I’m not going to beat around the bush: iPadOS 26 and its new multitasking features are a game-changer for Apple’s tablets. Pretty much ever since Steve Jobs introduced the iPad 15 years ago (!), Apple has tried to straddle two worlds. In one, the iPad is a super-simple, easy-to-use tablet with a gorgeous display and tons of good apps from the App Store for gaming, entertainment and light work. The other world is one where the iPad replaces your traditional computer, letting people do the serious work that’s been typically reserved for a Mac or Windows PC. iPadOS has too often served as a hindrance to the latter goal over the years, particularly as the iPad Pro has gotten more powerful.

The Stage Manager multitasking experience Apple introduced with iPadOS 16 in 2022 was a major step towards making the iPad’s software suitable for power users — but it was rather buggy at launch and not as flexible as iPad power users were hoping for. The calls to just put macOS on the iPad grew louder. But this year, Apple took a different approach: it brought crucial macOS features like the familiar “stoplight” window controls, the menu bar at the top of the screen and vastly improved window management tools to iPadOS 26. The result is an iPad experience where you can easily jump between multiple windowed apps set up just how you like and one where you go full screen to focus on your content. It’s a massive refinement over the old Stage Manager experience and one that I think will finally satisfy iPad die-hards who want to push their tablets to the limit.

Before diving into the details, a quick word on betas and stability. As usual, Apple’s public betas feel pretty stable and capable, but that doesn’t mean you won’t run into weirdness here and there. App crashes, particularly with third-party apps, happened far more on this beta than with iPadOS 18. I’m confident those things will be ironed out as more developers update their apps for the new OS, but you’ll also run into things like UI inconsistencies and occasional stutters and jerkiness when jumping between apps. As we always say, think hard about what you’re willing to put up with to try a beta, even the relatively stable public beta. After all, the final version of iPadOS 26 will be out in just a few months.

(Ed. note: Apple just released the public betas for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 and watchOS 26. This means, as Nate stated above, you can run the preview for yourself, if you are willing to risk potentially buggy software. As usual, we highly recommend backing up all your data before running any beta, and you can follow our guide on how to install Apple's public betas to do so.)

Multitasking

Time for the nitty-gritty. When you update to iPadOS 26, you’ll be asked if you want to enable multitasking or have apps run in full screen mode only. When Apple says full screen only, they mean it. Past versions of iPadOS offered either Stage Manager or a basic, two-app split screen view with a third app available in a Slide Over window. The latter option is gone now, though you can still easily set up two or three apps side by side with iPadOS 26’s window tiling features. You can use multitasking mode or full screen only, with no in between. I think that’s a smart move, as plenty of people who use an iPad probably never use these multi-app features, and having a “multitasking on or off” toggle keeps things simple.

When you turn on multitasking mode, apps still open in full screen first — but you can grab any corner of the window to resize it or touch the top of the app and drag it around the screen. You could already do this with Stage Manager, so what really sets this new mode apart is how it interacts with other windows. Swiping up from the bottom of the display reveals the usual Home Screen view, but with your apps tucked to the side as a visual cue that you can add another app to that group. And, as before, you can move, resize and stack that app window wherever you want.

As I’m writing this, I have nine separate app windows open on my iPad, and getting around them feels more Mac-like than ever before. I can swipe up and hold from the bottom of the Home Screen and see every open app in a smaller window, which makes finding the specific thing I want a lot easier; I can also just command-tab through them. Apps can be minimized down to the dock and when I want the app back, it’ll pop open in the same size window and same placement as before. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen twice minimizes everything I have open to start fresh — but again, if I reopen those apps, they’ll go back to exactly where I had them set up before.

I realize it sounds kind of silly to make a big deal of this, but it’s hard to overstate how much this improves the iPad multitasking experience. With Stage Manager, I was never quite sure where an app would open or if it would be full screen or windowed. It can be useful for setting up multiple groups of apps, but adding and removing apps from that view was not terribly intuitive. Just opening everything in one space is a lot more intuitive. And if you want to have various different spaces with specific apps, you can still turn on Stage Manager. It’s a lot easier to add and remove apps from various different groups than it used to be; minimizing a window puts it into its own space that you can add more apps to (or just use it on its own).

There are a few other new components that make multitasking work as well as it does. These should be quite familiar to Mac users: The three-button “stoplight” controls and the menu bar. The stoplight buttons replace a similar three-dot window management system from older versions of iPadOS but are far more intuitive. The red one closes an app window entirely, the green one makes a window full screen and then yellow one minimizes it to the dock. These controls are crucial to making iPadOS 26 feel more flexible and fluid than ever before, particularly if you want to have more than one window of a single app open. I’ve also found them to be crucial when working with multiple apps on a smaller display, like on the 11-inch iPad Pro. Stage Manager usually felt like more trouble than it was worth on anything but a 13-inch iPad, but these new multitasking features make it easy to flip through a bunch of apps and pop into full screen if I need more space.

The expanded window tiling controls here also make that easier. If you press and hold the stoplight buttons, you’ll get more options to resize apps to take up a quarter, third or half the screen; you can also grab drag bars to further adjust how much space each app takes up. I really liked a mode where three iPhone-sized apps fill the screen, and when there was something I wanted to devote more focus to, I just hit its green button and went full screen.

The menu bar, meanwhile, is pretty easy to explain. If you swipe down from the top of the screen (or move your trackpad cursor up to the top) you’ll see familiar menus like File, Edit, Window and so on. It’s a handy way to find more advanced controls for an app, and it also keeps the various toolbars in apps from getting too overloaded with options.

