Review: Lenovo Chromebook Duet Gen 9 (11 Inch, MediaTek)

For most of my adult life, the idea of using a laptop with a screen under 13 inches made me reflexively recoil. That may seem a little unfair, but I came of age when shoddy netbooks—with their tiny screens, low prices, and horrible performance—were hitting bargain bins everywhere. That experience, along with having to talk several family members looking for a good deal out of buying one, left a sour taste in my mouth.

I say all of this to convey how wrong I was (and maybe teach a lesson about letting old biases go, but I digress). It’s not like there has been a glut of sub-12-inch laptops out there since the netbook market died, but its main standard bearer, the Lenovo Chromebook Duet, has garnered high praise since its first iteration in 2020. Now, the company’s latest version is here, and it absolutely won me over.

The idea behind the Chromebook Duet is simple: It’s an ultraportable Chromebook with a detachable keyboard that lets you quickly switch between tablet and laptop modes. The 11-inch Chromebook Duet Gen 9 carries that idea forward, swapping in a MediaTek Kompanio 838 processor for a little more power. This isn’t meant to be your main computer, but a compact machine you can quickly toss in a bag and use just about anywhere without much fuss.

Beyond the MediaTek processor, the Chromebook Duet Gen 9 comes with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage for $370 or 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage for $400 (my review device is the latter). In either case, you’ll get an 11-inch LCD flanked by two speakers, along with an 8-MP rear camera and a 5-MP front-facing camera with a privacy shutter. The screen is wrapped in a sturdy metal chassis, while the detachable keyboard has a metal top deck with a gray leather-esque material on its rear.

Photograph: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster