The best Chromebook in 2024: our top picks (2024)

The best Chromebooks are straightforward, family-friendly, and often more affordable alternatives to laptops running Windows or macOS - while still offering good performance to help you power through a busy day at work or school.

Take the Acer Chromebook Spin 314, for example. Despite being more than a year old at this point, its Intel Pentium N6000 processor is powerful enough for the everyday tasks that Chromebooks excel at, while also offering a Full HD touch display and a 2-in-1 form factor that makes it usable as a laptop or tablet.

Price is a key factor when it comes to Chromebooks - after all, they're positioned as budget machines. Most Chromebooks will offer better value for money than the best Windows laptops with similar performance, since ChromeOS is a lightweight operating system that doesn't demand high-end internal components to run smoothly.

Since Google unveiled its new Chromebook Plus format last year (and more recently pushed ahead with implementing its Gemini AI into ChromeOS), there are now more Chrome-powered laptops on the market than ever. We've reviewed dozens of Chromebooks over the years, and we're here to use our many years of experience to help you find the best Chromebook for your needs and budget.

The quick list

Want to cut to the chase and find out what the best Chromebooks are? Below, you’ll find a roundup of our choices, and you can jump to a more detailed review of every pick, along with our price comparison tool to help you find the best deals.

The best Chromebooks in 2024

Below you'll find full write-ups for each of the best Chromebooks in our list. We've tested each one extensively, so you can be sure that our recommendations can be trusted.

The best Chromebook overall

The Acer Chromebook Spin 314 (2023) is ideal for those who just want a straightforward and cheap solution to getting that full laptop experience. Unlike other budget-level ChromeOS models, it comes with a 14-inch 1080p display and enough power to do everyday tasks.

In fact, it handled day-to-day performance well when tested. Of course, we were not so impressed by its 128GB of storage. But, that’s one of the compromises here. Along with the fact that it can get a little warm if you push it beyond its limits as it’s powered by an Intel Pentium chip and 4GB of RAM.

Keeping in mind its price, we like how portable it is. At just under three and a half pounds, chucking it in a backpack or messenger bag is no work at all. Add in a solid typing experience and battery life, and you could take this anywhere to get some work done. If you do want to get a little spicy, the Acer Chromebook Spin 314 (2023) does have that 2-in-1 form factor so it can easily double as a tablet if you so choose.

Read our full Acer Chromebook Spin 314 (2023) review

The best budget Chromebook

We're always learning, but some of us are learning more than others. Younger students are sure to benefit from the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3, which packs a rather rugged build quality that is well-suited for users who want to quickly stuff everything in their backpack or are likely to drop things on the floor. The keyboard base is solid and the hinge is very robust, enabling it to survive any amount of careless handling.

This isn't the most powerful Chromebook, but students need reliability more than power - especially if they're only really using it for homework, note-taking, and perhaps the occasional bit of Netflix. Fortunately, the IdeaPad Flex 3 has a seriously impressive battery life – our testing yielded a whopping 16-hour-and-20-minute result – which will allow them to make it through a whole day of school without needing to plug in. It's also very affordable, which should provide a nice bit of financial relief for parents who need to buy their kids a school laptop.

Read our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3 Chromebook review

The best premium Chromebook

The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is still the best Chrome-powered laptop on the market - even if its pricing means that it won't be the best pick for everyone, at least not in its higher-end configurations. While it's probably the most premium Chromebook ever to hit retail, there are a few more affordable entry-level models that will make a strong case for any students looking for a slick, powerful laptop with Chrome OS.

It's one of the most powerful Chromebook we've ever tested. In fact, it's the best scoring Chromebook in our Kraken and Jetstream 2 tests, beating out the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 by nearly 200 points. Even the entry-level 12th-gen Core i3 configuration still packs some seriously solid specs that would make a lot of other Windows and macOS laptops blush.

Featuring some of the best security features we've ever seen on a Chromebook, including the first Chromebook to ever come powered by Intel vPro, this is the perfect lightweight and portable productivity Chromebook. Just be prepared to spend a whole lot of money for the privilege.

Read our full HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook review

The best Chromebook for gaming

'Gaming Chromebooks' are still a topic of some debate. Many will argue that they're not truly gaming devices, since they rely on cloud-based game-streaming services - such as Nvidia GeForce Now - to actually run the latest games without the need for powerful local hardware. By this metric, any Chromebook can be a gaming Chromebook.

With the 516 GE, though, Acer is making a surprisingly strong case for this new breed of Chromebooks. GE naturally stands for 'Gaming Edition', and this is just that: a solid Intel-powered Chromebook, with some slick new features added in to appeal to the gaming audience.

Chief among these is this display, a crisp and colorful QHD panel with a 16:10 aspect ratio to provide more screen real estate. With 100 sRGB color reproduction and good maximum brightness, it's one of the best screens we've ever seen on a Chromebook. The 120Hz refresh rate is also vital for ensuring a smooth framerate during intense gameplay.

The speakers have seen an upgrade, we've got Wi-Fi 6E and a physical Ethernet port to ensure a speedy connection, and the keyboard has been given a gamer-inspired RGB makeover. The only real downside here is that you'll need to pay for a subscription service like GeForce Now or Amazon Luna, but there's some good news - Google is handing out three-month subscriptions for free with gaming Chromebook purchases!

Read our full Acer Chromebook 516 GE review

The best Chromebook for students

Just because the bar is a bit lower performance-wise with Chromebooks doesn’t mean you should live with a sluggish laptop. The Acer Chromebook Plus 515 may just about hit that budget-level price range, but with its 12th-gen Intel Core i3 and 8GB of RAM, it’s more than enough power to get most users through their day-to-day needs.

When we tested it, we found it to not only do wonderfully with those everyday tasks. But, it was powerful enough to run Adobe Photoshop, newly available on ChromeOS, as well as the Nvidia GeForce Experience, meaning you can use this for some forms of gaming.

The battery life is a bit underwhelming for a Chromebook. When tested, it lasted only five of the ten advertised hours in our battery test. But, at least, it takes less than an hour to charge back up. The rest of the package here is strictly on the positive side as the keyboard and touchpad are satisfying to use and the 15.6-inch 1080p touch display offers quite a bit of screen real estate.

Oh, and if you’re environmentally conscious, you'll be happy to know that quite a few materials are made of recycled materials.

Read our full Acer Chromebook Plus 515 review

The best 2-in-1 Chromebook

The Acer Chromebook Spin 714 (2023) may be a little pricier than many Chromebooks, but that’s because it comes with just a bit more power. And, if you’re using one of these notebooks for work, it’s better to have too much than not enough.

In fact, when we tested it, its 13th-Gen Intel Core i5 and 8GB or RAM easily handled running 20 Chrome tabs, including three streaming ones, at once without any noticeable slowdown. Of course, that slightly more powerful hardware is also there to power the 1920 x 1200p touch display as well as its stunningly clear 1440p webcam.

While we found the speakers to be a bit of a weak point due to their hollow audio quality and we wish the keyboard was a little more pleasing to type on, At least, its battery life is very good. While not the 15 hours advertised, this Chromebook lasted a good 12 hours during our battery life benchmark. Since its hinge is rock solid, anyone wanting to use this in the various modes that you get with a 2-in-1 will find it to be very sturdy whether it’s in tent or display mode.

In essence, the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 (2023) is worth the extra cash. It’s a more premium looking, feeling, and performing device than many of the alternatives.

Read our full Acer Chromebook Spin 714 (2023) review

The best Chromebook: FAQs

How to choose the best Chromebook for you

When it comes to choosing the best Chromebook, price is most people’s first consideration. That’s because a lot of these laptop alternatives end up in the hands of more casual users who don’t need a whole lot from their PC. In such a case, a cheaper yet still capable option is the better value – one of the best cheap Chromebooks, perhaps.

Of course, if you have more demanding needs, there are pricier options as well, and they will come with higher-end specs like more RAM, better processors like Intel Core CPUs, and perhaps more storage space. So, if you want to save more files, do some light photo editing, or play some games, you’ll want to splurge a little for better specs.

It’s not just the reasonable price tag that most Chromebooks have that make them top contenders, especially as laptops for kids and as student notebooks. You have to consider its design. Most boast impressively long battery lives while some are built to withstand abuse better than others – any gear you put into a kid’s hands needs to be able to absorb some bumps, after all. Others come with that 2-in-1 form factor and touchscreen capability that makes them so versatile.

Just like with the laptops, size is a crucial factor as well. You might want a larger display for more screen real estate or you might want something smaller for easier portability. Since most of these portables fall somewhere between 10 to 15 inches in terms of screen size, they’re all going to be easier to lug around than the competition.

How we tested our best Chromebook picks

Testing Chromebooks isn’t too different from testing laptops and gaming laptops, though perhaps the paces are a little less intensive or game-heavy.

Since Chromebooks rely heavily on the Chrome browser, we push that browsing prowess to its limits, opening 20 or more browser tabs on different types of websites, from productivity ones like Google docs to streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu. For good measure, we try to play media on those streaming services simultaneously. Because Chromebooks are now much more capable of running apps, we also open and use several apps at the same time.

Of course, we also run synthetic benchmarks like Kraken JavaScript, Octane 2.0 JavaScript, and Jetstream 2 as well as the TechRadar movie test to measure its battery life.

Because a Chromebook is only as good as its peripherals, we take a look at its display, keyboard, availability of ports, and how good its overall design is. We also test its webcam and touchscreen capabilities, if they’re on hand.

We then take everything we’ve learned about the Chromebook and compare it to its price – whether or not it’s performance and features are worth that price tag, and whether or not it offers the best value to customers.

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