Long story short, this all adds up to a wildly improved iPad experience. It doesn’t compromise the single-screen, focused mode that the iPad has always been known for, and it greatly improves working across multiple windows and apps. And unlike Stage Manager, which was limited to M-series iPads, these new multitasking features will work on any iPad that can run iPadOS 26, including the base A16 iPad and the iPad mini.

Everything else

If this was the only change to iPadOS Apple made this year, it would already be a worthwhile upgrade, but there are a bunch of other improvements coming this fall. These include an improved Files app, the Preview app that has long been a core part of macOS, the new Liquid Glass design, some potentially useful Apple Intelligence features, a nice set of updates to the Messaging app and a new Phone app.

Much has been said about Liquid Glass, with tons of prognostication about how Apple was ruining usability and throwing its UI back to 2006 in a blatant Windows Aero ripoff. As usual, the truth is much more nuanced. No one familiar with Apple’s software will be thrown off by this update — everything works as it did before, and while you’ll definitely notice some refractive visual elements, it’s not the wholesale change that aggrieved social media posters would have you believe. You can make things look very different if you, say, opt for the new clear glass icon look, but you can also leave the standard colorful iOS icons in place.

Over the course of the developer betas Apple has released since WWDC, the company has responded to feedback and reduced some of the transparency effects that were present in the first version of Liquid Glass — as it turns out, submitting feedback during a beta works! (Interestingly, they bumped some of the transparency back up in the fourth developer beta, right after turning it down in beta 3. This is still a work in progress.) Probably the biggest functional change is that app controls, toolbars and sidebars float over apps in a new, distinct layer rather than being wholly separate from an app’s content — but again, it’s not the kind of thing that’ll faze anyone who has been using an iPad or any other Apple device.

Preview isn’t exactly a thriller, but it’s a much better way to work with PDFs and images than the old interface that launched them in a separate Files window. You can still find PDFs in Files easily enough, but actually dealing with the document in a separate app is better than making Files pull double duty.

Apple

Speaking of Files, it has even more in common with the Mac Finder than before. You can now put specific folders in the dock for faster access to whatever you’re working on, and the app list view has resizable columns and collapsible folders, just like on the Mac. You can also add emoji and colors to folders for more visual differentiation (and, let’s be honest, a little more fun). And for the first time, you can pick specific apps to open different file types by default — so if you’d rather have PNG images open in Photomator than Preview, go nuts.

There are also major updates to the communication experience across the board in iPadOS 26. The FaceTime app got a nice redesign with large contact posters of your recent calls. But what’s most handy here is that the FaceTime app no longer tries to do double-duty with voice calls. A dedicated Phone app handles that now. Assuming you also have an iPhone, you’ll see all your recent voice calls and voicemails here and you can quickly place a new call through your contact list or using a traditional dialer. I’ve always liked the idea of being able to place calls on devices I’m using during the work day like my Mac or iPad, and this makes it far easier.

Apple

Messages is getting some fun visual enhancements like backgrounds for your conversations, but the thing I’m most interested in is message filtering. The app now identifies unknown senders and puts those messages in a separate folder, and there’s also a new spam folder where it drops messages that Apple strongly believes are spam.

If a message gets filtered into unknown senders or spam, you can mark it as known even if the contact isn’t in your address book and those messages will end up in your main view by default. The system also attempts to recognize when a message from an unknown sender is timely and needs to be delivered to your main inbox — something like a delivery person saying they’re nearby or other urgent content like a two-factor authentication code. This feels primarily like a phone-first feature; I get messages on my iPad, but haven’t seen much get filtered directly to spam or unknown callers yet. Once all my devices are running Apple’s latest software, we’ll see how that goes, but I’m still very excited about any feature that’ll help combat the deluge of spam messages that plague my inbox.

For more details on the updated communications experience and other new features like the Apple Intelligence-powered Live Translation, I’ll point you to my colleague Mat Smith’s iOS 26 overview. As is usually the case, nearly every feature coming to the iPhone this year is also coming to the iPad, meaning Live Translation will arrive on the tablet too.

There’s a lot more here that I haven’t been able to get to, like improved background tasks that let you export a video without keeping the app in focus, updates to Genmoji and Image Playground, the Journal app finally coming to iPad, Apple Intelligence-powered Shortcuts updates and much more. I’ll be continuing to check out how things change between now and the final release this fall, but even based on my experience with the recent beta, I’m quite pleased with where iPadOS 26 is at. The updates to multitasking are so significant that I can’t imagine going back to an iPad without them. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/ipados-26-preview-a-long-awaited-multi-tasking-update-pays-off-so-far-172522054.html?src=rss

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© Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

The best Nintendo games do two things. The first is introducing a delightful gaming mechanic — take Ultrahand in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Cappy in Super Mario Odyssey for some recent examples. The second is building a world around that mechanic for players to explore. Obviously games are more than one specific tool, and building a compelling game around a good mechanic is no small task. But when it all comes together, look out. You’ve got a game that people will remember for years, if not decades.

It’s a little early in the Switch 2’s lifecycle to say definitively that Donkey Kong Bananza is a game of that caliber, but after playing it for the better part of a week I can say that the “smash everything” mechanic that defines its gameplay is an absolute delight. And, just as importantly, Nintendo built a wonderful world around it, completely with varied levels and obstacles, charming characters, bizarre and delightful enemies, some catchy tunes and just enough challenge to keep it interesting. 3D platformers aren’t even my favorite game style — I prefer Super Mario Wonder over Odyssey, and I love the various Donkey Kong platformers going back to the SNES days. But Bananza makes consistently good use of every dimension you can play in, and it’s the kind of game that I’m going to keep exploring long after I roll credits.

