Chromebook vs. laptop computer: Shopping for recommendation and suggestions

Do you have to purchase a Chromebook or a Home windows laptop computer? It’s a typical query: Each units can surf the net, entry apps, and so forth, at house, work, or faculty. However there are clear variations between their respective platforms, particularly close to the latest push in AI.

We sort out the query from a number of views, starting with the fundamentals after which diving deeper. In some methods, the 2 classes have moved nearer collectively, as a lot of our work is carried out on the internet. However advances within the capabilities of native CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs additionally set up clear variations between what they will and can’t do. We’ll outline the variations after which advise you on which gadget to buy.

Who should purchase a Home windows laptop computer?

If you’d like essentially the most energy and adaptability accessible, purchase a contemporary Home windows laptop computer. See our roundup of the perfect laptops for a variety of shopping for suggestions, and our each day laptop computer offers (up to date nearly day-after-day) for the newest gross sales on high laptops.

A laptop computer PC powered by Microsoft Home windows provides a number of benefits. Home windows laptops can run nearly any app, your selection of any browser, and choices that embody native video games, utilities, apps, and antivirus applications. You possibly can tweak and configure your PC as you select.

The comfort of Home windows calls for extra computing horsepower and sometimes the next worth in comparison with most Chromebooks. However, in the event you want a strong PC for gaming or video enhancing, Chromebooks can’t compete. When you can carry out a few of these capabilities through an internet app, these gained’t work and not using a persistent web connection.

Who should purchase a Chromebook?

Historically, fundamental Chromebooks have been the most cost effective resolution, principally providing not rather more than an internet browser and a few non-compulsory Android apps. Quite a few American school rooms have settled on Chromebooks for in-person and distance studying, and sometimes make them accessible for loaning to college students. Extra lately, nonetheless, Google has tried to make Chromebooks an instrument of AI, and also you’ll see Google’s Gemini AI featured on its extra premium Chromebook Plus units, with extra superior specs.

If you wish to lower your expenses, and you’re employed (and play) nearly completely on the internet, purchase a Chromebook. See our roundup of the perfect Chromebooks for purchasing suggestions.

Basically, Chromebooks are greatest for internet work: shopping the net, working on-line on paperwork, and utilizing internet streaming companies like Netflix or Amazon Prime inside an internet browser. You can even obtain and use Android apps for gaming and leisure, although they could not run the identical as in your cellphone.

You’ll nonetheless see fairly cheap ($100 to $300) Chromebooks peppered all through Amazon’s record of “best-selling laptops,” however there are premium Chromebook Plus Chromebooks and Chromebooks for gaming now, too. Listen in the course of the holidays or peak gross sales intervals like Prime Day, when costs can drop actually low—by round $100 or extra. Simply be sure to’re not shopping for a Chromebook that’s fallen out of the assist window. (We’ll discuss extra about that, beneath.)

The effectivity of Chromebooks can work towards them in sure conditions, although. Does your printer use a specialised app? Chances are high that your Chromebook will print to your printer, however an older printer won’t work all that effectively with a Chromebook. Ditto for a specialised mouse app. It’s generally exhausting to know what is going to work, and what gained’t, however Chromebooks will typically do all that you simply want them to.

What’s the distinction between utilizing a Chromebook and a laptop computer?

Whereas it’s simple to concentrate on what you’re going to do with both a Chromebook or a Home windows PC—internet shopping! video games!—it’s simple to lose sight of the little issues.

Simplicity

The most effective options of a Chromebook is Google’s method to updates and safety. All the things takes place behind the scenes. Home windows downloads updates for antivirus and different applications within the background, however others require a reboot. Should you don’t have Home windows correctly configured, these reboots may even happen whilst you’re utilizing the PC, which could be massively annoying. Whereas Chromebooks often must be rebooted to use updates, the method is faster and fewer intrusive, as Google reloads the pages you had been on fairly rapidly. 

