Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). Updated February 2023: We've added new Chromebooks from Asus, HP, and Lenovo. These are our current top picks.īe sure to also read through our Best Cheap Laptops, Best Laptops, and Best MacBooks guides for more options. WIRED's Gear team has been testing Chromebooks for almost a decade now. In many ways, they offer the best of all worlds: good hardware, lightweight software, and everything you need for web-based work. There are high-end Chromebooks that are mighty capable machines.

Just because you strip away the software fluff doesn't mean you have to strip away the hardware power.

While they can be that-offering exceptional bargains in many cases-that's not the end of the story. Throw in the ability to run both Android and Linux apps and you just might be able to replace your old laptop with a Chromebook.Ĭhromebooks have a reputation as cheap, low-end devices. If you spend all day in a web browser, use Google apps, and don't need all the rest of the stuff that comes with Apple’s macOS or Microsoft’s Windows, Google’s ChromeOS operating system offers an all-you-need, nothing-you-don't computing experience.

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