Games are not something You’d normally associate this with Chromebooks, but Google and its hardware partners have taken steps forward to change that with a handful of cloud gaming laptops in recent years. One of the most popular options is the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GEwhich has just been updated for 2024 with a new processor and retains everything good about the previous model. It’s a modest update, 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 older Chromebook 516 GE, there’s not much reason to upgrade to the 2024 Chromebook Plus model. Aside from a few minor cosmetic updates, this is largely the same device. The processor is now an Intel Core 5 120U instead of the Core i5-1240P on the older model, and you likely won’t notice much of a difference in speed.
Photography: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster
Still, performance on the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is Fantastic, and the battery got me through eight-hour work days. Combined with 8GB of RAM, it has plenty of room and power for multitasking. The laptop frequently handled quick switches between different apps and more than a dozen tabs with ease during my testing, and the dual fans that keep things cool never got loud enough to be bothersome.
Unlike Windows gaming laptops, the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is designed as a cloud gaming machine, and it serves that purpose well. Most gaming is done via Xbox Cloud Gaming and streaming through Nvidia GeForce Now, and ChromeOS handles both well. The laptop has Wi-Fi 6E and a dedicated Ethernet port built in to keep everything running smoothly, and I didn’t experience any major issues even with competitive games.
The only gaming arena that had its ups and downs was Steam, which is still in beta on ChromeOS. Light indie games like Vampire survivors They run like butter on the Chromebook Plus 516 GE’s hardware, and that’s the option I’d choose if I wanted to run games natively rather than streaming them. Heavier games may struggle a bit, which is to be expected with integrated graphics and a lightweight (by gaming standards) processor. I couldn’t get it to run smoothly. Dead by daylightone of my favorite pastimes, to open through Steam beyond the initial loading screen, for example.
Photography: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster