Lower bass tones simply don’t come through enough. Music playback came across as a bit thin and trebly. How’s the quality? Well, it’s definitely loud, I can tell you that much. Speakers: Lenovo upgraded the Duet’s sound system by jumping from two to four speakers, each capable of pushing out 1W of power.That’s a bummer - but not necessarily a surprise for a device at this price point. You won’t find a fingerprint reader or face ID. Biometrics: The Duet 5 is without biometrics.The Duet 5 keeps pace with other ~$500 Chromebooks on the wireless front, but others might have it beat with additional USB-A, HDMI, or Thunderbolt ports. Moreover, both USB-C ports support Power Delivery 3.0 and DisplayPort 1.4. The Bluetooth 5.1 connection easily paired with my favorite headphones and other accessories such as mice and keyboards. The Wi-Fi worked really well and delivered excellent browsing speeds.

To start, there’s Wi-Fi 6 on board, as well as Bluetooth 5.1.

Connectivity: When it comes to connectivity, Lenovo dialed in the right specs.

I wasn’t expecting the best from this affordable machine, but I was hoping for somewhat better, at least from the webcam, considering how important video calls have become over the last two years. For a webcam, it doesn’t handle low light very well and is grainy almost to a fault. The rear-facing camera is okay when it comes to capturing basic shots when you’re out and about, but the photos were never that sharp and often lacked dynamic range or appealing color.

Cameras: The Duet 5 has two cameras: an 8MP rear-facing camera and a 5MP user-facing webcam.

In other words, it’ll stay secure and current until late 2029.

Updates/support: Lenovo has committed to providing eight years of Chrome updates for the Duet 5.

On the whole, Chrome OS ran really well on the Duet 5.

Lenovo didn’t add any special software to jazz up the experience. The Chromebook ships with the Google Play Store and runs Android apps without issue. It worked as quickly and as seamlessly as most other recent versions of Chrome OS. Chrome OS: The Lenovo Ideapad Duet 5 Chromebook was running Chrome OS 97 while we tested it.

Lenovo ideapad duet with pen