In truth, “fast” is without doubt one of the greatest options of a Chromebook. Whereas they’re much less full-featured than a Home windows PC, booting, resuming, and simply utilizing a Chromebook typically feels extra environment friendly than it does on Home windows. A part of that’s the simplicity: Google takes care of a lot of the mundane duties of powering a PC, like safety and driver updates. “Blue screens of demise” happen on Home windows; Chromebooks hardly ever crash.

Additional studying: 9 explanation why you can purchase a Chromebook

Apps

At this level, internet apps help you work inside Google’s Workspace setting or Microsoft’s 365 setting, no matter whether or not you’re on a laptop computer or a Chromebook. That features e-mail, phrase processing, and extra. That goes for leisure and streaming apps like Netflix, too. Even productiveness apps like Adobe Photoshop exist on each platforms.

The actual distinction is that Chromebooks assist Android apps, and Home windows laptops assist native Home windows apps. Not all apps are coded for Android. Typically, Home windows is the extra versatile platform, however not by as a lot because it used to. The important thing distinction is in video games: Cellular video games are extra accessible to Chromebooks. Historically, Home windows video games have run greatest on laptops, however the rise of cloud gaming implies that Chromebooks can entry most of these with out concern, too.

Engaged on a number of screens

A refined distinction between a Home windows laptop computer and a Chromebook is the power to assist a number of screens. Most fashionable Home windows laptops now assist Thunderbolt or USB4, specs that usually help you join to 2 exterior, high-definition shows with ease. That may improve your productiveness tremendously.

Chromebooks have a tendency to make use of older USB-C connections, not only for charging however for exterior shows. Meaning you’ll most likely be left with assist for a single exterior show, presumably at an older 1080p decision. You’ll discover the distinction.

Printing

Some extra mundane duties could be irritating to Chromebook customers, too, reminiscent of printing, file administration, and utilities. That is the place the variations between the 2 platforms can grow to be abrasive, particularly in the event you’re used to doing issues in a sure approach.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

Take printing, for instance. The world’s printers had been designed from the bottom up for Home windows and Macs, and may print both over a wi-fi community or from a USB cable. Chromebooks, then again, have struggled with direct printing or utilizing the extra superior options of sure printers. Google Cloud Print was the corporate’s workaround, requiring a Wi-Fi enabled printer; nonetheless, this characteristic was phased out by the tip of 2020. Basically, although, a contemporary Chromebook will print simply superb on a contemporary printer.

Accessing information

Accessing Chrome OS requires clicking the “house” circle within the lower-left nook, then both swiping or clicking the uncovered up arrow to entry the Chrome OS apps, a few of which could be saved within the taskbar dock for straightforward entry. My very own private desire is for the Home windows Begin menu, both in Home windows 10 or Home windows 11; it’s simply simpler to seek out the apps you’re on the lookout for.

I’d additionally give the sting to Home windows’ File Explorer in its skill to seek out information. Nonetheless, a Chromebook benefit is the power to keep away from looking by means of each nook and cranny. Google exhibits you what information you’ll want, and hides the remaining.

Different inputs and peripherals

Whereas some Chromebooks permit for inking—you’ll typically want to produce your personal stylus or use your finger—it simply isn’t the precedence that it’s on some Home windows units, reminiscent of Microsoft Floor Professional tablets.

Home windows makes it a lot simpler so as to add peripherals, in the event you worth the utility software program that permits you to tweak and tune the settings of a webcam, for instance. Peripherals hooked up to Chromebooks are inclined to ship what they promise–a 1080p webcam will work, as will a wired mouse–however with out the bells and whistles that very same peripheral would supply on a Home windows PC.

Shutterstock / Lazy Bear

To be honest, Home windows 11 seems to be much more like a Chromebook than it did earlier than. The Home windows 11 taskbar (for now) can solely be oriented on the backside of the display screen, the place apps pop up from a Begin menu that appears considerably just like the Chrome OS launcher.

Our colleagues over at Computerworld embody a Chromebook cheat sheet that you could be discover helpful with extra particulars on the ins and outs of Chromebooks.

Home windows vs. Chrome OS: What’s the distinction?

