Lenovo recently announced the new Chromebook Duet 5, an OLED-toting, 13.3-inch Chromebook tablet that takes what many loved in the original Duet and expands on it in nearly every way. The screen is bigger/better, the keyboard is full-size, there’s a pen included (with a place to keep it) and the processor gets a big upgrade with the Snapdragon 7c versus the original’s MediaTek MT8183. Though we’ll have to wait and see what a 16:9, 13.3-inch tablet feels like in actual use, there’s a lot to like with what Lenovo’s put together in this new tablet.
For many of you, however, a larger tablet isn’t really what you are after. From what we can tell, many users really enjoyed the size and portability of devices like the original, 10-inch Duet for a number of reasons. The HP Chromebook x2 11 is a great example of companies trying to find ways to make a compact tablet device that still has a screen large enough to do a bit of work on, and it looks like other manufacturers are going to follow HP down that road.
11-inch Tablets are on the way
Of the four Snapdragon 7c Chromebook tablets we’ve been tracking (‘Coachz’, ‘Homestar’, ‘MrBland’, and ‘Wormdingler’), we know that ‘Coachz’ is the HP Chromebook x2 11, ‘Homestar’ is the new Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5, and that ‘Wormdingler’ and ‘MrBland’ will share a similar screen size to HP’s take on the Chromebook tablet. Check out the commit below that shows both of these upcoming detachable Chromebooks getting similar screens of the 11-inch variety.
In these files, we can clearly see that both ‘Wormdingler’ and ‘MrBland’ are being prepped with similar panels. A quick search reveals that the BOE TV110C9M is an 11-inch WUXGA panel (1920×1200) and that lines up with what we’ve seen from devices like the original Lenovo Duet and the ASUS CM3 Detachable Chromebook. While those devices were sub-11-inch, they had the same 16:10 aspect ratio and same resolution, so this 11-inch variation isn’t strange to see at all.
While I don’t mind 16:10 in the smaller 10-inch form factor, I’m not sure how it will play in a slightly larger tablet. At 11-inches, the HP’s 3:2 aspect ratio feels spot-on perfect in my opinion, so it will be interesting to see how these slightly more rectangular tablets will feel in-hand. I’d wager we won’t have terribly long to wait as these Snapdragon devices don’t seem to take long to get out the door these days. Perhaps whoever is behind them will try and sneak them in before the holiday shopping season. We’ll be keeping an eye out, so stay tuned.
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