Best Chromebooks of 2023

The best Chromebooks offer a simplistic, clean, and minimalistic operating system with killer performance and satisfactory battery life.

When the pandemic hit, workers and students scrambled for work-from-home laptops that were capable but budget-friendly — cue Chrome OS! Not only are Chromebooks easy on your pockets, but they're also known for having low malware susceptibility. In other words, they are less likely to be infected with viruses and spyware than vulnerable operating systems (e.g., Windows). If you're concerned about privacy and security, Chrome OS is the way to go.

The best Chromebooks are seamless to use with the Google ecosystem. You'll also be happy that they typically have a long battery life. Be sure to check out our Chromebooks with the longest battery life list (along with how to check your Chromebook's battery health).

Now that Google has teamed up with several makers to launch the Chromebook Plus series, we will see changes to our best Chromebooks list shortly. We recently reviewed the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus and the Acer Chromebook Plus 515. Both are excellent options with surprising performance and are content creator capable, which is new for Chromebooks. One will definitely become our new number one. 

As we ramp up towards Black Friday, the Chromebook Plus lineup could be a hot seller. 

The Quick List

Best Overall

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus is the best Chromebook of 2023. It's a prodigious, potent, productive 2-in-1 Chromebook with a funky meets business casual vibe. 

This Flex 5i relies on a 13th Gen Intel Core i3 1315U CPU,  Intel UHD integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage — although those specs seem minuscule, the performance will shock you. During our review, we discovered the Plus moniker seriously delivered gaming and video editing performance. 

If you're a young content creator on a budget or a small business owner, you could achieve a lot with a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus and save money to purchase other things you need to further yourselves. 

Read our full review of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus

Best Aesthetics

The Asus Chromebook Detachable CM3 will fool others into thinking you're carrying a tweed-bound journal, but in reality, you've got a spectacular 2-in-1 laptop in your hands. As a cherry on top, the Detachable CM3 actually comes with a built-in stylus, so you could definitely get some journaling in with some high-tech handwriting.

We also can't talk about the Detachable CM3 without raving about its battery life. You might never need to bring your charger along with you because this Asus Chromebook can last for nearly 12 hours, according to our in-house battery life test.  You also don't need to worry about hauling the Detachable CM3 everywhere in your bag as it meets U.S. MIL-STD810H standards. This means that in can handle bumps, shocks and temperature changes. Bolstered by the case and keyboard, it has quite a bit of protection, and if you are worried about that fabric covering, it's stain-resistant.

See our full Asus Chromebook Detachable CM3 review.

Best Battery Life

The Acer Chromebook 514 makes its presence known with a tantalizing 14 hours and 8 minutes of battery life. Laptop Mag has been testing Chromebooks for nearly a decade, and it has the longest-lasting battery life of any we’ve ever reviewed. 

The Acer Chromebook 514 is sub-$500, making it an excellent choice for writers with a limited budget who frequently find themselves on the go.

If you need a shockingly good speaker system and decent performance, especially compared to the Chromebook's cost, this is a solid pick. However, be prepared for a sluggish touchpad and a display that is not the brightest.

See our Acer Chromebook 514 review.

Best for Students

The Acer Chromebook Plus 515 adheres to Google’s new mantra of double power and double the performance. I could push documents, edit photos and videos while pushing out documents, and watch hours of content on my favorite streaming site. It never struggled with any of the tasks I put before it, and although the battery life is under 10 hours, which is what I was hoping for, I can’t hold that against it at all. 

For a laptop that costs under $400, you can basically do whatever your heart desires, from document pushing, video, and photo editing to even some gaming. You can get all that for just $399. Google and its OEM partners just put Apple and Microsoft on notice. Your students will love what they can accomplish with this Acer Chromebook Plus 515.

See our full Acer Chromebook Plus 515 review.

Best Acer Chromebook

The Acer Chromebook 715 is premium and offers a durable aluminum chassis packed with great performance and over 10 hours of battery life. Its Intel Core i5-8350U processor with 8GB of RAM hit 14,088 on the Geekbench 4 overall performance test, sailing past the 6,100 Chromebook average. Its integrated Numpad is also a boon for students. And even though its 15.6-inch display is a little dull, it's sharp, at 1920 x 1080. If you like buying from Acer, this is among its best.

See our full Acer Chromebook 715 review.

Best Portability

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is one of the best because it is a low-priced 2-in-1 that is a tablet, but can also transform into a laptop with an accompanying twill-like kickstand cover and detachable keyboard. 

The most spectacular feature of the Duet is its battery life -- you can get almost 13 hours of battery life. Its display is colorful, so watching Netflix, Disney Plus+ and Amazon Prime Video on this little convertible will be pleasant on the eyes.

It also has an ultraportable design. You can close it shut into a book-like form, and no one will ever know you're carrying a laptop -- they'll assume you're holding a notebook or a journal. 

Read our full review of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet.

