Back to school means it's time to spend money. Education is super important and one of those things that's worth spending on, but you still want to get the right stuff for the right price. That's where the Lenovo Duet 11 Chromebook comes into the picture.
A lot of primary education institutions provide a Chromebook for students to use throughout the year, but if you're off to college or your kid's school doesn't offer its own Chromebook program, you need to take a look.
The Pros
The Lenovo Duet 11 isn't the best Chromebook you can buy, but there are a few things that make it a standout for a student.
The Lenovo Duet 11 is super portable. As a convertible tablet and laptop, the Lenovo Duet 11 is thin, light, and easy to stuff into a backpack so you can lug it around all day.
It promises up to 12 hours of battery life and mostly delivers. The battery on this thing will last all day and well into a night of homework. Recharging it is simple with a good USB charger.
It runs Chrome OS. This is a bigger deal than you may think because Chrome OS was designed to run well on even the most modest hardware. It's also a great way to tie into any online Google services and will sync directly with your Google Drive if that's how you want to go.
It has a surprisingly good display. The 11-inch 1080p display is bright and easy on the eyes. That's something most cheap Chromebooks can't offer.
The Cons
The Lenovo Duet 11 only has 4GB of memory. To be fair, that's enough to do anything a Chromebook is capable of doing, but it can struggle when trying to do more than one task at a time. You aren't going to want to have 100 Chrome tabs open on this thing.
It only has 128GB of storage. That might be enough for some people, but it won't be enough for others. The thing is, you can never change that number. You get 128GB no matter what.
It has no SD card slot. Combined with the limited storage, this means you are going to have to juggle what you store on your Duet 11 Chromebook. No dropping that huge music collection on it.
It doesn't have the best chip. The MediaTek Kompanio 838 is enough, but there's little headroom for stuff like playing games at 60 frames without stuttering.
My Verdict
I wouldn't buy the Lenovo Duet 11 (2024) for myself because I don't need it. Having said that, if I needed to pick up a good laptop for a student, this is the Chromebook I would buy while it's on sale at Best Buy under 300 bucks.
That's because it seems to have been built with a student in mind. The cons are there, and you don't want to buy this for a gaming or coding machine where you need all the GBs and a fast chip, but for carrying to and from class, taking notes, working on homework, or writing a paper, it looks absolutely perfect.
Running Chrome OS means everything is in one place once you sign in, and you're not going to lose anything important if you need to switch to another device. It's also super easy to use and works with Google's Office Suite and Microsoft's Android apps.
Unless you're buying for an engineering student or someone else who needs access to specific tools and software, this is the one to buy right now.
- See our guide to the best Back to School Chromebook deals today
