Tech Advisor - UK (2021-05)

48 TECH ADVISOR • MAY 2021

REVIEWS

Twin Dolby stereo

speakers have their

grills along the

top of the tablet,

producing a limited

range of frequencies

that results in boxy

sounding music tracks

but acceptable for

watching TV shows

and YouTube videos.

There’s very little

bass, so you won’t be

blown away by the

scorching soundtracks of Hollywood

movies, but that would be unrealistic for

a device of this type, size and price.

BATTERY LIFE

Lenovo claims up to 10 hours of battery

life for the Duet, but in the usual looped

HD video benchmark where I set the

display to 60 per cent brightness and

audio to 50 per cent volume, the Duet

survived for 7 hours, 52 minutes.

This is still decent for a small device

like this and you’ll most likely get longer

if you’re just typing a document or

perusing websites.

SOFTWARE

As I’ve already mentioned earlier, the

Duet acts as both a Chromebook and a

makeshift Android tablet due to the fact

that ChromeOS now has access to the

Google Play Store.

You can get a lot done with

ChromeOS these days, as many of the

apps work offline and sync any changes

once you get back online. Google’s

office suite covers a lot of ground, plus

the Android apps can make up the gap

in many instances.

I still encountered several of the

latter that were optimized for the portrait

orientation of a smartphone rather than

the landscape of a tablet, but in general

the combination of ChromeOS and

Android makes the Duet a very useful

device for work and leisure.

VERDICT

If you’re looking for a smart, small

Chromebook then the IdeaPad Duet has

If you’re looking for a smart, small Chromebook then the IdeaPad

Duet has a lot to offer.