Best Chromebook for Business

The HP Pro C640 with Chrome Enterprise is the best Chromebook for business users and employees. The HP Pro C640 has excellent military-grade durability. This means that if you or one of your employees drop it on the floor, there's a very good chance that it will remain intact. 

Another reason why the HP Pro C640 landed on our best Chromebooks page is its incredible security features. Security is important for many business owners, and the HP Pro C640 will put your mind at ease with its fingerprint scanner. And with Chrome Enterprise running on the Pro C640, the odds of security breaches and system-update wreckages are low, especially in comparison to systems running Windows 10. 

Lastly, HP Pro C640 offers an incredible variety of ports, which gives users a wide variety of connection options.

Read our full review of the HP Pro C640 with Chrome Enterprise.

Best Lightweight Chromebook

A candidate for the best Chromebook of 2021 is the Lenovo ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook. We lauded the ThinkPad C13 Yoga for its snappy performance, durable chassis, lightweight design and colorful display. 

It's also a 2-in-1, so it can bend and transform into many postures at your convenience. The C13 Yoga is only 0.6 inches thin and weighs 3.2 pounds, ensuring that traveling with it is a breeze. According to our testing and real-world experience, the Lenovo ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook earned 4 out of 5 stars.

Read our full review of the Lenovo ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook

Best Premium Chromebook

If you're looking for a premium Chromebook, you won't find anything better than the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook. It's stylish, sleek, and full of metal (spiritually hard, physically light).

The $999 Dragonfly Pro Chromebook pops off with a 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1235U CPU with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD for storage. It glows with a 14-inch, 2.5K (2560 x 1600), LCD touchscreen with a 16:10 aspect ratio and a whopping 1,276 nits of brightness.

Not to mention that the Bang and Olufsen quad speakers on this Dragonfly Pro are loud and pretty darn thumpy, hitting the full range of audio tones whether you’re listening to music or watching a movie.

See our full HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook review.

How to choose the best Chromebook for you

Choosing the best Chromebook for you depends on who you are and what needs you're hoping it will fulfill. Are you a student who is mostly reliant on Google productivity apps? Are you a business seeking to provide Chromebooks for your employees? Are you a school hoping to snag the perfect Chrome OS systems for your students? Here's my easy-to-understand buying guide on how to buy the perfect one for you.

How much does a Chromebook cost?

Luckily for you, Chromebooks are known for being budget-friendly. There are some premium models out there such as the Google Pixelbook Go that command higher prices due to their long battery life and thin-bezel display. But for the most part, you can find a high-quality for under $500, such as the Dell Chromebook 3189. 

You can also snag a 2-in-1 Chromebook, which is a laptop with Chrome OS that can shape-shift into different modes, including tablet mode, such as the HP Chromebook x360 12b for under $400. A Windows 2-in-1 laptop could be double or triple that price.

Are Chromebooks portable?

When it comes to portability, we need to take a look at screen size and weight. Most fall between 11 and 13 inches, so hauling them around school or the office will be a breeze. 

How well does a Chromebook perform?

Most of the time, these are lightweight devices; Chrome OS sticks to the basics of providing your favorite Google productivity apps with a few extras (unlike Windows operating systems that can be bloatware hell). If you need additional apps, you can download them from the Google Play store. Because many applications on Chrome OS operate using the cloud, this means more free space for your laptop and speedier performance. 

Do Chromebooks have good battery life?

Chromebooks have very good battery life. On our own in-house Laptop Mag Battery test,  on average, they last 10 hours. They will usually endure the eight hours that are necessary for a productive day at work or school. 

Are Chromebooks secure?

If you're a business looking for a secure laptop for your employees or an institution seeking student-friendly devices that are nearly immune to malware, Chromebooks are the way to go.  Some even go as far as adding biometric authentication, like fingerprint scanners.

How we test the best Chromebooks

One of the unique ways we test Chromebooks is by dropping the devices to test its durability. No, we're not kidding. Laptop Mag has its own in-house Chromebook drop test to measure how well they handle shocks. As Chromebooks are often used by on-the-go students and worker bees, it can be easy to have the device slip through one's fingers while shuffling from office to office or classroom to classroom.

We also test for the Chromebooks' performance, battery life, screen brightness, multitasking muscle and more.

As our Editor-in-Chief Sherri L. Smith describes it, when we bring a laptop into our laboratory, it's our goal is to see how it would work if you brought it into your home or office. While we use a number of industry standard benchmarks such as Geekbench, we focus more on real-world testing.

To measure battery runtime, the Laptop Mag Battery test surfs the web at 150 nits of brightness until the Chromebook runs out of juice. To test their processing power, we use the Geekbench synthetic test. 

We use a colorimeter to measure screen brightness and color gamut while other instruments help us determine a laptop's key travel and ambient heat. See this page on How We Test Laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.

Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming. 

We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on. 

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it. 

Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech. 

See our Chromebook Buying Guide and our Windows 10 vs Chromebook or iPad vs. Chromebook face-off to learn more about them. And check out our best laptops deals page to make sure you get the best price before you buy.