Lenovo is rebooting its Chromebook Duet with a 13.3-inch OLED display screen

Over a 12 months after it was unveiled, Lenovo’s category-defining Chromebook Duet is getting a sequel. The Chromebook Duet 5 (branded because the IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook exterior of North America) is a head-to-toe reimagining of the removable budget-oriented Duet, with the next worth, a brand new processor, and — most curiously — a 13.3-inch OLED display screen.

Lenovo says the Duet 5 is probably going the primary of a number of additions to the Duet line, in an bold effort to carry the removable kind issue to a number of worth factors. The firm will proceed promoting the ten.1-inch Duet (in the interim).

The new OLED show covers one hundred pc of the DCI-P3 coloration gamut, Lenovo says, and can emit “70 percent less blue light” than an LCD panel would, with the objective of delivering “incredible entertainment experiences.” OLED has lengthy been a luxurious signifier within the PC house, and with a beginning worth of $429.99, the Duet 5 will undoubtedly be some of the inexpensive laptops ever to characteristic this know-how.

This Chromebook is a part of a wave of skinny and lightweight OLED laptops not too long ago unveiled throughout the trade. Lenovo has additionally added Windows-powered OLED fashions to its IdeaPad line, and Asus has outfitted plenty of its client and enterprise traces (together with its budget-oriented VivoBook and ultraportable ZenBook) with the know-how. The OLED craze isn’t out of skinny air; Samsung (the world’s largest OLED vendor) introduced in January that it will start mass-producing laptop-sized 90Hz OLED screens this 12 months.

The Chromebook Duet 5 will probably be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 compute platform, introduced in May. This chip is designed for entry-level laptops and not too long ago appeared in Samsung’s $349 Galaxy Book Go. Reviewers have discovered that to be a bit slow so far, however Chrome OS is much less demanding to run than Windows.

The removable kind issue, most popularly related to Microsoft’s Surface Pro units, has appeared on quite a lot of laptop computer traces this 12 months. Asus now sells the Chromebook Detachable CM3, a direct (albeit costlier) competitor to the Duet with a built-in stylus storage and a kickstand that folds each vertically and horizontally. On the very reverse finish of the value spectrum is HP’s $1,629 Elite Folio, additionally powered by a Snapdragon processor (however working Windows and coated in leather-based). Earlier this 12 months, Lenovo tried the shape think about an X-Series ThinkPad with the X12 Detachable, packing a beefier Intel Core i5.

Still, a lot of what made the unique Duet such a lovely buy was the mixture of its low worth, portability, and excellent battery life. (We received properly over 11 hours of steady work in our testing.) The Duet 5 is heavier than the smaller Duet and considerably costlier. (The predecessor begins at $279.) The Duet 5 has a unique processor from the Duet and a display screen that’s historically extra power-hungry, so battery life is a query mark. (Lenovo’s most up-to-date try at an OLED removable, the ThinkPad X1 Fold, had some… issues in that space.) A 13.3-inch OLED display screen is actually a neat prospect, however whether or not it’s a very good worth will probably be one other story.

The Chromebook Duet 5 is anticipated to be obtainable in October.