How to make the right Chromebook choice
Chromebooks are changing, with different designs, specs and use cases. We reveal how to solve the Chromebook conundrum and end up with your perfect machine
The earliest Chromebooks stuck to a rigid template: they were all compact laptops with small screens and minimal specifications at an equally minimal price. That’s no longer the case, with Chromebooks now designed for many different audiences – and that means choosing one can be something of a challenge.
Making the right choice for you means thinking carefully about what you need and being realistic about your budget. Do you want a living room laptop, a travelling companion or a business workhorse?
Do you need a versatile, convertible model, or will a straight clamshell design be more practical? Make up your mind about your core requirements and the rest starts falling into place.
Pick your style
Chromebooks now cover the whole range of form factors, from tablets to 2-in-1 convertibles and even desktop replacement models.
Up to a point, however, your choice of design will be defined by your budget. If you want to spend under £200, you’re looking at a basic clamshell design with an 11.6in screen. Head above that and your options expand to bring in 13in or
14in clamshells, while a further £100 will get you into convertible territory, with a range of 12in, 13in, 14in and even 15.6in models available.
The most luxurious Chromebooks start at around £500 and go all the way up to £1,000 and be yond. At that point, you’re looking at lightweight convertible designs, premium aluminium and carbon fibre bodies, along with a higher overall specification. Generally speaking, though, you get a lot for your money. Only a few high-end Chromebooks come with a matching price tag.
Budget for your screen
Chromebook screens are closely linked to their price. At the basic level, you can’t expect anything more than a cheap twisted nematic (TN) panel with a 1,366 x 768 resolution, with the maximum brightness typically around 200 to 220cd/m2 . Viewing angles may be awful, with a limited colour gamut and poor colour accuracy. This plays a big part in why the pricing is so low.
Go upmarket, though, and things become more interesting. Above £250, you’ll see IPS panels and 1080p resolutions creeping in, and once you reach £350 you’ll find brighter IPS displays and higher pixel counts still. A few years ago we would have said Chrome OS’s rather dodgy desktop scaling made such resolutions less a benefit than a curse, but this has improved dramatically in recent times. Working on highresolution Chromebooks is now a treat.
Processing power
Generally speaking, Chromebooks don’t require as much processing power as your average Windows PC. You can’t run heavyweight desktop image-editing or video-editing apps, and most of the processing work in cloud-based applications is at the server end. However, there’s no doubt that Chromebooks featuring low-end Intel Celeron and MediaTek ARMbased processors can feel slow, especially with multiple browser tabs and applications open: models based on faster Intel Pentium and
Core i3, i5 and i7 processors will feel significantly faster in everyday use.
What’s more, the higher-end, business-focused Chromebooks are now running some more demanding Android apps, while Linux ( see p89) opens the way for more heavyweight applications such as Audacity, GIMP and LibreOffice, not to mention bespoke Linux applications. If that’s something you’re considering, then moving up to a Core i5 or i7 processor makes a lot of sense.
4GB is fine, 8GB is better
While Chrome OS has relatively lightweight memory requirements, the Chrome browser, many websites and web-based applications have grown increasingly RAM-hungry in the past few years. If you like to keep a
host of fb tabs or windows d open, p ,y you’re going to feel the pinch with anything under 4GB.
Here’s the good news: the days of the 2GB Chromebook are gone, so it’s practically impossible to find a Chromebook without a minimum 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM. But, for more intensive applications or hardcore users, we would still recommend moving up to 8GB. Beyond that, you won’t see an awful lot of difference in most applications.
What about storage?
When Chromebooks first launched, even 16GB of storage was fine. The operating system barely used any space on the eMMC drives, while applications and data were stored in the cloud. Now that the usage model for Chrome OS has evolved, this is no longer the case. You may need space for Linux and Android apps and you may want to store some media files or documents on the drive. 32GB is still fine for lightweight browsing, email, video chat and document-editing applications, but move up to 64GB if you’re planning to use several Android or Linux apps.
We’ve also noticed that, while most Chromebooks still use cheap but slow eMMC flash storage, a small number of high-end models are bringing in faster NVMe SSDs. This will have an impact in Android or
Linux applications, so it’s worth looking out for.
Make the connection
Chromebook connectivity is pretty typical of what you would expect from a slim and light laptop, with most models featuring two or more USB-C ports and a single USB-A.
The majority have now dropped HDMI or DisplayPort outputs, leaving you to use a dock or adaptor if you want to connect to an external display. The thing to watch for is the spec of those USB ports. Most of them will meet the latest USB 3.1 or 3.2 standards ( see Jon Honeyball’s article about USB on p108), but we’ve seen a few stuck at slower speeds in a cost-cutting effort.
The level of wireless connectivity is usually driven by price. High-end models will support Wi-Fi 6 (also known as 802.11ax), but the majority remain at 802.11ac (sometimes referred to as Wi-Fi 5).
However, some of those 802.11ac laptops will only have one antenna, meaning barebones performance.
For most home and education users that’s not a problem, as the bigger performance bottleneck will be the home broadband connection or the classroom network, but it’s worth looking for two antennas (look for 2x2 in the specs) and ideally Wi-Fi 6 if you’re using Chromebooks within your business.
Usability
Cheaper Chromebooks often skimp on the keyboard and the touchpad, but as this month’s Labs illustrates there are now some decent options on low-end machines. Nevertheless, as a rule of thumb, you’ll get a better experience the higher up the price scale you go, with superb keyboards and slick, accurate touchpads.
The convertible models we’ve tested all feature effective and responsive touchscreens. Some of these models will also work with a stylus, particularly now that Google is pushing its Universal Stylus Initiative, which intends to make styluses from different manufacturers work seamlessly across a wider range of Chromebooks.
Webcams and audio
The shift to homeworking has made webcams and decent audio a musthave for business laptops, and the better Chromebooks have taken this into account.
720p HD webcams are now standard and microphones and speakers are generally much improved. Moving upmarket will usually net you a better webcam that can cope with different lighting conditions along with a more sensitive array microphone and richer stereo sound. Some of the cheaper models also have half-decent speakers, but in most cases you’re better off connecting a wired or Bluetooth headset.
“For more intensive applications or hardcore users, we would still recommend moving up to 8GB of RAM”