To back up quickly: Bonanza introduces us to Donkey Kong and his smashing skills in a somewhat lengthy tutorial where you bust through a mine looking for gold. This sequence involves mashing the Y button to bust up the rocks around you and collect all the treasures that are revealed. DK can jump, climb many surfaces, rip up pieces of the terrain to throw and pound the ground to quickly collect treasure, but the main thing you’re doing here is smashing. Smashing as much as possible. You can smash above you, below you and in front of you, and you can smash almost any surface you encounter (the game helpfully makes it obvious when a surface is impervious to DK fists.)

At first, I thought I was going to get tired of all the smashing — the tutorial made it feel like mindlessly mashing Y was going to be all I was going to do in the game. But then the expected villain appears, stealing the Banandium gems (just go with it) and DK is compelled to dive deeper and deeper into the crust of the planet to get his bananas back. Once that happens, the game truly reveals itself: each “world” you need to clear is a layer of the planet, but this being a Nintendo game none of the rules apply. Lagoon Layer is up first, and there’s clear blue skies, water everywhere and varied terrain to explore (and smash). Residents of each layer will direct you to help clean up the trouble wrought by the three Kong creatures who make up VoidCo, the dastardly antagonists who stole the bananas.

Nintendo

Bananza is good about guiding you from goal to goal while also giving you tons of freedom to explore and navigate the layers in any way you see fit. My guess is that the first thing you’ll do is smash everything in sight. The smash mechanic on its own in the tutorial level didn’t feel all that exciting, but putting it into the context of beautifully crafted 3D worlds to explore makes it an absolute delight. You can basically go anywhere you can see, and you can smash nearly anything the game puts in front of you.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes smashing so satisfying, besides the obvious and undeniable fact that destruction is fun. But the combination of visual, haptic and audio cues combine to make it something that absolutely does not get old despite my initial reservations. The crunch of smashing through rocks and mountains just feels different than when you’re pounding your way through dirt or splintering giant trees. And smashing also equals exploration — if you see a mountain you can just pound your way into it to find gold, fossils (that you can exchange for upgraded costumes), power-ups and, most crucially, Banandium gems.

Nintendo

The Banandium gems are similar to the stars or moons or whatever else other 3D platformers have you collect as you explore. Some you’ll get naturally as you progress through the game and defeat various bosses, but there are dozens hidden around each layer that you’ll want to seek out, as getting five gives you an upgrade point. Those you can use to add more health, and upgrade DK’s various skills (like being able to smash through tougher terrain). There are also little hidden challenge levels that throw some tough platforming or timed battles at you with multiple bananas as a reward. There are a ton of ways to find bananas, and tons of them scattered around the various levels. I’m not exactly rushing through the game (there’s so much to smash, you see), and I don’t think I’ve found more than half of the bananas in any of Bananza’s layers.

Nintendo

Donkey Kong Bananza is more than just smashing, though! I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the game’s secondary protagonist, Pauline. It’s reasonable if you don’t know her by name; she’s the damsel in distress in the old ‘80s Donkey Kong games but more recently showed up in Super Mario Odyssey as the mayor of New Donk City who loves to belt out a tune. In Bananza, Pauline is a 13-year-old who was captured by the VoidCo crew but is rescued by DK early in the game. From there, she sits on your shoulder as you work together to achieve your ends: Pauline needs to get to the planet’s core to eventually get back to the surface and DK needs to get the VoidCo Kongs to get his Banandium gems back.

Pauline’s love of singing becomes a crucial part of the game, as her voice guides to checkpoints, unlocks hidden areas and, most importantly, activates various special powers that DK gains throughout the game. Multiple layers have delightfully ridiculous Elder animals presiding over them, including a giant ape, ostrich and zebra. Most of them have peacefully retired in their layers and have taken up DJing as a hobby; if you repair whatever damage VoidCo has caused, they’ll grant you a new Bananza power. The Kong power supercharges DK’s punches, while the Ostrich power lets you temporarily fly and float. Naturally, these powers end up being crucial to advancing in the game.

Nintendo

They’re all activated by different songs that Pauline learns, and those cut scenes are some of my favorite parts of the game. As a 13-year-old, she’s not exactly comfortable singing in front of the big crowds gathered by the Elders, but she gets over it, performs with gusto and starts a wild dance party. As with most Nintendo games in this style, Pauline doesn’t get a ton of character development — but watching her bond with DK and become more confident throughout her side chatter during the game is extremely sweet. One of my favorite moments in the game happens when DK takes a nap at the various hideouts you find to recover your energy. As the screen darkens for your nap, Pauline starts chattering about the world you’re in or the adventures you’ve had, and it all feels like a kid trying to talk to their parents to avoid falling asleep. She gets drowsy, starts making a little less sense and eventually nods off. It’s an unexpected and totally unnecessary (and optional) part of the game, but it really gives Pauline a personality.

I’m in the last stages of the game, and at this point I’m playing as much to see what happens with Pauline and DK as I am to keep smashing more things. That somewhat unexpected combo of heart and destruction has kept me engrossed in Donkey Kong Bananza for the last week, and there’s a ton of replayability that’ll likely have me starting a new run once I finish this one. There’s so much to explore, so many Banandium gems to find, so much to smash. It might not be the system-seller that something like Mario Kart World is, but it’s the first truly great game for the Switch 2.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/donkey-kong-bananza-review-nintendos-latest-3d-platformer-is-an-instant-classic-143048108.html?src=rss

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© Nintendo

Whether you’re shopping for a budget-friendly laptop for school or a sleek machine for everyday productivity, the best Chromebooks can offer surprising functionality for the price. Chromebooks have come a long way from their early days as web-only devices. Now, many Chromebook models feature powerful processors, premium displays and even touchscreen support, making them a compelling alternative to a regular laptop for plenty of users.

