Longer than a year after it was unveiled, Lenovo’s category-defining Chromebook Duet is getting a sequel. The Chromebook Duet 5 (marked as the IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook outside of North America) is a head-to-toe reimagining of the detachable budget oriented Duet, with a greater cost, new processor, and — most strangely — a 13.3-inch OLED screen.
Lenovo says the Duet 5 is probable the first of multiple additions to the Duet line, in a yearning work to bring the separable structure factor to various price points. The organization will keep selling the 10.1-inch Duet (for the present).
The new OLED show covers 100% of the DCI-P3 shading range, Lenovo says, and will emit “70 percent less blue light” than a LCD board would, fully intent on conveying “incredible entertainment experiences.” OLED has for quite some time been an luxury in the PC space, and with a beginning cost of $429.99, the Duet 5 will without a doubt be perhaps the most affordable laptops ever to feature this technology.
This Chromebook is essential for an wave of thin and light OLED laptops as of late divulged across the industry. Lenovo has additionally added Windows-powered OLED models to its IdeaPad line, and Asus has furnished some of its customer and venture lines (counting its budget-oriented VivoBook and ultraportable ZenBook) with the innovation. The OLED frenzy isn’t out of thin air; Samsung (the world’s biggest OLED merchant) reported in January that it would start mass-producing laptop-sized 90Hz OLED screens this year.
The Chromebook Duet 5 will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 register stage, declared in May. This chip is intended for section level workstations and as of late showed up in Samsung’s $349 Galaxy Book Go. Commentators have viewed that to be a bit sluggish up until this point, yet Chrome OS is less requesting to run than Windows.
The detachable form factor, most famously connected with Microsoft’s Surface Pro gadgets, has showed up on an assortment of PC lines this year. Asus currently sells the Chromebook Detachable CM3, a direct (yet more costly) contender to the Duet with an inherent pointer carport and a kickstand that folds both in an upward direction and evenly. On the extremely furthest edge of the value range is HP’s $1,629 Elite Folio, additionally controlled by a Snapdragon processor (however running Windows and shrouded in calfskin). Recently, Lenovo attempted the form factor in a X-Series ThinkPad with the X12 Detachable, pressing a beefier Intel Core i5.
In any case, a lot of what made the original Duet a particularly alluring buy was the mix of its low price, versatility, and outstanding battery life. (Everyone got above and beyond 11 hours of constant work in our testing.) The Duet 5 is heavier than the more modest Duet and fundamentally more expensive. (The predecessor begins at $279.) The Duet 5 has an alternate processor from the Duet and a screen that is customarily more power-hungry, so battery life is a question mark. (Lenovo’s latest endeavor at an OLED separable, the ThinkPad X1 Fold, had a few… issues around there.) A 13.3-inch OLED screen is positively a flawless possibility, yet regardless of whether it’s a decent worth will be another story.
The Chromebook Duet 5 is expected to be available in October.