Home windows PCs run Microsoft Home windows 10 and Home windows 11, the dominant working system for conventional PCs for greater than 25 years. Google Chromebooks run Chrome OS, optimized for each Google Chrome and Android apps.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Periodically, Microsoft forces a transition to a brand new model of the working system. Home windows 10 will finish assist in October 2025, for instance, and there’s a pointy break from the Home windows 10 aesthetic just like the Begin menu to the extra practical Home windows 11 desktop. Google now ends assist for a given Chromebook 10 years after its date of manufacture, which can be earlier than to procure it. However Google simply retains on rolling out new variations of Chrome OS–at press time, it’s on model 136–and any adjustments happen step by step over time.

Utilizing Chrome OS seems like utilizing an internet browser, with the tabbed browser interface as the first aesthetic. I often launch (internet) apps instantly from the taskbar. Utilizing Home windows seems like shifting from app to app, launching native apps from the Begin menu and instantly from information.

Chrome OS can’t run Home windows or Mac apps, natively, although you’ve got been ready to make use of an app like Parallels to take action. It will possibly additionally run Google’s rather more complete library of Android apps, discovered on the Google Play Retailer. Home windows laptops can run Home windows apps, naturally, in addition to internet apps (internet pages) saved to the PC.

Microsoft appears to be phasing out efforts to compete instantly with Chromebooks by means of specialised variations of the Home windows OS. For the previous couple of years, Microsoft has marketed Home windows 10 S and Home windows 11 S (or Home windows 10/11 Residence in S Mode) as its working system for colleges and a direct competitor to Chromebooks. It was primarily a locked-down model of Home windows 10, stopping the power to run third-party apps. Home windows 10/11 S and Home windows 11 SE (a particular version for training) are primarily useless.

A lot of that is moot to most consumers. All new Home windows laptops are at the moment offered with Home windows 11, of which the Home windows 11 24H2 Replace is the newest model. You possibly can learn our Home windows 11 superguide for extra. Chromebooks merely improve to no matter model of ChromeOS is present after you obtain it.

Additional studying: Learn how to flip an previous laptop computer right into a Chromebook

Microsoft gained’t assist Home windows PCs without end, however the firm has usually offered free upgrades from one OS to the following. (Home windows 11 broke that cycle, by implementing sure {hardware} necessities.) After the Chrome OS assist window expires, nonetheless, that’s it: Google won’t present new options or supply safety patches. You’ll have to learn critiques or seek the advice of your Chromebook documentation to seek out out when assist expires, although Google’s making an attempt to make that simpler.

Which could be customized extra, a Chromebook or a PC?

Usually, Home windows PCs have supplied an infinite number of choices to help you tweak issues as you want. Most of that is already constructed into Home windows, although there are wallpaper theme packs and even a Bing Wallpaper app to permit additional customization. Home windows now features a “Highlight” characteristic that pulls from Microsoft’s in depth database of licensed nature images, which might alter your desktop wallpaper each day.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

Chromebooks have typically not supplied as a lot personalization capabilities. However Chromebooks now supply the power to decide on between many alternative wallpapers, or you may create your personal utilizing AI. In any other case, the essential UI stays the identical.

Are you able to run Home windows apps on Chromebooks?

Probably not. For years, Parallels for Chromebook allowed enterprise customers with a Parallels license to primarily run Home windows apps inside a digital machine on Chrome OS. In February 2025, Parallels mentioned that Parallels Desktop for Chrome OS would finish life in April 2026.

Now, the one strategy to run Home windows apps on Chrome OS is with a Parallels product known as DaaS (Desktop as a Service) which primarily streams a Home windows desktop on to a Chromebook, like cloud gaming. Google additionally purchased Cameyo in June 2024, an organization with the identical thought. Perhaps some day Google will natively supply the power to run Home windows on Chrome OS through this Cameyo expertise.

A greater resolution could also be Home windows 365, Microsoft’s program for operating Home windows through the cloud. Home windows 365 is actually the Home windows equal of cloud gaming—Home windows lives within the cloud, and is “streamed” all the way down to the native PC. Nevertheless, Microsoft designed Home windows 365 for enterprise customers, so customers don’t have entry to this for now.

How are the specs of a laptop computer and Chromebook totally different?

