Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE Review: A Game-Streaming Laptop

Gaming isn’t something you'd typically subordinate with Chromebooks, but Google and its hardware partners person made strides toward shaking that up with a fistful of unreality gaming laptops successful caller years. One of the much fashionable options is the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE, which conscionable got updated for 2024 with a caller processor portion keeping everything large astir the erstwhile model. It's a humble upgrade, but it’s inactive 1 of the best Chromebooks you tin buy.

Let’s get this retired of the mode first: If you already person the erstwhile Chromebook 516 GE, there’s precise small crushed to upgrade to the 2024 Chromebook Plus model. Outside of immoderate tiny aesthetic updates, this is mostly the aforesaid device. The processor is present an Intel Core 5 120U alternatively of the older model’s Core i5-1240P, and you apt won’t announcement overmuch of a quality successful speed.

Still, show connected the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is fantastic, and the artillery kept maine chugging done regular eight-hour workdays. Combined with 8 GB of RAM, you person plentifulness of country and horsepower for multitasking. The laptop often handled speedy swaps betwixt antithetic apps and much than a twelve tabs with easiness during my testing, and the dual fans keeping things chill ne'er got large capable to beryllium annoying.

In opposition to Windows gaming laptops, the Chromebook Plus 516 GE is geared arsenic a unreality gaming machine, and it fits that relation well. You’ll bash astir of your gaming via Xbox Cloud Gaming and streaming done Nvidia GeForce Now, and ChromeOS handles some well. The laptop has Wi-Fi 6E and a dedicated Ethernet larboard connected committee to support things moving smoothly, and I didn’t acquisition immoderate large hitches oregon issues with adjacent competitory games.

The 1 gaming country that was hit-or-miss was Steam, which is inactive successful beta connected ChromeOS. Lightweight indie games similar Vampire Survivors tally similar food connected the Chromebook Plus 516 GE’s hardware, and that’s the lane I’d instrumentality with if I wanted to tally games natively alternatively of streaming. Heavier games tin person immoderate trouble, which is to beryllium expected with integrated graphics and a lightweight (by gaming standards) processor. I couldn’t get Dead by Daylight, 1 of my favourite clip killers, to unfastened done Steam beyond the archetypal loading screen, for example.