There are more options than ever too, from lightweight clamshells to high-end, 2-in-1 designs that can easily replace your daily driver. Whether you're after a new Chromebook for streaming, work or staying on top of emails, there’s likely a model that fits both your budget and your workflow. We’ve tested the top Chromebooks on the market to help you find the right one — whether you’re after maximum value or top-tier performance.

Editor’s note (7/16/25): While I still recommend everything in this guide, there’s one very intriguing new Chromebook I’m in the process of testing. Lenovo, who makes our pick for best overall Chromebook, just released a new premium model. The Chromebook Plus 14 starts at $649 and is the one of the first to use the ARM-based MediaTek Kompanio Ultra 910 chip. Most other performance-focused Chromebooks run on Intel or AMD chips, but so far the Kompanio Ultra has been more than up to what I’ve thrown at it. And the other benefit is battery life — Lenovo promises up to 17 hours. I haven’t fully tested this yet, but from what I’ve seen the ARM chip is unsurprisingly much more efficient than the Intel ones I use on most other Chromebooks. I’m hopeful that this laptop will last for 10 hours of real use, not just playing back video or some other low-power task.

Design-wise, it has more in common with Google’s old Pixelbook Go or even a MacBook Air than most other Chromebooks. It's pleasantly thin (.63 inches) and light (2.58 pounds). It also features a 14-inch OLED display, 256GB of storage and 16GB of RAM. The model I’m testing costs $749, but there’s also a $649 configuration with 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and no touchscreen — but it uses the same chip, still has an OLED screen and should get similarly long battery life. The relatively high price makes me hesitate on calling this the best Chromebook for everyone, but it’ll almost certainly be the Chromebook to buy if you care about battery life. I’ll update this guide again once I finish my testing.

Table of contents

• Best Chromebooks in 2025

• Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus

• Acer Chromebook Plus 514

• Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714

• Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE

• Best Chromebooks FAQs

• Other Chromebooks we tested

Best Chromebooks in 2025

Best Chromebooks FAQs

What is Chrome OS, and why would I use it over Windows?

This is probably the number one question about Chromebooks. There are plenty of inexpensive Windows laptops on the market, so why bother with Chrome's operating system? Glad you asked. For me, the simple and clean nature of Chrome OS is a big selling point. Chrome OS is based on Google’s Chrome browser, which means most of the programs you can run are web based. There’s no bloatware or unwanted apps to uninstall like you often get on Windows laptops, it boots up in seconds, and you can completely reset to factory settings almost as quickly.

Of course, simplicity will also be a major drawback for some users. Not being able to install native software can be a dealbreaker if you’re a video editor or software developer. But there are also plenty of people who do the majority of their work in a web browser, using tools like Google Docs and spreadsheets for productivity without needing a full Windows setup.

Google and its software partners are getting better every year at supporting more advanced features. For example, Google added video editing tools to the Google Photos app on Chromebooks – it won’t replace Adobe Premiere, but it should be handy for a lot of people. Similarly, Google and Adobe announced Photoshop on the web in 2023, something that brings much of the power of Adobe’s desktop apps to Chromebooks.

Chromebooks can also run Android apps, which greatly expands the amount of software available. The quality varies widely, but it means you can do more with a Chromebook beyond just web-based apps. For example, you can install the Netflix app and save videos for offline watching. Other Android apps like Microsoft Office and Adobe Lightroom are surprisingly capable as well. Between Android apps and a general improvement in web apps, Chromebooks are more than just portals to a browser.

What do Chromebooks do well?

Put simply, web browsing and really anything web based. Online shopping, streaming music and video and using various social media sites are among the most common daily tasks people do on Chromebooks. As you might expect, they also work well with Google services like Photos, Docs, Gmail, Drive, Keep and so on. Yes, any computer that can run Chrome can do that too, but the lightweight nature of Google Chrome OS makes it a responsive and stable platform.

As I mentioned before, Chrome OS can run Android apps, so if you’re an Android user you’ll find some nice ties between the platforms. You can get most of the same apps that are on your phone on a Chromebook and keep info in sync between them. You can also use some Android phones as a security key for your Chromebook or instantly tether your 2-in-1 laptop to use mobile data.

Google continues to tout security as a major differentiator for Chromebooks, and it’s definitely a factor worth considering. Auto-updates are the first lines of defense: Chrome OS updates download quickly in the background and a fast reboot is all it takes to install the latest version. Google says that each webpage and app on a Chromebook runs in its own sandbox as well, so any security threats are contained to that individual app. Finally, Chrome OS has a self-check called Verified Boot that runs every time a device starts up. Beyond all this, the simple fact that you generally can’t install traditional apps on a Chromebook means there are fewer ways for bad actors to access the system.

If you’re interested in Google’s Gemini AI tools, a Chromebook is a good option as well. Every Chromebook in our top picks comes with a full year of Google’s AI Pro plan — this combines the usual Google One perks like 2TB of storage and 10 percent back in purchases from the Google Store with a bunch of AI tools. You’ll get access to Gemini in Chrome, Gmail, Google Docs and other apps, Gemini 2.5 Pro in the Gemini app and more. Given that this plan is $20/month, it’s a pretty solid perk. Chromebook Plus models also include tools like the AI-powered “help me write,” the Google Photos Magic Editor and generative AI backgrounds you can create by filling in a few prompts.

