Though it has been a bit of a mess for the past few years, Walmart is finally starting to get their Chromebook selection reigned in a bit. While not as concise and cleaned up as what Best Buy offers, the Chromebooks available at Walmart are slowly getting better, and there are a few surprises in there that many of you may be very interested in.
For instance, right now they have a unique version of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5 for just $329. That’s down $40 from their normal asking price of $369, and that may have you wondering what the reasoning behind that lowered price could be.
From what we can tell, it is simply a difference in RAM. Though the listing also shows the SC7180 as the processor, I looked up the model in Lenovo’s PSREF and verified that it is the SC7280 – otherwise known as the Snapdragon 7c Gen 2. There is not a version of this Chromebook tablet with the 1st-gen 7c inside, so disregard that part.
And the rest of the popular Duet 5 formula is all here, too, including 128GB of storage, the 13.3-inch OLED display, 400 nits of brightness, and included keyboard cover. The only difference I can find with this model is the change to 4GB of RAM versus the normal model’s 8GB.
This puts it directly in line with the specs of the Duet 3 that is sold at Best Buy and from a performance standpoint, it is tough to tell the difference it and the Duet 5 unless you are running a ton of stuff at once – which I tend not to do on either of these tablets. Even though the Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 is a decent performer, no amount of RAM will change the mid-range performance it offers. So I tend not to feel much difference in the Duet 3 and Duet 5 when I use them.
So, if you are OK with dropping some RAM, you can get all the other stuff that makes this Chromebook tablet so beloved for just $329 right now. And even if it goes off of sale, it’ll still be around daily for $369. At those sorts of prices, this device is a no-brainer. It has insane battery life, solid performance, a super-thin chassis, and one of the best screens you can get on a Chromebook. If you are after a detachable device, this could definitely be the one for you.
