Once upon a time, there was a relativley large divide between large and small-core Intel-based Chromebooks. Up to just a couple years ago, small-core Intel devices with Braswell or Apollo Lake chips were really hard to recommend to just about anyone. With cheap build quality, cheap components, and painfully slow performance, I even disliked the fact that my young kids had to cope with these Chromebooks while at elementary school. Even worse, since they were always the cheapest options, many people used these Chromebooks and thought “THIS is what it feels like to use Chrome OS.” It was a bad look all around.
Fortunately, that isn’t the case any longer. Affordable Chromebooks are getting better and better as time goes by and what you can get in the sub-$350 range these days completely demolishes what was standard fare just a couple years ago. With better quality in the builds, better screens and – most importantly – better small-core processors from Intel, the affordable Chromebook market is finally a place that is fun to hang out in.
