We’re not the most patient folks around the Chrome Unboxed office. The day the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook launched, Robby made the 45-minute drive to the nearest Best Buy that had it in inventory and was back at the office by lunch. As excited as we were for the Galaxy, there is another device that we have been chomping at the bit to get our hands-on. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet could very well spawn the rebirth of the Chrome OS tablet and our hands-on time in Las Vegas left us wanting more. In case you missed it, here’s a closer look at the wallet-friendly premium tablet.
We have been waiting, impatiently, on word from Lenovo about an official release date for the Duet but as of today, mum’s the word. That doesn’t deter us from daily searching the web and Lenovo’s data site for some sign of this Chromebook that we’d give our eye teeth to have. Well, today we struck paydirt. I was about to take a quick break for lunch when I decided to give a Google search for the Duet another try and my effort was rewarded. I discovered the actual model number for the Lenovo tablet and a search for that number quickly returned multiple listings for the Duet tablet from multiple resellers. These aren’t seedy third-party listings either.
Among the sellers, I discovered an Amazon US and Canada listing. While still listed as “temporarily unavailable,” this listing is legit and all the official specs and photos are in place. This is a good indicator that an official release is just beyond the horizon. Investigating further, I found listings from Provantange and Connection IT. Both are large-volume resellers of IT products including a wide variety of Chrome devices. These listings are actually “live” and will allow you to place an order for the Duet. They do prompt you that the tablet is out of stock but you can place an order an secure your place in line for when it is made available.
What’s even more surprising is the list price on the latter two sellers. The Duet was announced with a retail price of $279 but Provantage and Connection IT is listing it for just under $250. Now, there is no mention of the included keyboard in the listing but I don’t know if that means anything. I was to understand that Lenovo was selling the Duet with the keyboard and no one said anything about a tablet-only configuration. If you’d like to keep tabs on the listings or even go ahead and place a pre-order, we’ve added the Lenovo Chromebook Duet to the Chrome Shop for easy location. I did speak with someone at Connection IT who stated that the Duet has been in their system for about three weeks and that it’s roughly about a month before they see actual inventory updates. So, we may be a mere week or two out from actually seeing the Duet out in the wild.
