Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 evaluate: the brand new king of Chromebooks

The world of Chromebooks has its MacBook Air.

Lenovo’s online visibility Chromebook Plus 14 is an Arm-based thin-and-light with good specs, glorious battery life, a fantastic keyboard, all-around strong construct, and a incredible OLED display screen. However the most effective half is that its vivid and punchy 14-inch panel comes customary on the bottom $649 configuration or as a touchscreen for $749.

That’s cheaper than each the OLED-equipped Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus and Acer Chromebook Plus Spin with an IPS display screen. It’s additionally quicker than both with extra RAM.

The brand new Chromebook Plus 14 might be a go-to laptop computer for almost anybody — should you’re okay residing with ChromeOS within the first place, in fact.

The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 begins at $649 with a MediaTek Kompanio Extremely 910 processor, 128GB of storage, 12GB of RAM, and that glorious OLED. Our evaluate config prices $100 extra, however it appears worthwhile for double the storage, 16GB of RAM, a touchscreen, and a fingerprint reader. It simply weighs barely extra, at 2.78 kilos as an alternative of the bottom mannequin’s 2.58 kilos. It’s pretty skinny at 0.62 inches, and for ports it’s received two USB-C, one USB-A, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The USB-C ports can help you use as much as two exterior 4K displays in tandem with the built-in show, although they’re a sluggish 5Gbps.

{Hardware}-wise, this laptop computer is sort of faultless, particularly for the value. You get a fantastic high quality 1920 x 1200 / 60Hz OLED, which isn’t a standout when it comes to decision and refresh price, however the shade and distinction actually are. There’s loads of RAM in comparison with most different Chromebooks, and the keyboard feels simply as nice as a lot pricier Lenovo notebooks. The audio system are additionally fairly good, rendering a full sound for music and podcasts, and so they can get fairly loud. My solely small hangups have been with the webcam, which appears positive other than a greenish tint, and the loud, cheap-sounding click on of the mechanical trackpad.

The Chromebook Plus 14’s efficiency is spectacular, particularly because it’s a totally silent, fanless design like a MacBook Air. The 8-core MediaTek processor paired with 16GB of RAM is highly effective sufficient to simply deal with working many Chrome tabs throughout a pair desktops. I uploaded a couple of paperwork to NotebookLM within the background, permitting it to generate some audio overviews, and by no means bothered to cease utilizing any of my open tabs or Android apps. The Lenovo didn’t break a sweat. I did handle to get the MediaTek chip to decelerate a bit of, however solely a pair instances. One was an unintended mini torture check — spamming Ctrl+Shift+T a couple of too many instances to reopen a bunch of Chrome tabs and Recordsdata app home windows.

Frankly, Chromebooks are mature sufficient lately that it’s best to count on greater than sufficient efficiency for on a regular basis multitasking — and the brand new Lenovo delivers. You are able to do virtually something in an online browser lately, and the power to run each Android and Linux apps can fill in numerous the remaining gaps. However some gaps stay.

Zoom — whether or not within the browser, the Android app, or the “Zoom for Chromebook” progressive net app — was a buggy mess. The Linux model of Slack didn’t work, since Slack doesn’t have a model of its Linux app compiled for Arm chips. I can get by positive utilizing Slack in a browser, although I a lot choose it as a standalone app. So consider this laptop computer’s structure might complicate issues should you’re planning to make use of Linux apps.

Unoptimized apps can scale back battery life, however the Lenovo’s 60Wh cell and power-sipping chip make it a battery champ regardless. On a lightweight day working Chrome tabs, progressive net apps, and the Android model of Spotify, I might simply use the Chromebook Plus 14 from the beginning of my workday round 8AM to deep into the night. I as soon as began my day with 77 p.c battery, used it for round 9 hours with minimal standby time, and crossed 5PM with about 20 p.c nonetheless left within the tank. You’ll be able to most likely get a number of days out of this factor should you’re cautious.

This battery life, mixed with the Lenovo’s general efficiency and glorious display screen, makes it a simple suggestion. An x86 Chromebook can have higher Linux compatibility, if that’s essential to you, and it’s doable a future Snapdragon X-equipped Chromebook might shake up this house even additional. However the truth that you will get the touchscreen model for $749, a lower cost than different, slower flagship Chromebook Plus fashions, makes this Lenovo the most effective Chromebook providing. It’s not a two-in-one convertible just like the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714, however it’s extra highly effective and has a nicer display screen. Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook Plus additionally has a pleasant OLED just like the Lenovo, however in my testing I discovered its 16:9 facet ratio display screen irksome (these ought to have stayed dead on laptops in 2021), and its quantity pad makes the keyboard really feel cramped.

The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 looks like a correct successor to Google’s outdated Pixelbook, with a fantastic display screen and borderline-overkill specs that would really final the entire 10 years of promised software updates. It’s particularly interesting if you would like an inexpensive, largely hassle-free laptop computer — with the power to choose in to some trouble if you wish to tinker with Linux. That is the brand new king of Chromebooks, and general only a rattling good laptop.

Pictures by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge