for what I need out of a 2-in-1.

This is my first chromebook. So far so good. I bought it because of the hype and Lenovo products are dependable.

I've been using this Chromebook, believe it or not as my mobile gaming device. Google Stadia and xCloud work very well on this tablet/2in1. The screen is bright and very colorful. A really solid display. The tablet itself is light, but when you add the back cover stand and keyboard, it definitely at least doubles the weight. However it more than manageable. You'll be able to game (android apps) and again with streaming services very well. Watching videos and browsing definitely perform well. The cons of the device is the 1 USB C port, but if you have a usb hub, you should be fine. If you can, go to your local store and buy the tablet. If you opt for shipping from best buy, plan to be waiting much longer than necessary. My tablet was just 25 minutes away and UPS continually failed to deliver the Duet, even after tracking showed it was on the truck to be delivered. Unfortunately because of the delay, I wasn't able to take it with me on a recent trip, but instead had to pack my 5lb Zenbook Pro Duo. Overall, it's a great device, performs well, with 8 years of the device getting updates, the keyboard and back cover kickstand, this tablet is an incredible deal! I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this device to family and friends!

I am one of the lucky guys who was able to purchase it when they first launched. I noticed this model is hard to find and sold out quickly. I am not surprise and I know why. This is because for $299, you get a well built chromebook tablet with a nice fabric case, which comes with a Microsoft surface style kickstand and most importantly, there is a keyboard, the keyboard is great specially it is included with the tablet. I personally owned the Pixelbook, and the Asus 10" chromebook, I can tell you this device is great for everyday use. The FHD screen is very nice with the bright screen. Although I noticed there are some hiccups when there are too many apps opened, but still, I think this device is great for lot of people. Specially, I gave this device to my 3rd grade son for his zoom class and other school work. It is perfect for him. So, if you are reading this, I am sure you are interested in this chromebook. Just get it and you should be happy with it.

