Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook Review

Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook Review

Specifications

• Brand: Lenovo
• Model Name: Lenovo Chromebook Duet
• Screen Size: 10.1 Inches
• Colour: Ice Blue + Iron Grey
• Hard Disk Size: 64 GB
• RAM Memory Installed Size: 64 GB

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Introduction

If you are in the market for a fun tablet that doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket, this Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook is the perfect pick! Lenovo has some great budget offerings in the tablet space and this Chromebook seems too good to be true at this price point. It even surpasses other good Chromebooks such as HP Chromebook X360 Intel Celeron.

So, let us take a peek at what makes the Lenovo Duet 5 ‘The Best Chromebook’ that we have seen so far…

Design

The Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook comes in 2 colours, Storm Grey and Abyss Blue with a two-tone aluminium finish. It has very thin bezels on all four sides of the screen and the tablet itself is ultra-thin. However, the tablet feels quite sturdy even without the included keyboard. Additionally, the inclusion of USB C ports on both sides of the tablet helps in charging the tablet from either side. Another aspect worth considering is that since it has a wide aspect ratio of 16:9 with a thin profile, carrying it around feels a bit bulky. On the other hand, it is perfect for consuming content such as videos.

Configurations

The Lenovo Duet 5 comes in various configurations based on the ROM and RAM availability. You can either get 4 GB or 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM running at 2133 MHz soldered onto the motherboard. You can also choose between either 64 GB, 128 GB or 256 GB of eMMC ROM. However, there is no external SD card slot and hence, the ROM cannot be expanded. Since we are talking about configurations, we need to mention that all of the models come with an accelerometer, proximity sensor, gyroscope and Hall sensor. It also comes preloaded with Android Studio, Google Assistant and Google Play Store.

Performance

Performance is a strong suit of the Lenovo Duet 5 considering its price point. The 2nd Gen Qualcomm Snapdragon 7C 7180 chipset has 8 Kyro 468 cores running at 2.55 GHz is much faster than the 1st Gen of the same chip running inside the HP Chromebook X2 11, which is the other Chromebook in the same price range. While the HP starts lagging even while using Chrome browser with multiple tabs open, the Lenovo is able to function smoothly with no lag at all. It is adequate for what we expect a Chromebook to do. It is even able to run the Andriod apps smoothly without any hiccup due to the onboard Qualcomm Adreno GPU.

Display

Being a tablet 2-in-1, the 13.3″ FHD OLED touchscreen with 400 nits brightness is a showstopper. It is also VESA HDR 500 ready, which assures you that watching HDR content on this screen is going to be absolutely stunning visually. It also covers 100% of the DCI-P3 gamut, which further helps in enhancing its appeal for light content creation work too. All of these standards and technology ensures that you get absolutely sharp and vibrant images and videos, especially if it is from a streaming service that supports VESA HDR. The viewing angles are also excellent at 170 degrees and it has a contrast ratio of 100000:1 thereby providing deep blacks for that theatrical appeal.

Audio

The audio component of the Lenovo Duet 5 is also well thought out with a quad-speaker setup comprising of four 1W speakers. They get pretty loud, which is enough for media consumption indoors; do not expect deep bass though as is the case with most speakers due to their housing in thin and light devices. However, a glaring lack is the omission of the 3.5 mm headphone jack, which means that you would require a pair of wireless earphones to connect with the tablet.

Input

As for the input of the Lenovo Duet 5, we have 2 options, touchscreen and keyboard-trackpad combo. The 10 point touchscreen is fairly responsive to the touch and it was able to register every touch accurately. The non-backlit keyboard is also fairly good when it comes to tablet standards. There is enough key travel to help you type for long and the entire keyboard housing is sturdy enough to be placed on your lap like a laptop. Where the input lack a bit is the trackpad. The buttonless trackpad has a matte feel to it and it feels finicky while using. However, being a touchscreen, it is not much of an issue. One more vital aspect of the tablet is the cameras. It comes with 8 MP rear and 5 MP front cameras that are average for their use case.

Battery

The battery is another strong suit of the Lenovo Duet 5. The integrated Li-Polymer 42Wh battery lasts for 15.5 hours under the Google power load test, which is quite impressive for its price range. Even in regular daily usage such as binge-watching and average internet usage, it lasts for 12-14 hours. Even if you start playing games on it at full brightness, you can still expect it to last 8-10 hours. Lenovo has also provided Rapid Charge technology in it that charges the tablet up to 80% in 1 hour.

Connectivity

The Lenovo Duet 5 comes with the standard wireless connectivity options found in tablets such as 802.11 ac (2×2) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.1. It also has a decent number of ports such as 2 USB 3.2 Type-C Gen 1 connectors that supports both Power Delivery 3.0 and Display Port 1.4 protocols. Hence, it can also be connected to an external monitor since the onboard SoC also supports the same. Additionally, an extra connector is the 5-point Pogo pin which is used to attach the keyboard with the tablet. Some omissions include a lack of a card reader of any kind, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, a dedicated fingerprint reader and an ethernet port. However, considering that it is a tablet, that is expected.

Conclusion

As we have seen until now, the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook ticks all the right boxes and comes very close to being an ideal Chromebook. However, a lacklustre trackpad and a lack of some legacy connectors prevent it from achieving that title. We would still recommend it over other Chromebooks in the same price range. In fact, it is ideal for anyone looking for a Chromebook for daily usages such as office work, media consumption and internet browsing.