Lenovo’s Thinkpad 13 Chromebook is Just Enough to Serve your Needs


Chromebooks are recognized as the affordable and simplified option for anyone. From a college student in the classroom, to an even simpler environment like at-home use, this sensible Chrome OS-running laptop is almost always on the map for an affordable price. It’s not the most remarkable class of notebook to own, but it’s still super popular. Naturally, it’s popularity continues to further its competitive edge, so much so, most companies/manufacturers have released their own Chromebooks to be in with the current laptop environment. As of late, Lenovo has been working on its own sub-200 dollar device, the ThinkPad 13 Chromebook. Sure, it’s sporting both a light and thin design, as well as some military-grade ruggedness, but with a low price, there are almost always ramifications. Maybe Lenovo isn’t giving us everything we want this time around.

Most Chromebooks that you can find for under $200 are not going to be a huge score in terms of specifications. That’s undoubtedly what most folks would normally say, however Chromebooks have been upping their game, becoming more interesting, and by advancing their hardware, breaking that perception of being the most basic notebooks around. Although true, Lenovo’s device may not be the perfect example of this truth, it’s still up to consumers to decide whether it has ‘bang for that buck’.

Just because it’s a Chromebook, doesn’t mean we’re going to love it (harsh news, I know). Starting with the body, the Lenovo Thinkpad 13 Chromebook sports a substantial, but kind of heavy 3.2 pound, all-black,19.8mm-thick plastic design. It sports a 13.3-inch screen, featuring either HD, at 1,366 x 768 pixels, or full HD, at 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, with an optional touchscreen. Closing in on the keyboard shows just how spaced out and comfy its vibe is, and the individual keys are springy and concave. When looking at the tough-as-nails hinge, not only will it keep the screen at the angle you desire, but it’s 180-degree range of motion may come in handy, perhaps for sitting in an unconventional seat, or folding completely flat, if needed.

At its baseline, Lenovo provides an Intel Celeron 3855U processor with 4GB of RAM and 16GB of flash storage. That might make you feel as if this particular Chromebook isn’t going to light up your eyes from first glance. However, just so you know, you can get higher-end specs and beef it up if you wanted to. For example, you can get the Thinkpad 13 Chromebook stacked with 6th gen Intel, the Core i5-6300U chip (which is a good one), accompanied by 8GB of memory and 32GB of storage. Either way, this Chromebook comes with two USB-C ports for charging, two USB Type-A ports, and an SD card reader. As a more rugged Chromebook available at the moment, the laptop has been tested and provided military grade specifications.

If you were hoping for a nice deal on this Lenovo Chromebook 13, Amazon just ended its holiday deal of just $179.99 to start. The original price, announced in January, was $199, but typically, you will find this particular Lenovo Chromebook around the $250 mark (that’s because most folks tend to up the hardware just a bit). The bottom line is that there’s nothing super special about Lenovo’s ThinkPad 13 Chromebook. Whether it’s the lack of performance power with it’s base price, or the status-quo display, when looking to other Chromebooks in its class, these aspects interrupt the Thinkpad 13 Chromebook from setting itself apart.

Topics: Technology News Laptop Trends Laptops & Ultrathin Ultrabooks Tech Reviews

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