As for when to avoid Chromebooks, the answer is simple: If you rely heavily on a specific native application for Windows or a Mac, chances are you won’t find the exact same option on a ChromeOS device. That’s most true in fields like photo and video editing, but it can also be the case in law or finance. Plenty of businesses run on Google’s G suite software, but more still have specific requirements that a Chromebook might not match. If you’re an iPhone user, you’ll also miss out on the way the iPhone easily integrates with an iPad or Mac. For me, the big downside is not being able to access iMessage on a Chromebook.

Finally, gaming Chromebooks are not ubiquitous, although they’re becoming a slightly more reasonable option with the rise of cloud gaming. In late 2022, Google and some hardware partners announced a push to make Chromebooks with cloud gaming in mind. From a hardware perspective, that means laptops with bigger screens that have higher refresh rates as well as optimizing those laptops to work with services like NVIDIA GeForce Now, Xbox Game Pass and Amazon Luna. You’ll obviously need an internet connection to use these services, but the good news is that playing modern games on a Chromebook isn’t impossible. You can also install Android games from the Google Play Store, but that’s not what most people are thinking of when they want to game on a laptop.

What are the most important specs for a Chromebook?

Chrome OS is lightweight and runs well on fairly modest hardware, so the most important thing to look for might not be processor power or storage space. But Google made it easier to get consistent specs and performance late last year when it introduced the Chromebook Plus initiative. Any device with a Chromebook Plus designation meets some minimum requirements, which happen to be very similar to what I’d recommend most people get if they’re looking for the best laptop they can use every day.

Chromebook Plus models have at least a 12th-gen Intel Core i3 processor, or an AMD Ryzen 3 7000 series processor, both of which should be more than enough for most people. These laptops also have a minimum of 8GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD storage, which should do the trick unless you’re really pushing your Chromebook. All Chromebook Plus models have to have a 1080p webcam, which is nice in these days of constant video calling, and they also all have to have at least a 1080p FHD IPS screen.

Of course, you can get higher specs or better screens if you desire, but I’ve found that basically everything included in the Chromebook Plus target specs makes for a very good experience.

Google has an Auto Update policy for Chromebooks as well, and while that’s not exactly a spec, it’s worth checking before you buy. Last year, Google announced that Chromebooks would get software updates and support for an impressive 10 years after their release date. This support page lists the Auto Update expiration date for virtually every Chromebook ever, but a good rule of thumb is to buy the newest machine you can to maximize your support.

How much should I spend on a Chromebook?

Chromebooks started out notoriously cheap, with list prices often coming in under $300. But as they’ve gone more mainstream, they’ve transitioned from being essentially modern netbooks to some of the best laptops you’ll want to use all day. As such, prices have increased: At this point, you should expect to spend at least $400 if you want a solid daily driver. There are still many Chromebooks out there available at a low price that may be suitable as secondary devices, but a good Chromebook that can be an all-day, every-day laptop will cost more. But, notably, even the best Chromebooks usually cost less than the best Windows laptops, or even the best “regular” laptops out there.

There are a handful of premium Chromebooks that approach or even exceed $1,000 that claim to offer better performance and more processing power, but I don’t recommend spending that much. Generally, that’ll get you a better design with more premium materials, as well as more powerful internals and extra storage space, like a higher-capacity SSD. Of course, you also sometimes pay for the brand name. But, the specs I outlined earlier are usually enough, and there are multiple good premium Chromebooks in the $700 to $800 range at this point.

See Also:

• Best Laptops for 2025

• Best Gaming Laptops

• Best 2-in-1 Laptops for 2025

• Best Cheap Windows Laptops

• Best Laptops for College Students

Other Chromebooks we tested

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus

Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook Plus, released in late 2024, is one of the more unique Chromebooks out there. It’s extremely thin and light, at 0.46 inches and 2.6 pounds, but it manages to include a 15.6-inch display in that frame. That screen is a 1080p panel that’s sharp and bright, but its 16:9 aspect ratio made things feel a bit cramped when scrolling vertically. Performance is very good, and the keyboard is solid, though I’m not a fan of the number pad as it shifts everything to the left. At $700 it’s not cheap, but that feels fair considering its size and capabilities. If you’re looking for a big screen laptop that is also super light, this Chromebook merits consideration, even if it’s not the best option for everyone.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/best-chromebooks-160054646.html?src=rss

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© Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Mac owners will soon be able to play one of the biggest games of the last five years or so. Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition will be available in the Mac App Store as well as Steam, GOG.com and the Epic Games Store on Thursday, July 17. As the name implies, it includes both the base game as well as the Phantom Liberty expansion from 2023. The port was announced last fall and was originally planned to arrive "early" this year, but it took a little longer to get everything squared away.

Unsurprisingly, you'll need an M-series Mac to play this game, but Apple and CD Projekt Red confirm that it'll work on computers all the way back to the M1 — but you'll need 16GB of RAM. For years, 8GB was the standard on entry-level Macs, so those computers will be out of luck. And of course, graphics fidelity will vary widely across the various supported chipsets, but CD Projekt Red is including a "for this Mac" graphics preset that is optimized for each Apple Silicon-based Mac. So at the very least, you shouldn't have to fuss around with settings too much to get a decent experience.

Shortly after the initial announcement, CD Projekt Red provided more details on the "for this Mac" setting as well as recommended specs. While the game does work with an M1 Mac, you're capped at 30fps and a low resolution — things escalate rapidly from there. The recommended configuration calls for an M3 Pro chip with 18GB of RAM to hit 60fps at 1080p. That configuration supports Ray Tracing, but regardless of what you're using you'll need to turn it on manually. 

