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Lenovo's Chromebook Duet with 128GB of storage falls to $249

It's an all-time low for this 2-in-1 with extra space.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Chromebooks make great devices for those that live in a browser and solid secondary devices that you keep within reach of your couch at all times. They’ve recently gone up in price as companies make more work-friendly Chrome OS devices, but you’re in luck if you’re on the market for an affordable one. Lenovo’s Chromebook Duet with 128GB of storage is $50 off at Best Buy right now, bringing it down to $249. That’s the normal price of the model with 64GB of storage, so you’re essentially paying nothing extra for double the onboard storage.

Buy Chromebook Duet at Best Buy - $249

We should start by saying that onboard storage isn’t the most important spec in a Chromebook. Google’s operating system is essentially the Chrome browser expanded so you’re not going to be downloading documents and programs onto a Chromebook like you would on a Windows or macOS device. It’s likely that most of the documents you access on a Chromebook will live in the cloud, but the extra storage could come in handy if you download a bunch of Android and Chrome apps to the Duet, using it much like the Chrome OS tablets of yesteryear. And in this case, it’s worth snagging the extra storage since it doesn’t cost you anything more.

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As for Lenovo’s Chromebook Duet, we gave it a score of 79 and deemed it a surprisingly capable Chrome OS device. It has a 10.1-inch touchscreen that’s sufficiently responsive and bright and Lenovo includes the keyboard cover at no extra cost. The tablet itself has a built-in kickstand that you can use to prop it up to watch YouTube videos when you don’t need the keyboard for typing. Its MediaTek processor and 4GB of RAM served Engadget’s Nathan Ingraham well during full work days and the Duet impressed with its 10-hour battery life, too.

The biggest caveats mostly stem from the Duet’s small design. It can be difficult to work all day long on a 10-inch tablet and those who spend most of their day typing will find the keyboard a bit cramped. Also, the Duet only has one USB-C port in addition to a power button and a volume rocker — not only does that mean you have no headphone jack, but it also means you’ll have to live the dongle life with this device.

But the Chromebook Duet is a great option if you’re looking to spend under $300 on a Chrome OS device. There are plenty of others out there, but most are traditional laptops and it’ll be hard to find a solid one with 128GB of storage at a similar price. It could work well as a daily driver for some — but for most, it’ll be an excellent secondary device.

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