Inside, the one actual variations are the processor. Home windows PCs have a variety of microprocessors powering them, often chips from AMD and Intel, or extra lately, a Qualcomm Snapdragon.

Chromebooks typically favor lower-performance Intel Atom chips (branded as Pentium or Celeron), Snapdragons, or lesser-known processors from the likes of Mediatek or Rockchip, which can be suited to the lighter calls for of Chrome OS. However AMD has made aggressive, latest strikes to carry its highly effective Ryzen chips into Chromebooks, and Intel’s Core chips (usually a Core i3) can seem in Chromebooks, too.

Extra lately we’ve seen pricier company and luxurious Chromebooks embody Intel Core CPUs—however the jury’s nonetheless out on who pays upwards of $1,000 for a Chromebook. In October 2022, Google unveiled a line of gaming Chromebooks with high-end shows and processors designed for cloud gaming. Lastly, in 2023, Google launched the Chromebook Plus specification, with no less than an Intel Core i3, 8GB+ of reminiscence, and no less than 128GB of storage. That final classification continues to stay round.

Although you’ll discover that many Chromebooks and cheap laptops characteristic an analogous HD (1366×768) or Full HD (1920×1080) show, Home windows often requires extra sturdy reminiscence and storage. Whereas a Chromebook can run acceptably on 4GB of reminiscence, 16GB of reminiscence has grow to be the everyday reminiscence loadout for a “good” Home windows laptop computer.

Laptops usually embody extra native storage for the Home windows OS and related apps: 128GB is barely acceptable, however 256GB has grow to be the minimal. Chromebooks, in the meantime, don’t want rather more than 32GB or so, assuming Google-oriented customers are profiting from the Google Drive on-line storage, or stashing Android apps on an SD card. Much less storage means much less value; many Chromebooks additionally use cheap eMMC flash storage to save lots of even additional. Each Chromebooks and Home windows laptops permit exterior storage. 

Kingston

You’ll usually discover a higher-quality show on a laptop computer, with 1200p or 1440p shows turning into extra widespread. Pretty OLED shows are additionally turning into extra widespread on laptops, much less so on Chromebooks.

How is AI dealt with in laptops and Chromebooks?

Since 2024, AI has grow to be the matter of dialogue inside expertise circles, and each Microsoft and Google are keen to ascertain themselves as a frontrunner.

Microsoft embeds its Copilot AI assistant into the taskbar, the place you may open it and ask questions of its cloud-based assistant. (Cortana, discovered on Home windows 10, is actually useless.) In any other case, how Home windows integrates AI could be very scattershot. Sure capabilities, like Copilot and generative AI artwork capabilities in Paint, faucet into the cloud. Others, reminiscent of Paint’s Cocreator and Microsoft’s controversial Recall operate require a Copilot+ laptop computer, which incorporates what’s known as an NPU able to 40 TOPS. These NPUs are the one approach sure native AI capabilities could be accessed–older laptops are out of luck.

Home windows laptops can also faucet into different Copilot capabilities within the Edge browser, reminiscent of summarizing an internet web page, or assistive instruments in Microsoft 365. These could require a Microsoft 365 subscription or different subscription, nonetheless. There are different AI capabilities scattered round Home windows, too: Dwell Captions transcribe video you play again, Home windows Studio Results blur your background, and extra.

Microsoft

Google’s method to AI is extra simple. It too places the Gemini icon into the taskbar, and you may question the cloud-based AI. (Shopping for a Chromebook Plus additionally provides you a yr’s value–about $280–of a premium Gemini subscription, which supplies you entry to superior Gemini capabilities.

However it, too, scatters AI options across the OS. When you go surfing, a “welcome recap” reminds you of what you had been doing and what you’ve got arising. You possibly can search your browser historical past utilizing pure language queries. Gemini can summarize internet pages. Chromebook Plus Chromebooks include apps like Recorder, which might transcribe spoken phrases and determine the speaker. Like Home windows, Chrome OS makes use of AI to blur your background throughout a Meet name and applies filters.

With all the consideration paid to AI, you may positively count on AI to reshape each Home windows and Chrome OS over the following few years.

