Of course you do, compact laptops always come in handy, especially those that don’t break the bank. Be it as an ultra-light laptop to bring to school or a work horse netbook that permanently resided at the backseat of your truck, you can’t really go wrong with an affordable computing machine. And what do you know, most of these are powered by Google’s Chrome OS.
Gaming on a Chromebook?
But one of the often-overlooked aspects of Chromebooks are their… gaming capabilities! Yes, you read that right, and allow us to explain.
Chromebooks are the furthest you could stray away from your typical gaming laptop, clad with lit RGB keyboards, aggressive design, and gaming logos all around. The hardware inside is equally humbling, and while a laptop can never hold a candle to a similarly-powered desktop PC, it’s enough to beat most regular laptops in terms of performance, except for some high-end MacBooks, of course.
Enter cloud-gaming, the hidden ace in the sleeve that can potentially turn any humble Chromebook into a decent enough gaming machine… of sorts! Thanks to the various cloud-gaming services available, you can game on any machine that can run a decent browser, even if it has some rather humble hardware. If you’ve never considered a Chromebook as a viable gaming machine but can totally see the appeal now, then boy, do we have some appealing deals for you!
Best Gaming Chromebooks right now
Best Buy is currently hosting a very, very appealing campaign on two new Chromebooks that come with included three-month free trial for NVIDIA GeForceNOW and Amazon Luna+.
Acer 16″ Chromebook
High-res display, excellent value
The first laptop that you need to know about is the Acer 16″ Chromebook, which is outfitted with a 12th-gen Intel Core i5-1240P processor, with a base clock of 4.4GHz and outfitted with a 256GB SSD storage, as well as 8GB of RAM, a respectable amount of memory for any self-respecting Chromebook. Of course, running the show is Google’s Chrome OS.
The device has a 16″ non-touchscreen display with a 2560×1600-pixel resolution, a super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate, a 350-nit peak brightness and 100% coverage of the sRGB color space. All of that is fueled by a lithium-ion battery that would let you game for close to 9 hours!
Acer 16″ Gaming Chromebook
ASUS 15.6″ Gaming Chromebook
Touchscreen, great value
The other gaming-centric Chromebook laptop that is deserving of your attention is an ASUS, outfitted with a rather FHD touchscreen display and powered by an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor. The laptop opens both ways, allowing you to conveniently use it as an over-sized tablet of sorts and the other way around when you need to show your friends who’s who in Valorant or Apex Legends.
This ASUS Chromebook comes with a 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, an integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630, and a lithium-polymer battery that should last you for a long time during your prolonged gaming sessions. This laptop is definitely striking a superb balance between features and
ASUS 15.6-inch Gaming Chromebook
Have in mind that both laptops include the three-month GeForce NOW and Amazon Luna cloud-gaming services. The ASUS Chromebook has this offer listed under features, whereas the Acer Chromebook has the trial offer included inside the box.
Best games that you can play on NVIDIA GeForceNOW and Amazon Luna
Okay, so by now you’ve grasped that the big deal with both of these Chromebooks is their free subscription to the popular NVIDIA GeForceNOW and Amazon Luna cloud-gaming services. Both services offload the hardware heavy-lifting to their dedicated servers and provide you with low-latency 120fps video stream of your game of choice, essentially allowing you to play on the cloud. You need a fast and stable Internet connection for a good experience, and you need to own the games you want to play (neither service allows you to purchase a game directly)
What are some of the best titles available on both gaming services right now?
