Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5 Review: Best Detachable Tablet Yet?
It was very portable and light, but it had that cool detachable keyboard. Well, we have a very similar device and this, but its also much larger, with a full sized keyboard. So im excited to give you my thoughts on it and to give you a full review today. So with all that being said, lets get straight into it and lets get it going all right. So ive got this here, its 13 inches of a tablet. It runs chrome os, but on the other end it has this full size keyboard. Now i want to say right off the bat if youve been waiting for a detachable tablet with a full size keyboard that feels just like a laptop. This is going to be very, very appealing to you, because you have this keyboard right here and im just going to start off this review by saying this is one of the best keyboards ive used on any detachable tablet. That is one reason why this is such an exciting device to review, because we finally have a device with a full screen. Its also very lightweight. This tablet feels very very light, and you have this nice kickstand, which is also very light, but you still have a full 13 inch screen and we havent seen really anything like this. Really in quite a while i mean the last device similar to this was the pixel slate and it was very, very heavy. This is a really fun device to review.
So i want to review it here and give you my honest thoughts, but lets jump right into it and look at the design. So if we look at this here, we have two speakers here, a usbc port – and we have this right here, which is the power button. On the other side, you see two speakers and another usbc port, and you just see a volume rocker up and down on the volume here at the top and of course it detaches the keyboard on the bottom of the device. So when we look at the design of the tablet, its really nice, the speakers are not as good as i would have hoped. Theyre, not quite as good theyre decent, but not great and thats. Really my opinion of these speakers, but im really glad that you could actually charge this device from both sides on the usb c ports thats a really big bonus. Now, if we look at the back of the tablet, youre going to see the color here – and you will notice right here – some fingerprints – it can get some fingerprints or some grease and stuff stuck to it – thats pretty normal for this. But you do have a really nice design. I like the color of it, its very similar again to that old, lenovo, chromebook duet. And if you see this, this is the kickstand case that magnetizes to the back and youre gon na notice that its very lightweight its even lighter than the previous chromebook duet and its very, very thin.
So thats awesome, and it has quite a few angles on it. So i really like this better than even the asus cm3 kickstand. I know that one can go in portrait mode, but this one can also go further back, so you get so many different viewing angles with it. So i really love it, and the fabric has a really cool texture to it. Its very very nice – and i dont think the fabric is going to wear down its really really difficult to get this fabric to wear down just based off of how its designed now, one of the negatives is the fabric over here. This is the fabric for the keyboard and on the last chromebook duet. It was almost like a plastic on the bottom and i actually sort of liked that, because i really dont like the idea of getting this dirty because it is more difficult to clean than a traditional plastic or a aluminum or anything like that. Youre gon na have to either set it on this fabric or this fabric and theres not really much of an in between now. If you were wondering you have this right here, it looks like this is a place for the stylus, but my device did not come with a stylus or a stylus holder, or anything like that. So if you do buy the model from best buy, i would not expect a stylus in the box. Now, if we look at the competition for this its very interesting and its very difficult to judge, because a lot of these tablets just fly on sale and if you compare the design of this, for example, to the hp chromebook x2, it gets very interesting because this Does not have a fingerprint reader that is not a part of the design, but the hp chromebook x2.
It does have a fingerprint reader, its the new 11 inch model that came out very recently, but that device retails at like 600 bucks, but its also went on sale for around 400 and that has a qualcomm snapdragon 7c, its the first gen. This has the second gen and its really weird theyve been advertising it as a first gen, but everything that ive been reading also says its a second gen, so its a little bit of weird information. So keep that in mind, even i cant be 100 sure, but either way theres not a huge difference between those processors. But the reason why i bring up this comparison is because a lot of you might be considering what detachable tablet should i get and if youre not wanting to spend 200 bucks, maybe youre wanting something around four or five hundred dollars, and you might be looking at That hp chromebook x2 – and that is one thing you need to think about – is that device because it does have a fingerprint sensor, but the real big differentiator between that device and this device is really going to be again this keyboard. So, on that hp, chromebook x2, i was accidentally clicking the trackpad all the time. If i simply rested my palms on the track pad, it would accidentally click it, especially when it was on my lap. It didnt really do it on a desk. Well, this does not have that issue now you might be able to accidentally click it if you really play with the bottom of this or something.
But overall i did not have that issue whatsoever on this device and the keyboard itself is so much better than any detachable ive had outside of the service pros. Now the service pros they magnetically attach to the device. So you get a little bit of a better angle. This does not you see here, theres no magnetic attachments here, but on the other end, this works really good. On my lap, it was actually very comfortable typing on my lap and the keyboard has a lot of travel. This is by far my favorite detachable tablet keyboard that ive really had ever since ive started using chrome, os youre, not getting this because its the powerhouse of chrome os, because its the fastest processor in the world youre getting it. Because you want the convenience of using a tablet quite a bit of the time, but maybe you want to get some work done, and this is actually really really good for getting work done now. The trackpad is a little bit iffy. I dont love it. It is a little bit flimsy if im using it on my lap, where i dont have like a lot of support there. It just feels a little bit off. I guess you could say now im not getting any double clicks on mine personally, but im telling you. It is a little bit nicer to use with some extra support like on a desk, its definitely not a glass trackpad, but it is serviceable.
So, in a lot of ways, it does remind me of the trackpad on the chromebook duet. It is just a little bit bigger and im talking about the 10 inch model right. This is very similar to that, but you do get a bigger trackpad. Now, if we move on to performance, youre gon na see well, this device is pretty darn good. Its got a qualcomm snapdragon 7c. It is the second gen now im reviewing the model with eight gigabytes of ram from best buy. There are some models out there with like 256 gigs of storage, but some of those models only come with like four gigabytes of ram right, so theres a lot of variations of this device and theyre normally priced between 400 and 500 dollars. This is a 1080p screen. This is not a 2k resolution so that hp chromebook x2. It has a 2k resolution which is great, but that may affect performance ever so slightly because its got to push all those pixels around and everything like that. So on my model here i didnt notice a ton of lag. I will say its not going to be as good as an i3, its not even going to be as good as the old pixel slate that had an m3, but on the other end performance is still pretty darn good. For me, if im using this with multiple tabs, open five tin, tabs open im, not really experiencing much slow down its more just waiting, a second or two for a website to load.
But i wasnt really experiencing any significant lag gestures when youre using this as a tablet. It is very smooth. Performance is good, relatively speaking, its much better than the old chromebook duet, its much much much better than that chromebook duet, its much better than the asus cm3, and this is about equal id say its a little bit better in performance than the hp chromebook x2. So it is a close battle, but overall remember youre not paying for this device to have the best performance youre paying for this device for two reasons again one you want an amazing device for tablet stuff and for entertainment, but you also want to use this device On the go, so when we look at the display of this device – and we really look at that factor – thats going to be a major selling point, because this has an oled screen, its a 1080p screen right 1920×1080, its a 16×9 aspect ratio. Some of you are not gon na like that, but man that aspect ratio is good on this 13 inch screen, in my opinion, its great for entertainment purposes. This screen does have 400 nits of brightness, so it does get plenty bright enough. It is only 60 hertz on the refresh rate, so its not quite as good as the tab s7 or the tab s7 plus, as far as the refresh rate. But overall this display is pretty darn amazing. So when you think about this device – and i really really want to harp on this here – because you have to ask yourself as a consumer, why would i buy this device if youre primarily looking for a good laptop, and you just want to find the best laptop On the market, this is not a laptop now, you can use it as a laptop, but this is for someone who wants to use their device not primarily as a laptop but as a laptop and a tablet, this isnt the fastest device for five hundred dollars, no Or even four hundred dollars, if and when it goes on sale, im sure it will eventually it doesnt have the best keyboard of any chromebook for that price.
No, what this device does and what its really really good at is doing two things good, so its not the best tablet, no id say the tab s7 or the tab s7 plus they are going to be better tablets for you overall, and is this the best Laptop, i would also say no its, not the best laptop, but its so good at both things and if youre, one of those people that doesnt want to spend money on both, but you want to get a little bit of both worlds. This is an amazing device for that, because you get a 400 nit screen, you get an oled screen. It looks very, very good and you get to watch entertainment. It looks amazing on this 16×9 screen. I think it does look phenomenal right, but its also fast enough to go on the web to do productivity stuff. When i open up google docs and im typing out documents, it does a great job with all of that too. Now, if you want to do some gaming on it, hey you can game on this. Just like you would an android tablet. If you want to do budget work, you could do budget work and chrome. Os is great for that. You could also use the virtual desks, which i love on chrome, os, chrome os also works great with your phone, so you could get your text messages and you could also use your phone as a hotspot very very easily through that connection that you get in this Operating system, so, if youre someone who doesnt need a bunch of fancy, windows, programs and all you really need to use – is a web browser and some android apps.
This is going to be one of the best devices you could get to do both productivity work and tablet work. It wont be as fast as a normal laptop at this price range, but youll also get a better screen, because it is great at tablet. Work right but again it wont be quite as good of a tablet because it wont, for example, have that 120hz screen and ill admit chrome os can be a little bit buggy. So one thing: youll notice is the gestures. Now they are very smooth. Everything seemed great for that, but theres these weird keyboard issues im having – and i even have these issues all the way back on the google pixel slate. So if i go to twitter and i go to reply to a tweet and i go to reply – and i start using the touchscreen keyboard ill notice – that every time i press the spacebar, the keyboard will blink now, just one or two updates ago, before the update That im on today, i was having issues where it was backspacing. Whenever i would press the spacebar, so it was bringing two words together and smashing them together for no reason at all again that was on twitter. That was on reddit. For some reason, it was only happening on certain websites, so these issues that chrome os has been having its just really really. Weird ive also had weird bugs whenever i was using the touchscreen keyboard in google docs and if you try to use the gboard app, which is supposed to work now with chrome os and you try to use it.
Lets say to go to your web address and you start to try to type in a new web address in the address bar. It will start smushing words together for no reason like it will take words from your autocomplete and just smush them together. Realistically, most of these bugs you really dont have to worry about. I mean the only bug that you may notice. If you just use the normal keyboard and you just use it day to day like normal, you might have the keyboard just blink at you. Whenever you press the spacebar outside of that, if you dont use the g board app, i dont think youre gon na see a lot of bugs and i think they will work some of these things out with software updates and this device is gon na get like Eight years of software updates right so thats an amazing thing, but i dont think we should have to wait on that. I mean thats, just something thats annoying. So no, i dont think most of you are going to have a bad experience with the software, but its not quite as good as the experience that you would have on android. So if youre someone out there who is comparing this to the chrome, os landscape right now and if youre wondering, if you should buy this, you have to always remember that it does depend the hp, chromebook x2, its been on sale around 400 and it does have A fingerprint sensor, its also smaller, so if some of you want a smaller chromebook, thats a good option for you, but the keyboard felt almost unusable on my lap.
So if i was using it particularly on my lap, that was not a good option for me. But if you dont care about the keyboard, if youre gon na buy a bluetooth keyboard anyway, and you want a tablet – thats, pretty darn, good, hey – that might be a better option for you. But realistically i do expect this lenovo to go on sale over time as well, and if im trying to give you a recommendation, i would say that even at 500, if youre the target consumer for this device, i really would recommend that you buy this. Yes, theres still some buggy software quirks off and on and no its not as good of a tablet again as something like the s7 and its not as good of a laptop as something like a galaxy chromebook. But when you factor in what this is, if youre a target consumer for this – and you want a laptop like you – only have enough money to get something – thats a laptop or a tablet – you cant buy both and if you want something thats good at both. You only want one device to bring with you. This is a great device for that. Some of you dont care about windows. You dont care about running windows. Applications. You just want something that works good. With google drive google docs. You want something thats really good for the web and you want something that runs android apps.
This gives you all of those things. The keyboard is absolutely great again. This is one of the best keyboards ive ever seen on a detachable device, at least on the chrome os side. It also attaches with magnets, which was a huge issue. Last year with the chromebook due app, you could charge it from both sides. The battery life is amazing on this device. The screen is very, very good and its still fast enough to do some productivity work. I did not notice significant lag when i had three four five: six chrome tabs open and i didnt really notice a lot of lag. Even on the android side, its a phenomenal device – and i think a lot of people should consider it, especially as it gets some updates and especially going on in 2021 and beyond. Thank you all so much for watching. I really really appreciate it feel free to give me a like and give me a sub and also hey if you have a little bit of time, follow me on twitter at twitter.com, slash, digest android, where i talk about all types of random android things and also Check out some of my other videos, i focus a lot on budget tablets, tablets in the mid range and i focus on android tablets, chromebook tablets and also some phones as well, so feel free to check out some videos. And i hope you all have a great day.
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