Best Chromebooks in Every Size
If you have your heart set on one, here's a wide range of options, all approved by Consumer Reports testers
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Just like Mac and PC laptops, Chromebooks come in a variety of sizes, from models small enough to fit in a travel backpack to those so large you might not want to move them from your desk.
Models under 14 inches are easy to transport to the local Starbucks for an iced coffee. They also help you make the best of a bad situation in the middle seat in coach. But like their Mac and PC counterparts, you’ll find that these small Chromebooks generally have a shorter battery life than, say, a 15.6-inch model.
Chromebooks as large as 15.6 inches can be quite powerful, crunching through spreadsheets with ease, but they might be more cumbersome to carry around.
Regardless of your needs, the odds are good that there’s a Chromebook that suits your lifestyle, not to mention your budget. For consumers who can work with web apps in Chrome OS—such as Google Docs and Sheets, as opposed to programs that only work with Windows or macOS—and don’t need the most powerful processor, it’s not hard to find a solid model for $500 or less.
For this article, we dove deep into our Chromebook ratings to find the best options in a range of sizes. If you’re looking for a 14-inch Chromebook, the one you see here ranks right up there, combining performance and portability in a winning combo.
We test Chromebooks like we test everything else: rigorously and without outside influence. We buy each model at retail to ensure that we’re testing the same product you find at stores and remove any chance that a manufacturer sends us a cherry-picked unit to tip the scales.
Our in-house experts run each Chromebook through a battery of tests, measuring performance, battery life, display quality, and more.
Below, you’ll find our picks for the best Chromebooks in every size, ordered from smallest to largest.
If you’re looking for a travel companion, this small Chromebook is worth considering. It not only weighs just 2.7 pounds but also boasts an above-average 16.25 hours of battery life for web browsing.
The Acer Chromebook 511 has an Intel Celeron processor, 8 gigabytes of memory, and 32GB of flash storage, which is similar to but slower than solid state storage. Testers say the model performs well for common web-based tasks such as browsing the internet, word processing, and casual online game play.
And despite the small size, the Chromebook has a keyboard with comfortably sized keys, which should make working on the road more pleasant.
This is a 2-in-1 convertible, which means you can bend the keyboard behind the display via a 360-degree hinge to use the device like a tablet. That can be useful for watching streaming video on the couch or flicking through social media feeds.
The Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 has an Intel Celeron processor, 4 gigabytes of memory, and 128GB of flash storage. That might not seem like a lot of storage space if you’re used to macOS or Windows, but it’s actually generous for a device with Chrome OS, which leans heavily on web apps and cloud storage.
Our testers had mostly good things to say about this model, noting its bright and color-accurate display and comfortable keyboard with large, high-contrast keys. The performance and battery life (10.5 hours under a light load of basic web browsing) won’t dazzle you, but with the large storage space and a weight of just 2.8 pounds, this versatile Chromebook is still a strong option.
The Acer Chromebook Spin 512, which measures exactly 12 inches, has a much longer battery life (around 16 hours), but it weighs almost half a pound more and has half the storage space, and the display isn’t as color-accurate.
As you might infer from the “Flex” in the name, this 13.3-inch model from Lenovo is a 2-in-1 convertible. It has modest specs—an Intel Celeron processor, 4 gigabytes of memory, and 64GB of flash storage—but can often be found for under $300.
The model offers middle-of-the-road performance: nothing terribly impressive, but nothing too slow, either.
It weighs 3 pounds, and the battery lasts 11.5 hours for web browsing. If you try to push things, say, by watching high-res video, you get a bit more than 7 hours of battery life.
Technically speaking, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 outranks the Flex by a few points, but the Lenovo Chromebook costs less and has longer battery life for video streaming and other demanding tasks.
If you’re looking for a midsized Chromebook, this model scored well across the board in our tests. It has an AMD Ryzen 3 processor (roughly analogous to an Intel Core i3), 4 gigabytes of memory, and 128GB of solid state storage. Whether you’re editing text in Google Docs, performing triage on your Gmail inbox, or merely watching a YouTube video (or 10), you’ll find zippy performance.
And if you decide to hit the road, the nearly 14-hour battery life under a light load will keep you working without the need for a power outlet. The model weighs a bit more than 3 pounds.
Acer makes a 14-inch Chromebook Spin with about 3 more hours of battery life, but it costs a several hundred dollars more.
There aren’t many Chromebooks larger than 15 inches in our ratings, but you’re not settling with this 2-in-1 convertible. The model has an Intel Core i3 processor, 8 gigabytes of memory, and 128GB of solid state storage. And our testers report top-notch performance, a comfy keyboard, and a nice 15.6-inch touchscreen display.
At nearly 4.5 pounds, with a battery life that ranges between 6 and 10 hours depending on the load, this isn’t the best choice for those on the go a lot. But if you want to place it in your home office or on the kitchen counter as a big-screen recipe machine, it’s a solid option.
Acer has a 15.6-inch Chromebook that also performed quite well in our labs, but it retails for more than twice the price of this Asus.
If you often open two windows side-by-side or long for lots of screen real estate for binge-watching your favorite shows, take a look at this model from Asus. The anti-reflective display is brighter than most and has a wide viewing angle, which is useful when more than one person is looking at the screen. And in addition to the big display, there’s a big keyboard and a touchpad, too.
As expected at this size, the model has an above-average weight of 5.3 pounds, but many 17-inch Windows laptops weigh more—and cost significantly more, too.
Under the hood, this model has an Intel Celeron processor, 4 gigabytes of memory, and 64 gigabytes of flash storage. Performance is about average for a Chromebook, which is to say it’s suitable for web-based productivity tasks and casual online games.
