The Lenovo 500e is a fairly typical 11.6” Chromebook that is enhanced by a number of useful features. The matte-black plastic case is similar to that of older IBM Thinkpads. It feels sturdy and has enough texture that fingerprints are not conspicuous and the casing is not slippery. This is important as many clamshell notebooks are damaged by drops. Lenovo has “ruggedized” this machine and advertises that it can survive falls from a desktop or table. The keyboard has the standard Chromebook layout. The keys themselves are slightly smaller than is typical on a full-sized keyboard, but they have a nice amount of travel. Additionally, the keyboard is designed to survive minor liquid spills.The Intel N3450 CPU is fast enough to keep multiple tabs open at a time while being low enough in power consumption so that the device can be fanless without overheating. Battery life is excellent, providing a full day of use. At least as important is that the charger brings the battery back up to full capacity in only a couple of hours. I use the 500e around the house, but this is a perfect computer for students and road warriors.
The screen is the best I have seen in a device of this size at this price point. At 11.6” the 1366 x 768 IPS display very sharp -- though some reviewers (evidently having superior vision) claim that pixelation is obvious. The next step up (a 1080p display, 1920 x 1080) would have nearly twice the number of pixels, adversely affecting both processing speed and battery life while increasing the cost without significantly improving clarity. Screen brightness has been perfectly fine in my testing, even in sunlight. The glossy screen does produced reflections, but that is characteristic of all glossy screens I've used. What’s most impressive about this display is its Gorilla glass construction (in keeping with a rugged device designed to meet military specifications) and the integration of both touch and stylus support. (More about this later.) The screen also folds back 360 degrees so that the device can be used in tablet mode or tent mode. Tent mode might be handy for watching or recording videos. Tablet mode is almost essential when using the stylus, and is also useful in some Android apps.
Some people care a lot about trackpads, but I confess that I don’t. The trackpad on the 500e is perhaps a bit too touch sensitive for my taste with the result that I sometimes seem to click on a link when I thought I was just scrolling past it. But when typing, it does not annoyingly reposition my cursor and introduce typing errors. The touch screen, however, almost makes the trackpad redundant when browsing the Web.
With cameras at the top of the keyboard and at the top of the screen, you can narrate a YouTube video or film a class presentation. Or you can use your Chromebook in tablet mode to take snapshots and record short segments of video. It will not, however, replace a higher quality digital camera even though it equals some cell phone cameras.
Android apps are available through the Android Play store. The ones I have tried run smoothly, and make things like casual video editing a real possibility. More important for the future is the fact that this Chromebook (after its first OS update) has access to a host of Linux programs through Project Crostini. Google is still struggling, though, to integrate Linux. Sound and video, for example, haven’t worked in apps like mplayer, but you do get the power of Gimp or Imagemagick to edit and transform photos. Each of these must be installed by the user through the command line in the Linux terminal. While I have always been a big fan of Linux (and both Android and Chrome OS are Linux variants), I must confess that the absolute need to run Linux on my computer is diminishing each year as Chrome OS continues to improve.
For students and digital artists the capable stylus (which slots for storage in a handy nook at the front-right edge of the keyboard) is a major feature. To make best use of the stylus, you will need to add Google Handwriting Recognition (an Android app). Once it is enabled you should see a small pen icon in the lower right portion of the screen display. Tapping on that icon, opens a menu with options for screen capture, note-taking, laser pointer, and magnifying glass. (The last two would be handy if using the Chromebook in association with Chromecast to make class or office presentations.) Using the stylus as a digital ink pen or paintbrush probably has the most value for typical consumers. Not only does the pen let one jot down notes using Google Keep, but there is also the option to capture the screen text of one’s handwritten notes. My own handwriting is truly horrendous, yet the app does an impressive job of deciphering my scrawls. I have not, unfortunately, always been able to use handwriting recognition successfully. Perhaps there are still some bugs in the software; more probably the crawling speed of the Internet in my rural community prevents Google from always exercising its artificial intelligence. One nice feature of Keep is that you can use it to take a screen shot and then use the stylus to write directly onto the image. First, put the image into a note. Then open the note, click on the image, and click on the pen icon at the upper right of the screen. Nifty.
In summation, this is a Chromebook that should satisfy most people for the next few years. I looked carefully at all the competing Chromebooks before I bought the Lenovo 500e. The Asus Flip C302 with its 12.5” touch screen is a strong competitor, but it is somewhat more expensive (even during the current Black Friday sales); it is apparently not as rugged; and it lacks a stylus. Buy it if you are careful with your computer and you would like a slightly larger screen and a fashionable metallic casing. The Asus Flip C101PA with a 10.1” touch screen is nearly the same price but smaller and significantly lighter (but it, too, lacks a stylus). Buy it if use in tablet mode and an attractive aluminum case are important to you. Although the Asus C213SA is an almost identical device, it tends to cost about $40 more. Why would you pay more? For me, the Lenovo 500e Chromebook ticked all the boxes: relatively inexpensive, rugged, fairly light, touch screen, tablet mode, stylus, Android, and Linux. It’s a rugged all-purpose little workhorse.
Update: Chrome OS Version 74.0.3729.159 (Official Build) (64-bit) now seems to have full support for both audio and video. Mplayer works seamlessly on my Chromebook to play mp3 and mp4; I did not have equal success with Pulseaudio, but that's a program I haven't used before and perhaps I just haven't set it up correctly or invoked it properly from command line. It now appears that this Chromebook (and perhaps many others) can make full use of Android apps and Linux apps.
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