You probably can't do better than the Lenovo 10e Chromebook at under $100 this Christmas
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When it comes to shopping for the best budget tablet right now, it might seem virtually impossible to beat Amazon's all-inclusive Fire portfolio. But if you want a "conventional" Android-running model to offer full and unrestricted access to Google's Play Store, you'll probably be surprised to find out you actually do have a number of decent options... if you know where to look.
eBay is one such place, but don't worry, we're not here today to try to convince you to deal with some shady merchant selling pre-owned merchandise. Instead, if you hurry, you can pick up one of a "limited quantity" of Lenovo 10e Chromebook units sold by the China-based device manufacturer itself at $89.99 a pop in brand-new, unused, unopened, and undamaged condition.
That almost certainly means you'll be getting a standard 1-year warranty from Lenovo's official eBay store in addition to a... respectable set of specifications and features. As the name suggests, the 10e Chromebook comes with Chrome OS pre-loaded on the software side of things rather than good old fashioned Android, nonetheless being capable of easily accessing Google Play for you to install and use all your favorite apps without a worry in the world.
The ridiculously low $89.99 price, listed as marked down from $269, obviously does not include a productivity-enhancing keyboard, which currently costs $69.99 by itself on Lenovo's main US website. Said keyboard folio case was also deeply discounted for Black Friday, though, so it might be wise to wait and see if the company happens to bring back that particular deal in time for Christmas.
The Lenovo 10e Chromebook is 10 bucks cheaper today than a couple of weeks ago, sporting a large 10.1-inch display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels and packing a decidedly middling MediaTek 8183 processor. The 4 gigs of RAM and 32 gigs of internal storage are also hardly impressive, which is not what we can say about the absolutely phenomenal battery life of up to 16.5 hours between charges in normal usage.
All in all, this is an undeniably solid alternative for Amazon's newest Fire HD 10 generation, currently available for $100 and up, as well as Samsung's 8.7-inch Galaxy Tab A7 Lite, which sets you back $130 after a $70 price cut at the time of this writing.
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