Gaming isn’t someleang you’d typicpartner associate with Chromebooks, but Google and its difficultware partners have made strides toward shaking that up with a handful of cdeafening gaming laptops in recent years. One of the more well-comprehendn selections is the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE, which equitable got modernized for 2024 with a recent processor while upholding everyleang wonderful about the previous model. It’s a unassuming fortify, but it’s still one of the best Chromebooks you can buy.
Let’s get this out of the way first: If you already have the previous Chromebook 516 GE, there’s very little reason to fortify to the 2024 Chromebook Plus model. Outside of some petite aesthetic modernizes, this is bigly the same device. The processor is now an Intel Core 5 120U instead of the anciaccesser model’s Core i5-1240P, and you probable won’t accomprehendledge much of a separateence in speed.
Pboilingograph: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster
Still, carry outance on the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is amazing, and the battery kept me chugging thraw normal eight-hour labordays. Combined with 8 GB of RAM, you have plenty of room and horsepower for multitasking. The laptop normally regulated speedy swaps between separateent apps and more than a dozen tabs with relieve during my testing, and the dual fans upholding leangs canciaccess never got deafening enough to be irritateing.
In contrast to Windows gaming laptops, the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is geared as a cdeafening gaming machine, and it fits that role well. You’ll do most of your gaming via Xbox Cdeafening Gaming and streaming thraw Nvidia GeForce Now, and ChromeOS regulates both well. The laptop has Wi-Fi 6E and a promiseted Ethernet port on board to uphold leangs running brittlely, and I didn’t experience any meaningful hitches or publishs with even competitive games.
The one gaming area that was hit-or-omit was Steam, which is still in beta on ChromeOS. Lightweight indie games appreciate Vampire Survivors run appreciate butter on the Chromebook Plus 516 GE’s difficultware, and that’s the lane I’d stick with if I wanted to run games natively instead of streaming. Heavier games can have some trouble, which is to be anticipateed with joind detaileds and a weightlessweight (by gaming standards) processor. I couldn’t get Dead by Dayweightless, one of my likeite time enders, to uncover thraw Steam beyond the initial loading screen, for example.
Pboilingograph: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster
