If you want something powerful and expensive, something that will make those around you green with envy, the Lenovo Chromebook is not the best choice. If you want a machine that weighs nothing and can browse the web for hours on a single charge, maybe the 12 inch Lenovo Chromebook is the laptop for you.
Chromebooks aren’t a new idea, but they remain popular for students and children or those just looking for a simple web browsing machine. Chromebooks run a custom operating system called Chrome OS, a Linux based system that resembles Google’s internet browser of the same name. Chrome OS is streamlined to run chrome apps and browse the web.
If you know, you Lenovo
Chromebooks are cheap and portable, helping them maintain popularity in the ever-changing computer landscape. The variation is not as large as laptops or all in ones, and unfortunately, it mostly comes down to brand preference when buying a Chromebook. Does Lenovo’s latest offering do enough to tempt brand loyalists to switch sides?
Well, no, not really. The Lenovo Chromebook is a very standard affair, with a nice little 11.6 inch HD display, and a sturdy plastic clamshell design that reflects its low price tag. Not to say the Lenovo isn’t well made, it is, but you don’t get any more than you pay for in the materials or design department.
The unit is just under 2cms thin, and weighs only a smidge over a kilogram, making it a very portable machine. The chassis plastics are a muted grey and looks fine enough for a budget laptop. The keyboard is tactile and pleasant, and overall the unit should stand up to some schoolyard roughhousing.
Needs more juice
Under its little hood, the Lenovo has a restrained Celeron 4000 processor and 4gb of RAM. This set up is just adequate for word processing and web browsing and should be a trusty companion for school projects and similar. This unit is priced right at the very bottom, and its performance reflects this.
A plus side to Luke-warm performance is excellent battery life, the Lenovo lasted me almost ten hours of web browsing and never got hot or noisy. For a runabout, essay writing machine, the Lenovo is a worthy computer.
What else?
As I mentioned earlier, this machine sits at under $300, right at the very bottom rung of the laptop food chain. If you only have a few hundred dollars and need a laptop for school, the Lenovo is hard to beat. If you want more power and better build quality, HP Chromebooks are well worth extra money.
An increasingly popular alternative to Chromebooks and small notebooks are tablet PC’s with a Bluetooth keyboard. Android-based tablets with plenty of power can be had for around the same money as a mid range Chromebook and can offer almost as much functionality, without being locked into the Chrome OS.
Should you buy the Lenovo 11.6’ Chromebook? It depends. If you want a no frills laptop to write documents, the Lenovo is hard to beat. With a sturdy, low profile chassis, an adequate screen, and marathon battery life, it would make the perfect companion for study.
For those who are likely to work with graphics or audio editing, or even those who want to stream 4k content, there are other machines more deserving of your money and make nop mistake; you will be spending more of it. For under $300, the Lenovo Chromebook is a neat little machine that is sure to see extensive use in school bags and classrooms all across the country.
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