Is a Chromebook or laptop computer higher for workplace work?

Productiveness apps—phrase processing, spreadsheets, and the like—signify nearly all of the working day. Right here, each Home windows and Chromebook customers have a number of selections, and each are truthfully about equal. Chromebooks can run Microsoft’s Workplace apps as internet apps or Android purposes, whereas Home windows PCs can run Google Workspace apps on the internet. (Google Workspace was previously named G Suite, and earlier than that Google Apps.)

You may suppose that Workplace could be restricted to Home windows, however that’s not true both: Workplace.com, also called Workplace On-line, runs in an internet browser, and—assuming you’ve got a subscription to Workplace 365 (now known as Microsoft 365)—provides almost all of the performance that the Workplace 365 suite does. In truth, Google asks you if you wish to obtain the Microsoft 365 app in the course of the Chromebook setup course of, supplying you with a head begin.

The Google Workspace suite additionally runs on-line. Although Workspace apps have an easier interface, their concentrate on collaboration provides them a singular twist. Each Google Workspace and Workplace On-line will run on both a plain Chromebook or Home windows PC; nonetheless, in the event you want entry to a neighborhood copy of Workplace, solely a PC will suffice. 

The gist is that productiveness is feasible on both a Chromebook or Home windows PC with a minimal quantity of effort, although you might wish to pay for a subscription for both Workplace or Google’s suite of apps to get most profit and cupboard space. You may additionally discover Home windows PCs a bit simpler to configure for printing.

Can a Chromebook play video games in addition to a Home windows PC?

With the huge historical past of basic PC video games accessible to Home windows machines, the PC is clearly dominant the place gaming is anxious. Nevertheless, there are additionally video games which can be “unique” to Chromebooks, because of 2016’s Chrome OS 53, and its skill to run Android apps and video games. All Chromebooks made since 2019 (and a few earlier fashions) have this functionality. However the distinction just isn’t fairly as profound because it as soon as was.

Put merely, Home windows is the greatest gaming platform exterior of a console. App shops like Epic and Steam run natively, and Home windows permits you to run video games regionally in addition to through cloud companies like Xbox Cloud Gaming, which continues to be in preview three years after its launch, or Nvidia’s GeForce Now.

Shutterstock / Lazy Bear

When you gained’t be taking part in the newest Battlefield recreation on a Chromebook as a local app, Chromebooks have two issues going for them: First, they will run Android video games through downloads from the Google Play Retailer. And if a recreation can run within the cloud, chances are high that it may be performed through a Chromebook, too. It’s just a little iffy, as Valve’s Steam for Chrome OS is just a little iffy (our tutorial on how one can play Steam video games on a Chromebook has extra) however different cloud companies run effectively.

In case your Chromebook is without doubt one of the cheaper, much less highly effective selection, don’t despair. Cloud gaming companies can come to your rescue—and operating them is the following smartest thing to loading and taking part in them on the Chromebook itself. Along with the older Parsec cloud gaming service, you now have Nvidia GeForce Now, the Blade Shadow service (hailing from Europe), and even Xbox video games. We clarify how Xbox cloud gaming runs on a Chromebook. Simply just be sure you both have an Xbox Sport Go Final subscription in place, or personal an Xbox outright.

Google believes strongly in cloud gaming, and launched a wave of cloud gaming Chromebooks to reap the benefits of the pattern. We’re nonetheless just a little skeptical of whether or not these units are value the additional cash, although the improved {hardware} can be utilized for gaming or productiveness alike.

Google

Home windows PCs’ time with Android video games has come and gone, although. Microsoft tried out the Home windows Subsystem for Android, then killed it in March 2025 when nobody actually used it.

Which provides extra apps, Chromebooks or Home windows PCs?

Video games actually fall into the class of native apps, however so do the quite a few apps and utilities that may make on a regular basis duties just a little simpler. Right here, it’s additionally a combined bag.

