My position on WIRED's Gear team means a lot of laptops pass across my desk. The vast majority of them are pretty boring pieces of plastic. There are some venerable machines that I enjoy trying out, but for the most part the laptop space feels very much like commodity at this point -- if you need one, browse through our guides to [the best laptops](https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-laptops/), [best cheap laptops](https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-cheap-laptops/), or [best MacBooks](https://www.wired.com/story/which-macbook-should-you-buy/), pick something that suits your needs and get on with life.

Every now and then though I get to test a machine that feels genuinely fun, innovative and exciting. Lenovo's new Duet Chromebook is such a machine. That's it's relatively cheap to boot only adds to the appeal. 

The Duet won't be right for everyone. It's a Chromebook, and that does mean there are some software limitations. It's also not terribly powerful. But those of us who want something portable with great battery life, and the ability to double as a tablet, the Lenovo Duet delivers. It's also a joy to use.

##Table Style, Laptop Function

The Duet is just slightly smaller than the entry level iPad, though the experience of it is much closer to the Microsoft Surface Go. It has similar 10-inch tablet design, with a detachable keyboard/touchpad, and back cover.

Duet is comfortable to hold as a tablet when you detach the cover and keyboard. Like the Surface Go it's the perfect size for reading on the couch or in bed. That said, this is one place Chrome OS isn't ideal as there's no easy way to turn off the automatic screen rotation like you'd find in more tablet-oriented OSes like Android or iPadOS. That's no fault of the Duet, but something to be aware of -- Chrome OS is still rough around the edges on a tablet. 

The good news is that Google has been putting some work into making ChromeOS more tablet-friendly. Early this year Google updated ChromeOS to [add support](https://www.blog.google/products/chromebooks/whats-new-april2020/) for a "tablet mode", which gives you several gestures similar to those in Android. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and you'll see the app launcher shelf. Use the same gesture, but longer and you'll get to the Home screen. Use the same gesture yet again, but pause at the end of the swipe and you'll see the app overview screen. When you're browsing in Chrome you can swipe from the left side of the screen to go back to the previous page (note, this does not currently work in other web browsers installed via the Play Store). 

The Duet automatically enters the new tablet mode when you detach the keyboard and the experience is pretty good, though I found the swipe for back button in Chrome very difficult to successfully activate. Far more difficult than just tapping the back button.

Nitpicking aside, the Duet in tablet mode makes a great way to browse the web. The 1920 x 1200 display has a a 16:10 aspect ratio, which gets a sizable amount of article text on screen at once. The display's 400-nit brightness is good enough to read in bright sunlight, though the glossy screen does have a good bit of glare. Still, I was able to work outside, with the Duet in my lap, without straining my eyes. 

Although I didn't have one to test, the Duet's display support does support pens. I've found using a pen with Chromebooks to be a pleasant experience, and I see no reason to think that wouldn't be the case here as well.

As much as I enjoyed browsing the web in tablet mode, I am a writer and it wasn't until I attached the keyboard that I really started to like the Duet. The keyboard attaches with a magnet and pin system that snaps solidly in place, though the "hinge", a thin piece of material that attaches the keyboard to the connector, feels a little thin. Fortunately the back cover has a nice folding kickstand that keeps it nice and stead on any flat, desk-like surface. The floppy hinge is really only an issue when you put the Duet in your lap. 

The keyboard is very nice for a 10-inch tablet keyboard. To keep the primary keys closer to fullsize Lenovo opted to trim down the right side extra keys. In my experience this is mostly fine, though the apostrophe key is tough to nail consistently. The trackpad worked well and I had not trouble with it activating while I typed.

The back cover is a separate piece that magnetically attaches and features a flexible kickstand. The kickstand is quite stiff and strong. If you really commit to the Duet it is possible to use it with an external display via the USB-C connector (Chromebook's can support up to 1080p displays). 

Packed away inside the 10-inch body is a Mediatek 8-core Helio P60T processor and 4-gigabytes of RAM. The Duet comes with either 64 or 128-gigabytes of storage space. I strongly suggest opting for the latter since the biggest drawback to the Duet is that it lacks a microSD card slot for adding extra storage. 

In every day use the Duet's processor mostly holds up. I did experience some slowdowns trying to run Chrome with 15-20 tabs open and then half a dozen Android apps, as well as some Linux for ChromeOS apps simultaneously. It's also worth noting that the experience of using Android apps on ChromeOS still isn't great. Slack in particular was terrible, failing to refresh, causing the Duet to lock up repeatedly, and failing to send messages. The Android Zoom app wasn't great either, though Zoom worked just fine in the browser.

Other all, performance with good considering the price tag. It's definitely not the fastest tablet I've used, but it's plenty fast enough for getting work done in the browser, email and communications, light photo editing (in Gimp, running via the Linux support), and document editing. 

Beyond that though, there's something intangibly great about the Duet -- it's fun in a way that makes me want to pull it out and use it.