CD Projekt Red

Things go up from there, with 36GB of RAM and either an M2 Ultra or M3 Max chip to run high fidelity; very high fidelity requires an M3 Ultra or M4 Max. That essentially means you have a $2,000 or up Mac Studio or a $3,200 and up MacBook Pro with the M4 Max if you want to run this game at the highest of settings. Of course, if you care about such things, you probably already have a good gaming PC. 

As for other technical goodies, the game utilizes AMD FSR for upscaling and frame generation, and Apple's MetalFX also provides upscaling as well. Upcoming Metal 4 features announced at WWDC 2025, including Metal FX Frame Interpolation and Metal FX Denoising, are coming to the game via a future update. Metal FX Frame Interpolation generates an intermediate frame for every two input frames and can be combined with existing Metal upscaling to allow the game to hit 120fps on Ultra settings — but again, we're not sure what specific models will support that.

If you use AirPods with your Mac, Cyberpunk 2077 features spatial audio with head-tracking features. And the game supports cross-progression regardless of what platform you play on, which should be useful for anyone who started a game elsewhere and wants to pick it back up on a Mac. If you've already purchased Cyberpunk 2077 from another storefront like Steam, it'll automatically be available for Mac.

While Cyberpunk 2077 isn't exactly a new game, it remains one of the more popular and lauded titles of the decade (at least after CD Projekt Red fixed numerous launch bugs). And it joins a still small but growing number of major games optimized for Apple Silicon and the Mac, including the recently-released Assassin's Creed Shadows. A quick look on the Mac App Store also shows AAA releases including Death Stranding, Control, Lies of P, numerous Resident Evil titles as well as smaller but no less awesome games like Neva and Stray. Most big-name games don't come to the Mac at the same time as other platforms still, but the Mac is an option for more than just Apple Arcade games.

Update, July 16, 2025, 11:44AM ET: This story has been updated with more details from the developer on the different specs required to hit the varying performance tiers in Cyberpunk 2077.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cyberpunk-2077-ultimate-edition-comes-to-the-mac-on-july-17-130047453.html?src=rss

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© Apple / CD Projekt Red

I really wanted to love season two of HBO’s The Last of Us. For the most part, I did — but it was also impossible to ignore the online masses saying that showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann had lost the thread in season two. Some of that comes from creative choices the pair made in adapting the first half of the PlayStation game The Last of Us Part II to TV; it’s a story with a sprawling plot that asks a lot of the player and, as it turns out, even more of a passive audience. The season two cliffhanger ending and tease of what’s to come in season three just didn’t land for a lot of people, and (spoiler alert) there are a lot of questions from viewers as to whether the show can survive the loss of Pedro Pascal’s Joel. It feels like fans of the games are mad at the changes the TV show has made, while people who haven’t played the game aren’t vibing with the story as presented in season two.

As such, I haven’t put up a full-throated defense of season two when, say, a colleague tells me it’s a bummer that the show is now “mid.” Even though there are plenty of toxic “fans” who trash the cast and seem to hate the show telling stories with gay characters, I can admit there are also legitimate issues with season two. But despite that admission making its way into my Last of Us-loving heart, I was still shocked at the news that Druckmann, co-creator of both the game and the show, was leaving the project for season three. Shortly after Druckmann’s announcement, Co-writer on The Last of Us Part II and season two of the show Halley Gross also said she was leaving, which means that the two most prominent people who worked on the games are now gone.

How this will affect season three obviously will be the big question over the work leading up to season three, which will probably arrive sometime in early 2027. The simultaneous departure of both Druckmann and Gross reeks of HBO deciding that the tepid reception to season two meant a change was needed. In a statement that lacked all of the passion Druckmann has shown for the show thus far, he said he was transitioning his “complete focus” to Naughty Dog and future games, including Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

We’ll probably never know if Druckmann left on his own or was forced out, but the part of me that loves Naughty Dog’s games is finding solace in that new focus even as HBO’s The Last of Us is thrown into turmoil. Druckmann will probably be far more useful to Sony as a whole working on new games than dabbling in the TV industry.

That’s in large part because yesterday also reminded us just how chaotic the game industry is. In the biggest news of the day, a series of wide-ranging layoffs at Microsoft impacted numerous Xbox studios, the latest bad news for an industry that has frankly been devastated by instability in recent years.

With that background in mind, Druckmann’s renewed focus on Naughty Dog makes a lot of sense. The TV industry is not hurting in the least for prestige content. Showrunner Craig Mazin already has the plot points he needs to cover in season three of The Last of Us, so Druckmann’s input will probably be missed less than it would have been when the project got started back in 2021. But PlayStation, on the other hand, needs a boost, and having a creative leader like Druckmann helping to make Intergalactic and whatever else Naughty Dog has up its sleeve is something the company could really use.

It’s no secret that the first-party PlayStation studios continue to make exceptional games — but the pace during the PS5 generation has slowed significantly. For the first few years of the PS5’s life, most big exclusives like God of War Ragnarök and Horizon Forbidden West came to both the PS4 and PS5. That slowly changed, with titles like Astro Bot and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 being built exclusively for the PS5. But the cadence of these releases has slowed significantly; this year's releases include Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (likely a timed exclusive) and Ghost of Yotei but five years into this generation it's undoubtedly been a slow burn.

That trend is particularly acute for Naughty Dog. After releasing Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End in 2016 and following that quickly with the standalone expansion Uncharted: The Lost Legacy in 2017, Naughty Dog has released one (1) original game since: The Last of Us Part II. Other than that, we’ve gotten… remakes and remasters of both franchises, perhaps not coincidentally to draw in people who found The Last of Us via the HBO show.

Between his duties as Naughty Dog’s studio head and his TV work, it’s fair to wonder how much time Druckmann has spent on actual games in recent years. It's also entirely possible he's spread too thin now, even without co-running the TV show — it's probably past time for some new creative visionaries to take the lead at Naughty Dog given Druckmann's role as chief executive.

If he’s truly the main director and writer for Intergalactic as he said in his statement, it’s good news for the PlayStation brand that he’s back on that gig full-time. It’s just a bit over six months since Intergalactic was first announced, so we have no real idea where the game is in its development cycle. But it sounds like the game has been in development since 2020, and Naughty Dog has said it learned a lesson from announcing The Last of Us Part II so long before it actually launched. Hopefully we’re looking at a 2026 or 2027 release rather than much beyond that.

Meanwhile, Druckmann’s departure from HBO’s The Last of Us might be a bit of a canary in the coal mine for Sony’s broader PlayStation ambitions and a refocus on just making games. Games industry expert Joost Van Dreunen wrote in 2023 that the success of the show’s first season was “the culmination of Sony’s gradual transition to becoming a media company.” That’s something the company itself has talked up in the years since — the idea of becoming platform-less, with franchises existing on the PlayStation, on the movie screen and on the smaller TV screen in your home. Take its CES 2025 presentation, for example; Sony talked up multiple gaming adaptations besides The Last of Us like the Horizon franchise and Ghost of Tsushima.

"While [Sony] continues to sell hardware at scale, its strategic emphasis is shifting toward high-margin digital services and franchise expansion," Van Dreunen wrote last month. "Titles like The Last of Us have crossed into television with critical success, and Sony has invested heavily in anime distribution (via Crunchyroll) and film adaptations of its game IP. It positions PlayStation less as a closed hardware ecosystem and more as the foundation for a vertically integrated content engine. Rather than chasing distribution breadth like Microsoft, Sony is doubling down on cultural depth, using its exclusive IP to build multi-format engagement loops."

I don’t think a less-than-stellar second season of The Last of Us will cause Sony to abandon this strategy. (Sony is also too big of a ship to completely turn away from this plan very quickly.) But the repositioning of Druckmann as the lead of a successful and influential video game studio rather than a multi-medium creative visionary reinforces the fact that if they’re going to have hits on a variety of different platforms, new, ambitious and hopefully good games like Intergalactic are a necessity. At this point, HBO’s The Last of Us is going to keep on rolling, with or without Druckmann — there were a lot of loud complaints, but also still plenty of viewers and positive reviews. But Naughty Dog is past due for another big game that pushes the genre in a new direction. It’s the right time for Druckmann to come home.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/playstation-needs-neil-druckmann-more-than-hbo-does-154951145.html?src=rss

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© Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

Neil Druckmann, head of the PlayStation studio Naughty Dog and co-creator of The Last of Us, is stepping away from the HBO show based on the 2013 game and its 2020 sequel to focus his work on Naughty Dog's next game. On Instagram, the studio published the following statement from Druckmann:

"I've made the difficult decision to step away from my involvement in The Last of Us on HBO. With work completed on season 2 and before any meaningful work starts on season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, along with my responsibilities as Studio Head and Head of Creative."

He went on to thanks showrunner Craig Mazin (on the left in the above photo) as well as the cast and crew he worked with on the first two seasons and called working on the show a "career highlight" Druckmann was credited as executive producer and co-creator of the show and he directed one episode in each of the show's two seasons as well as contributing writing to several others. The bulk of the show itself was written by Mazin.

The Ankler first published Druckmann's statement shortly before it was officially released by Naughty Dog.

Shortly after Druckmann's statement was released, The Last of Us Part II co-writer Halley Gross (who had also co-written multiple episodes in season two of the show) announced she also would not be moving forward with the HBO adaptation.

"With great care and consideration, I’ve decided to take a step back from my day-to-day work on HBO’s The Last of Us to make space for what comes next. I’m so appreciative of how special this experience has been. Working alongside Neil, Craig, HBO, and this remarkable cast and crew has been life changing. The stories we told — about love, loss, and what it means to be human in a terrifying world — are exactly why I love this franchise. I have some truly rad projects ahead that I can’t wait to share, but for now, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who brought Ellie and Joel’s world to life with such care.”

Finally, Mazin himself shared a statement, as published in Variety:

"It’s been a creative dream to work with Neil and bring an adaptation of his brilliant work to life on HBO. I couldn’t have asked for a more generous creative partner. As a true fan of Naughty Dog and Neil’s work in video games, I’m beyond excited to play his next game. While he focuses on that, I’ll continue to work with our brilliant cast and crew to deliver the show our audience has come to expect. We are so grateful to Neil and Halley Gross for entrusting the incredible story of The Last of Us Part II to us, and we’re just as grateful to the millions of people around the world who tune in."

This comes after a fairly rocky reception for The Last of Us season two. The challenge of adapting the story of the second video game led to some decisions that didn't sit well with both fans of the games as well as those who were new to the world via the show. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was also an inordinate amount of online vitriol directed towards Druckmann and Mazin for some of the changes they made to adapt the game into a TV series.

For my part, I thought season two was well-done, with continued excellent acting but issues with pace due in part to it only being seven episodes long. But I can also agree there are a number of fair criticisms to make about how the show was plotted — it probably stuck too closely to the timeline of the game, and the finale left things up in the air to what must be a frustrating degree for people who don't know the storyline from playing the games. 

