Years ago, if you mentioned you’d bought a Chromebook, people would assume you were the proud owner of a novel with a limited edition polished steel cover. Now though, over a decade on, Chromebooks have firmly established themselves as an incredibly convenient, powerful alternative to standard Windows and Mac-powered laptops. If you haven’t considered one already, you’ve been missing out.
Given their incredible bang-for-buck, ease of use, lightweight design and superb battery life, Chromebooks have long been thought of as the ultimate companion for students. There’s nothing wrong with that perception of course, but it does mean that if your university days are behind (or ahead of) you, the idea of snapping one up for yourself may not be the obvious choice, but there’s tons more to them than that.
We’ve rounded up all the best things that a Chromebook has to offer, to help make your laptop buying experience a smoother, more informed one. Right now, you can save up to £400 on selected Chromebooks from all sorts of manufacturers such as Lenovo and Acer at Currys, there’s never been a better time to dive into a simpler world of computing.
Here are the big reasons why a Chromebook deserves a place in your home (or home office)…
Simply the best
One of the best things about Chromebooks is their simplicity. Running Google’s ChromeOS, they’re incredibly easy to set up and use – starting can be as simple as logging in with your Gmail account. Imagine the ease of use and speed of a tablet, combined with super-speedy laptop hardware and functionality, and you’re on the right track. Chromebooks start fast and easy, and they stay fast and easy.
Take the Everything Button. One press, and you can find anything you need with just a few keystrokes. Start typing what you’re after, and you’ll instantly be shown relevant files, apps or search results, without having to faff around with any other apps or windows. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of apps…
Appy days
If you’ve got an Android phone, you’ll be familiar with the millions of high-quality apps in the Google Play Store – and you’ll find them all on your Chromebook too. From the latest games to creativity apps, productivity tools, communication software and much, much more, the world of work and play is your oyster. Google’s app store is incredibly robust and app-packed, so you'll want for nothing with your new Chromebook.
Better yet, while you can store files on the device, ChromeOS makes it incredibly easy to store everything in the cloud too. Simply log in to your Google account and redeem your special Chromebook perk to get 100GB of cloud storage, which you can use for everything from emails and photos, to videos, files, and a whole lot more. And because they’re stored on the cloud, you won’t fill up your laptop with any clutter, ensuring it runs just as smoothly as the day you bought it, year after year.
Marathon battery life
Given their lightweight, efficient nature, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Chromebook that didn’t easily breeze through an entire workday without needing to reach for the plug. Many, like the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook, often go above and beyond, lasting up to a whopping 15 hours of use per charge. Better yet, you can save £100 on this model right now at Currys, bringing the price down to a sweet £449.
With that kind of stamina, you can leave the house without having to pack a charger, safe in the knowledge that you’ll have more than enough in the tank for a full day’s worth of work — and then some. Given that Chromebooks are thin and light, it’s good news for your shoulders and back too, especially if you’re commuting or travelling.
What's your flavour?
While you can get Chromebooks that are incredibly cheap (with many coming in under the £200 mark), that doesn’t mean that you can't spend more to get one that’s rammed with power. Right now, at Currys, you can get an incredible £400 off the ASUS Chromebook CX9, which offers a smooth and slick experience that will last you for years, now for just £899!
It features a 14in screen, 512GB of cavernous SSD storage, 16GB of RAM and a blazing-fast Intel Core i7 processor. With £400 slashed off its RRP at the time of writing, it’s an absolutely incredible machine for creators looking to edit videos and photos, and play games, without compromise.
Value for money
Chromebooks also offer impressive value beyond simply their specs and hardware. You’ll get one year of free 100GB Google One storage, for a start, after which it’ll set you back an extremely reasonable £1.50 a month. You can always pay a little bit more to bump that storage up too, with the next 200GB tier costing only £2.49 a month.
Video lovers will also appreciate three free months of YouTube Premium, offering an ad-free gateway to millions of the best videos ever made, along with YouTube Music thrown in for good measure. So, you can happily have all your video and music needs bundled into one subscription, saving you extra cash every month in the process.
With Currys' fantastic deal prices, you can get even more bang for your buck right now. The portable and sleek Acer 515 comes bundled with a mouse, offering a full HD screen, up to 10 hours of battery life and weighs just 1.37kg, making it an excellent laptop if you're often on-the-go. As of writing, it's just £399 at Currys!
Peace of mind
One of the many ways that Chromebooks make life easy is that you don’t need to think about additional virus protection. They come with built-in checks that are automatically updated to ensure that they always know what they’re looking for, but also every app or website you use runs in a ‘sandbox’, which means that even you accidentally visit a malicious site, that site can’t reach any parts of the software – not even the other tabs in your web browser.
On top of that, important personal data stored on the device is encrypted to that it can’t be read by anyone else – and anything stored in Google cloud system is encrypted too, to keep it safe from prying eyes without any effort on your part. Chromebooks simply take the headache out of keeping your laptop safe.
A whole new world
We hope we’ve shed some light on the benefits of Chromebooks, while showing that they’re an excellent choice for people other than students. If your interest has officially been piqued, then feel free to check out an in-depth article discussing which Chromebook is best for your needs.
If you head over to Currys, there’s a fantastic Chromebook sale on as we speak where you can pick up a brand new Chromebook with discounts up to multiple hundreds of pounds.
If you’re in the market for a new laptop, it’s definitely worth considering making the switch, and there’s never been a better time to dive in.
