Looking to buy a new laptop on a budget? Here are all the best Chromebooks in 2023. They’re affordable, powerful, and highly capable.
Desktops, laptops, tablets, they’re great, and no one would deny that fact. But sometimes, you want something in between and lightweight. Although, they’ve certainly caught some flak over the years, Chromebooks occupy that middle ground between laptops and tablets, and offer an incredibly convenient and functional experience. We’ve reviewed hundreds of the best laptops over the years, testing for important qualities like performance, battery life, and display quality. And we’ve found that Chromebooks consistently excel at performance and reliability. Of course, there are a lot of different Chromebooks on the market, and the design means that several third-parties — brands — offer varying models. You can find Chromebooks from Google, HP, Lenovo, Acer, and many others. It can make choosing one a bit challenging. So, we made things a little easier and compiled the best of the best.
The best Chromebooks we’ve assembled here are something special. They offer solid performance, excellent functionality, and enough diversity to handle just about any need. Read on to see which models you should consider and maybe even acquire for yourself.
If you’ve been learning all about what Chromebooks vs laptops and contemplating what a reliable brand to go for is, you can’t really go wrong with a Google Pixelbook Go. After all, who could be better than Google, creators of the Chrome OS, to know how to get the best out of it? The Google PixelBook Go is a super efficient demonstration of the popular operating system. It has a great Intel Core m3 processor along with 8GB of memory and 64GB SSD for storage. While other Chromebooks might favor the cheaper (and slower) eMMC format, the Google Pixelbook Go gives you an extra boost of speed.
Such a speed boost means during your downtime, you might even wish to consider checking out the best games for Chromebooks, giving you a fun break from work. Elsewhere, its 13.3-inch full HD display is a touchscreen display so you can get more hands-on with what you’re doing. That goes for whether you’re creating a presentation or opting to find your favorite shows on a streaming service to indulge in. The latter will benefit from the Chromebook’s dual front-firing speakers so you get a better surround sound style effect leading to a less tinny sounding experience.
The little attention to details continues with how the Google Pixelbook Go packs in a lot of premium features. It has both wired and Wi-Fi options so you can hook it up via Ethernet as well as Wi-Fi. It also has a backlit keyboard so you can see it more clearly in dim lighting. A spacious touchpad helps you get things done more effectively too, while Hush Keys keep the experience quieter than average as well.
The bezels of the Chromebook may be a little chunky but other than that, the design is highly portable with fantastic battery life that easily lasted over 12 hours in our tests. If you’re looking for something reliable that will last you all day, this is the one you want and need. Outside of there being no fingerprint scanner for security, the Google Pixelbook Go has all the essentials.
Read our Google Pixelbook Go review.
If you’re looking for a 2-in-1 Chromebook that’s also powerful, you need the Acer Chromebook Spin 713. We described it as supremely powerful thanks to being one of very few Chromebooks to be Evo certified. This isn’t cheap by any means so steer clear if you’re looking for one of the best budget laptops. For everyone else though, it’s a delight to use.
An all-aluminum chassis reaches near premium laptop levels in terms of build quality, reminding you that you’ve bought something classy. Impressively, it has Thunderbolt 4 support which you don’t normally see on Chromebooks along with the usual selection of USB ports, a full-size HDMI port, and 3.5mm audio jack. It’s powerful too with an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of memory, and 128GB of SSD storage. Many Chromebooks stick with a lower amount of storage space so 128GB is great to see if you’d prefer to store more files on the laptop itself rather than the cloud. As a guide, many regular Windows laptops have this amount of space so you know what to expect. It’s speedy too with our tests finding it able to handle all the Android games we threw at it and a ton of browser tabs too.
The display is slightly different from others being taller and offering a 3:2 aspect ratio. A resolution of 2,256 x 1,504 is useful providing you with sharp text and images. It’s ideally suited for working on presentations and other projects, ensuring you gain clear insight into what’s going on. Don’t count on it being an ideal display for working outdoors under a bright sun but for everything else, it’s good quality with colors that seem natural and not oversaturated. The downside? Speaker quality is a little weak for listening to music but it’s adequate.
Rounding things off on a better note, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 has a great large touchpad which combined with the super responsive touch display means you’re always in control.