That said, Druckmann co-wrote and directed one of the best episodes of the entire series (season two's "The Price") and did solid behind-the-camera work in season one's "Infected" as well. Not to mention the fact that he knows these characters better than basically anyone alive — it's plausible to wonder just how things will change without his influence going forward. On the other hand, this change might re-focus the show's creative team and help correct parts of season two where things just didn't land as fans had hoped. It's far too early to tell, but it'll be worth seeing if Mazin brings on anyone else to back him up — and if he does, if that person has experience with the game or is focused solely on the TV world. Someone with some distance from how the story was told in the games might be the right choice to help the show stand on its own.

Regardless of what happens, it'll be a while before we find out how this all shakes out — as Druckmann said, there's no "meaningful work" done on season 3 yet, so we will probably have to wait until 2027 to see how these changes impact the show.

Update, July 2, 2025, 2:45PM ET: Added statements from Halley Gross and Craig Mazin.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-last-of-us-co-creator-neil-druckmann-is-stepping-away-from-the-show-to-focus-on-future-games-182136370.html?src=rss

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© Jeff Kravitz via Getty Images

For years now, most Chromebooks have run some variety of Intel or AMD processor. The occasional device used a MediaTek chip, but they were often underpowered and cheap devices that were hard to recommend. ARM-based processors have worked tremendously well for Apple on the Mac, and they’re being used in more and more Windows PCs as well. Now, Lenovo (makers of my favorite Chromebook) and Google are giving ARM a real shot with the $649 Chromebook Plus 14.

The companies say the MediaTek Kompanio Ultra 910 chip and its AI NPU can handle up to 50 TOPS — but more intriguing to me, Lenovo is also promising up to 17 hours of battery life. I’ll believe that claim when I see it; mediocre at best battery life has plagued nearly every Chromebook I’ve used in recent years. But switching to ARM could improve on what Intel-powered Chromebooks have delivered, both in terms of battery life and overall performance.

Time for the nitty-gritty specs. Lenovo’s Chromebook Plus 14 is, as you’d expect, a 14-inch laptop that looks quite similar to a silver MacBook Pro. It’s certainly more stylish and sleek than Lenovo’s more utilitarian (and awkwardly-named) IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus. It weighs only 2.58 pounds (about a pound less than the Flex 5i) and is just over .62 inches thick. In addition to the Kompanio Ultra 910 chip, Lenovo is including either 12GB or 16GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. Lenovo isn’t skimping on the screen, either. The 14-inch OLED panel can be outfitted with a touchscreen and has a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. The resolution is relatively modest, but totally in line with what you’d expect for the price.

Lenovo

There are a few other nice touches throughout. Lenovo’s latest is the first Chromebook with Dolby Atmos sound via a quad-speaker system that includes two downward-firing woofers. Audio quality on laptops has increased significantly in recent years, so I’m looking forward to hearing what Lenovo can deliver. The 5-megapixel webcam has a much higher resolution than most other Chromebooks, and there’s also a fingerprint reader for secure logins.

All told, this Chromebook is on the more expensive side compared to many other options. But when you compare its specs and design with other Chromebooks in this price range, Lenovo’s latest comes out looking pretty good. Of course, we’ll need to make sure the MediaTek chip is powerful enough and also see what battery life is like, but Lenovo’s track record is strong enough that I’m looking forward to seeing if we have a new king of the Chromebooks.

New AI features

Given that Google is relentlessly focused on adding AI features everywhere you turn, it’s no surprise that there are a handful of new AI tricks here. First are two that are currently exclusive to Lenovo’s Chromebook Plus 14: Smart Grouping and AI image editing in the Chromebook’s Gallery app. Google has been teasing Smart Grouping for a while now; it’ll look at your open tabs and documents and ask if you want to organize them into a separate virtual desk. And the Gallery app now has some AI-powered editing features like removing backgrounds or turning your images into stickers.

Beyond these are a bunch of AI features that are coming to all Chromebook Plus laptops, many of which will feel familiar if you’ve paid attention to what Google has released to other platforms in recent months. For example, you can now long-press the launcher and select an area of the screen to run a search. As usual, the default example is shopping — see a pair of shoes you want, highlight it and let Google find them for you. The integration does look nice, though, with a pop-over window showing you results so you don’t have to leave the app you’re using.

Similarly, Text Capture analyzes text in an image and suggests things like calendar appointments based on what it reads. Or highlighting an image of a recipe can pull all of the items you need for it into a Google Docs list.

Lenovo

The Quick Insert key, which was first introduced last year on Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook Plus, can now be used to generate and insert AI images into anywhere your text cursor is pointing — it’s not just limited to Google apps. Finally, Google’s “help me read” tool has a new “simplify” option that can take complex language (think scientific explanations) and put it in plain language to make it easier to understand.

Anyone buying a Chromebook Plus this year will get a solid perk that Google first introduced last year: a full 12 months of the Google One AI Pro plan, which includes 2TB of Google Drive storage and access to more advanced Gemini features (you can find all the exact details here). Given that this is a $20 per month plan, it’s a solid additional value — at the very least for the storage, if you’re not all that interested in Gemini.

As for Lenovo’s new hardware, I’m looking forward to trying it soon to see if the ARM architecture can deliver the massive battery life and performance improvements that the company is promising. But if you want to throw down your cash now, Lenovo’s Chromebook Plus 14 is available at Best Buy and on Lenovo’s site to order as of today. (Note that, at least for now, only the more expensive version of the Chromebook Plus 14, with a touchscreen at 16GB of RAM, is available at Best Buy.)

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovo-promises-17-hours-of-battery-life-on-its-new-chromebook-plus-14-130018894.html?src=rss

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© Lenovo