My Lenovo Duet arrived a couple days early and I’ve now had a chance to set it up and play around with it a bit. I’ll give my impressions here and compare it to some other ultraportable possibilities I own, both less expensive and more expensive. All the things you’ve probably already read about the Duet are true – with keyboard and stand attached, its weight doubles, it’s not the fastest processor in the world, the speakers aren’t the greatest, the keyboard isn’t backlit, etc. Despite those issues, there is a lot to love about this little Chromebook – the screen is very good, they keyboard is great given its size, it will get 8 years of updates, the battery life is great, it gives you the web, Android and Linux in one very portable machine, etc. Again, the stuff you’ve already read is true; I found no real surprises. So… As soon as it was fully charged, and fully updated, I went to work loading it up with Google Play and Linux apps. So far, I’ve put the following on my Duet, and everything mostly seems to be working nicely: GOOGLE PLAY APPS Books/E-reader Kindle App, Kindle Cloud Reader, Adobe Acrobat, Cloud Library, Overdrive Business/Education Canvas Student, Zoom, TinyScanner, Linked In News AP News, BBC News, NPR News, Washington Post, Google News, Guardian Games Into the Dead, Odyssey, Pinball Arcade, Plague Inc., Ruzzle, Doodle Jump, Frontiers, Race the Sun, Salty Seas, Rush Rally 3, Dropwords 2, Bonza, Twelvesmith, PewPew2 Traditional Games Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Gin Rummy, Four-in-a Row, Hearts, Euchre, Sudoku, Reversi, Go, Solitaire, Spades Video Hulu, Prime Video, Netflix, Stream, VLC MS Office MS Word, MS Excel, MS One Note, MS PowerPoint Music PowerAmp, Relax Melodies, Amazon Music, Pandora Traditional Music Trad Musician, TunePal, TEFPad, TEFView, Tempo, Music Speed Changer Other 1Weather, Google Keep, City Mapper, Next Radio, Insight Timer, Snapseed LINUX APPS GIMP, FileZilla, Pithos, Firefox ESR There are some issues I keep encountering here and there. When I run GIMP, for example, the cursor doesn’t always align completely with the menu options. There are ways around this (eg, using the arrow keys), but it’s still annoying. Sometimes apps such as Kindle open up in tiny portrait windows while in landscape mode, but then open up full screen when immediately relaunched. I have not yet figured out what's causing that. When I open 1Weather it crashes if I try to see the weather hourly for my location. Just little issues like this that I keep experiencing. Part of this may be due to my unfamiliarity with Chrome OS, but part of it is Chrome OS itself in how it's handling Android apps. Also, Linux apps are not spared; I installed Pithos without a problem, yet I couldn't get any audio. A little web sleuthing quickly taught me that this is an issue with Chrome OS' implementation of Linux; Google hasn't added support for hardware acceleration of audio for Linux yet. So while not all of these issues are the fault of the Duet itself (and therefore I will not lower my rating because of them), they are annoying and it's worth knowing that Google Play Apps and Linux implementation isn't perfect. On the positive side, most things are working quite well, and the Duet is fast enough for doing the kinds of things I'm most likely to do with it. I am typing this review, for example, in Chrome browser with 5 tabs open, Amazon Music streaming in the background, and with Google Drive, the Kindle app, and Google Keep open. Everything is quite responsive, no lagging of any kind. My bluetooth mouse is working flawlessly...I don't really ask for much more of a device like this. Ultimately, the good definitely outweighs the bad and I’m willing to cut this little machine a bit of slack given its $299.99 price tag. I actually think the Duet is great for what it is, and is definitely worth the money (for the 128GB version). But what if you don’t have $300 to spend and still want something super portable for media consumption/productivity/light gaming? And what if you have more to spend but still want something tiny like this? I own and have access to many tablets and laptops, and I think there are two options (maybe three) also worth considering in those cases. First, though, let me just state that I recognize that if you want a Chromebook, you may have no interest in cross-shopping non-Chromebooks. But if you *do* want to, or are able to, keep your options open, here are those possibilities: On the cheaper side, there is the Fire 10 tablet (the latest one). Don’t be so quick to dismiss this one. It’s is easy to find them on sale, sometimes for as low as a third of the price of the Duet. There are several very good keyboard cases that can be purchased for it, and you can easily pair a Bluetooth mouse to it as well. It’s also easy to add the Google Play store to a Fire tablet. If you do these things, you can have a very compelling piece of ultraportable kit for half of the price of the Duet. True, it’s a less elegant solution, it’s a little bigger and a little heavier, and yes it has less ram and less space for files, but it also has better sound, a headphone jack, expandable memory...I’ve used this exact setup frequently and it works extremely well. If you have more to spend, you might consider a Surface Go. I have the original model with 8GB ram and a 128SSD. I paid a couple hundred more than the cost of the Duet for a bundle with the alcantara keyboard cover. That gets you a lighter option with better audio, headphone jack, expandable storage, but again, it’s significantly more money. (Though now with the Surface Go 2 available there will be deals on the original). It’s also a full-fledged desktop OS, and is more powerful in that sense than any Chromebook or Android tablet. Also, don’t be fooled by its low-end processor; it is possible to set up a Go to be a surprisingly responsive little 2-in-1. I actually game on mine, including first-person shooters at over 60 FPS (just keep the resolution down and use low options). You could also consider an iPad with a keyboard cover as well. I own a 2017 iPad Pro, and while there are many great things about it, for me, iPadOS just isn’t powerful enough yet to let me do the things I want to do, the way I want to do them. I ended up giving my iPad/keyboard cover and pen to my wife, who absolutely loves it. There is no doubt that it is extremely quick and responsive compared to pretty much any android tablet and most Chromebooks. To sum up, I think the Lenovo Duet is priced appropriately and slots in nicely between a cheap Android tablet and a more expensive 2-1. This is not (in my opinion) a laptop replacement, but you can do a surprising amount with it. If you can live with the limitations of ChromeOS, and the limitations of this device specifically (no expandable storage, no headphone jack, single USB-C port, etc.) I think you will be pleased with your purchase.