That is type of a lopsided comparability, since Microsoft doesn’t reveal the variety of apps contained in the Microsoft Retailer. Even when it did, that quantity wouldn’t reveal something concerning the high quality of apps discovered inside it. App shops are infamous for together with “knockoff” apps or crapware, and Microsoft has been notably susceptible. Chrome OS doesn’t embody the kind of crapware Home windows PCs additionally generally ship with, requiring apps like CCleaner to tidy up.

One of many strengths of Home windows, although, is its historic archive of bits of code, utilities, and different apps which have collected in dusty previous hard-drive folders, FTP websites, and elsewhere. Batch resizing apps for photographs, customized calendar apps, macro managers—everybody has their favorites, and Chrome OS merely can’t compete. Home windows PCs are the platform to run nearly the whole lot.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

Chromebooks can run internet apps, plus the Android apps that may run underneath Chrome OS: There have been nearly 3 million whole within the Google Play app retailer as of June 2020. Not each Android app will run on a Chromebook. Chromebooks don’t embody GPS chips, so location-specific apps gained’t work. Ditto for many who depend on rear cameras that the Chromebook could or could not have—Pokemon Go, for example.

Though we actually don’t suppose that is for everybody, some Chromebooks can run Linux, however it would take some fiddling. Our associates over at Computerworld have an up-to-date information on how one can run Linux on a Chromebook.

Which lasts longer, a Chromebook or a PC?

The longevity of a PC is principally decided by how demanding Home windows is, in comparison with the {hardware} powering it. The willingness of the PC maker and element makers to offer drivers additionally performs a task. {Hardware} failures will ultimately happen. Each processor that Intel launches is accompanied by statements evaluating the brand new chip to a 5-year-old PC, with efficiency enhancements within the 30 to 40 % vary. In any other case, a PC’s lifespan might go on for years, even a long time, so long as the working system is stored updated.

Or we thought so, anyway. Home windows 11 all of a sudden reduce off hundreds of thousands of PCs from an improve to Home windows 11, due to new {hardware} restrictions. Older PCs, even Floor units made by Microsoft, had been reduce off. Might Microsoft do that once more sooner or later? We don’t know.

Proper now, Microsoft is ending assist for Home windows 10 PCs in October 2025, which primarily implies that these PCs danger affected by vulnerabilities until customers pay for some extra assist or merely improve to Home windows 11, if Microsoft’s automated {hardware} checks permit it.

A Chromebook lasts so long as Google is prepared to assist it. To start with, it was simply 5 years after the unique manufacturing date for any Chromebook (maintain this in thoughts in the event you’re shopping for an older Chromebook, or a used one). Extra lately, Google’s begun extending the time it helps Chromebooks, and now it’s prolonged that to 10 years, whole.

Should you already personal a Chromebook, go to the Settings menu, then to About ChromeOS > Further particulars and you need to see an express assertion telling you ways lengthy it has earlier than it exits assist.

Mark Hachman / Foundry

Simply to be clear: A Home windows PC or Chromebook that has exited its assist window implies that it gained’t obtain characteristic and safety patches. That may depart both platform susceptible to beforehand undiscovered malware or different assaults, with quite a lot of penalties.

Which is safer, a Chromebook or a Home windows PC?

Safety isn’t a query that may be answered completely, however Chromebooks and Home windows PCs differ essentially right here. The relative simplicity of a Chromebook provides a much smaller “assault floor” than a Home windows PC does. The complexity of Home windows PCs, together with the software program Home windows helps, offers hackers many extra alternatives to assault. 

Google developed Chromebooks with safety as a precedence, utilizing the whole lot from remoted, “sandboxed” processes to verified boot to assist defend your system. (Our sister web site, TechAdvisor, has a extra detailed clarification.) For individuals who fear about web sites that hijack your browser or obtain malware, a Chromebook’s defenses defend you with out making you concentrate on it a lot. 

Preserving a Home windows PC protected is usually a rather more difficult enterprise. Safety begins as quickly as you start establishing a brand new PC. Common upkeep is required for each your antivirus software program and the Home windows working system, although most occurs mechanically. Nonetheless, holes are continually being found. You must be vigilant, or no less than not too lazy, to guard your Home windows PC. Fortuitously, Home windows’ built-in Home windows Safety software program is far higher than it was, sufficient that Home windows can principally handle itself. 

