Best Chromebooks 2023: Best overall, best battery life, and more

Price When Reviewed:

$399.99

One of the best things about Chromebook is how affordable they are, with many even coming in under $500. There are quite a few options in this price range, but the experience for the cheapest of Chromebooks can be pretty subpar. If you’re on the hunt for a Chromebook under $500, sitting firmly at the top of the pile is the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34. It’s a powerful, reasonably priced everyday laptop. Inside it packs a Core i3-1215U processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of onboard SSD storage. It’s aesthetically pleasing too, with a sleek, pearl white minimalist design. Asus even threw in a 1080p webcam incase that wasn’t enough.

Sure, the battery life isn’t the best and the speakers are rather weak. That’s to be expected though as at this price you’re going to need to accept some sacrifices and all things considered those two aren’t that bad. The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 shows that even with some extra bells and whistles, a nice Chromebook still doesn’t need to break the bank.

Price When Reviewed:

$699.99

If you’re looking for a great convertible laptop, the Acer Chromebook Spin 514 assuredly fits the bill. You can either prop it up like a tent or fold the screen all the way back and use it like a tablet. We were also impressed with its vibrant display, all-day battery life, and connectivity options. It’s a bit heavy for a convertible and the price tag is high, but this is one of the fastest and most powerful Chromebooks currently available.

Plus, the Spin 514 has a fantastic keyboard that is a joy to type on and a battery life that will last upwards of 13 hours without a charge. Add to this the addition of two USB-C ports that should future-proof connectivity and you’re getting an excellent all-around Chromebook.

Price When Reviewed:

$569.99

After Google decided to shut down its Stadia cloud gaming service, most people wrote off Chromebooks as viable options for gaming. But Lenovo is keeping the hope alive for gaming Chromebooks with its IdeaPad 5 Gaming. It comes with a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Lenovo also gave the IdeaPad 5 Gaming a bright 16-inch 2560×1600 display and surprisingly good speakers.

Sure, it might not be able to handle the most graphically demanding games. You’ll also need to do most, if not all, of your gaming through a cloud gaming service, as ChromeOS doesn’t support most modern games. But the IdeaPad 5 Gaming Chromebook is more than capable of streaming games from the cloud at good resolutions and up to 120Hz. If you don’t mind paying the monthly fee for a cloud gaming service, this Lenovo Chromebook will having you gaming with the best of them.

Price When Reviewed:

$499

The Asus Chromebook CM34 Flip could give the Energizer Bunny a run for its money. In our testing the battery on this Chromebook lasted an unbelievable 19 hours on a single charge—we even had to run the benchmark twice just to make sure. That’s positively wild. If a laptop battery can eek out 10 hours on a single charge it’s considered long-lasting but the CM34 Flip almost doubles that number.

This affordable 2-in-1 Chromebook is no slouch when it comes to performance either, featuring an AMD Ryzen 3 7320C CPU and 16GB of RAM. It also comes with a colorful touchscreen display, comfortable touchpad, and high-quality 1080p webcam. Weighing in at just over 4 pounds, it’s not the most portable though. But if you’re on the hunt for a long-lasting everyday machine that won’t break the bank, you can’t get much better than the CM34 Flip.

Price When Reviewed:

$999

When people talk about regular laptops they usually mean a PC or Mac. A Chromebook is still a laptop, but it differentiates itself from either of those two by using a unique operating system called Chrome OS, which was created by Google. Think of it like this: All Chromebooks are laptops, but not all laptops are Chromebooks.

Unlike other operating systems such as Windows or macOS, Chrome OS is optimized to run Google apps such as Google Drive, Google Docs, YouTube, and other Google services. Because most Google apps are online, Chromebooks generally require an internet connection to use most of their important features.

Finally, Chromebooks have historically been designed with portability, ease of use, and affordability in mind rather than top performance. They typically forego the faster, high-end hardware that PCs or Macs can use for a more minimalist, lightweight approach to computing.

Yes, some of the latest processors with integrated graphics can run modern PC games at decent enough settings. For example, we found that in our tests, Intel’s latest Iris Xe line of processors with integrated graphics can run some of the latest games at 1080p and 30 frames per second. Unfortunately, this is not the case for all integrated graphics and your mileage may vary drastically with older tech.

Intel and AMD’s integrated graphics have made huge leaps in recent years with regard to gaming performance. If you’re on a budget or looking for an ultra-thin laptop with integrated graphics you need not worry, you can still game on. We recommend checking out Intel’s Core 12th-gen Iris Xe or AMD’s brand new Ryzen 6000 RDNA 2.

More and more, the line between what is a laptop and what is a tablet blurs as companies integrate the features of both into their latest devices. But there are still a few key distinctions between the two. Laptops generally are larger, come with more storage, and have better performance and productivity features. Tablets on the other hand are smaller and more portable, have longer battery life, and are usually a bit more affordable.

When choosing between a budget laptop and a tablet you should first ask yourself what the primary use of the device will be. Do you need something for productivity with lots of storage? Then a laptop—even a budget model—will probably be the way to go. Or do you need something that is small, travels well, and has a long battery life? Then you might consider a tablet.

As of right now, not really. But it depends on the type of gaming you intend to do. Chromebooks can handle web games and Android games just fine. However, if you’re looking to play the latest high-powered 3D games, a Chromebook won’t cut it. This is due to the fact that Chromebooks don’t run Windows and they probably have insufficient GPU power.

Recently though, Google has been working hard to bring cloud gaming to Chromebooks. This service uses a remote PC or console to play games streamed through the cloud onto the Chromebook. But until this service becomes more widespread, Chromebooks will not be able to handle the best AAA titles.