Mark Hachman / Foundry

Login safety works about the identical on each platforms. Logging right into a Chromebook requires a Google account and its password. You can even use a cellphone to unlock a Chromebook. (One of many neat issues about Chromebooks is that you need to use your cellphone as a secondary gadget that can assist you arrange a Chromebook and keep away from coming into Wi-Fi passwords and the like.)

Home windows PCs additionally favor a Microsoft account and password, although Microsoft is making an attempt to part out the password in the event you personal an Android cellphone or different authenticated gadget.

On a PC or laptop computer, authentication choices embody Home windows Whats up (both through a fingerprint reader or depth digital camera, or else with a brief PIN), which offers an informal degree of safety that additionally permits you to resume work rapidly and simply. It’s a cross between ease-of-access and safety that Microsoft has invested in closely, and it’s a comfort that almost all Home windows customers admire. 

Nonetheless, Chromebooks have improved right here as effectively. Chrome OS now helps WebAuthn, a characteristic that permits you to log into an internet site utilizing your fingerprint or PIN. (Your Chromebook must have a fingerprint reader for this to work.) On this case, your cellphone replaces your PIN as a method of two-factor authentication. I’ve by no means seen a Chromebook log you in through your face, nonetheless.

Ashley Biancuzzo

What Chromebook ought to I purchase?

When shopping for a Chromebook, the principle issues to contemplate are the reminiscence measurement—imagine it or not, that’s extra essential than the processor. Extra RAM means extra open, accessible tabs, and browsing the net is crucial job of the Chromebook. Display screen measurement and determination are the following precedence: Low-cost Chromebooks can have 11-inch, 768p screens. Purchase a 13-inch or 14-inch Chromebook with a 1080p (1920×1080) display screen in the event you can—your eyes will thanks for it.

Chromebooks can have quite a lot of low-end microprocessors to select from, a few of which you could have by no means heard of. PCWorld’s Alaina Yee recommends shopping for a Chromebook with a Pentium or Celeron processor—and that’s a superb place to start out in the event you don’t really feel snug parsing Chromebook specs. Something extra highly effective than that, like an Intel Core chip, is simply superb too.

Our suggestions for the perfect Chromebooks continually change, so examine our greatest picks for the perfect Chromebooks for the newest.

Amazon

What laptop computer ought to I purchase?

When shopping for a laptop computer, think about shopping for one in all PCWorld’s really useful laptops. Shopping for a laptop computer is comparatively simple: Merely search for an up-to-date AMD or Intel processor, and search for the bottom worth.

Laptops with an Intel Core i3 or an AMD Ryzen 3 needs to be thought of the minimal specification, with a Core i5 or Ryzen 5 most popular. Purchase a laptop computer with no less than 8GB of RAM inside and 256GB of storage. Extra RAM means extra accessible tabs and a bigger number of purposes; paperwork, video, and apps could require extra cupboard space.

Purchase a laptop computer with no less than a 1080p display screen, and a snug measurement. Keep in mind, a bigger laptop computer is often heavier, too.

Gaming laptops needs to be prevented until you propose to play video games! Gaming laptops use a discrete GPU, and are usually dearer. However they’re enjoyable! Should you’re out there for a gaming laptop computer, choose from one in all our high picks in gaming laptops.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

What is best, a Chromebook or laptop computer?

Whereas we will’t say for sure which platform you’ll favor, right here’s a suggestion: Should you suppose {that a} Chromebook may very well be best for you, take a Home windows PC, obtain the Google Chrome browser, after which work completely inside it for a day. Whereas each platforms now supply Android apps, Chrome OS nonetheless provides a broader, extra standard vary from the Google Play Retailer.

It’s honest to say that Home windows provides a extra complete expertise, however ChromeOS is often a considerably less complicated, cheaper various. The shopping for choice often works out to one thing like: “I can do nearly the whole lot in Home windows with a Chromebook, however…” It’s that final little bit—printing, file administration, and so on.—that can information your choice. Good luck! 

Up to date on June 4, 2025, with extra shopping for choices, updates, and additional particulars.