We don’t often associate Chromebooks with gaming but Lenovo thinks there’s some opportunity with the rise of game streaming services to bring a gaming focused Chromebook to market with their new Gaming Chromebook (affiliate link). You can see my full review here.
What makes this Chromebook better for game streaming? Its display. It has a nice 16″ display running at 2560 x 1600 (a 16:10 aspect ratio) that runs at 120hz. Right now only one streaming service supports that frame rate (GeForce Now), but the faster refresh rate does provide a zippier overall experience even when not playing games.
And of course no gaming laptop would be complete without a RGB backlit keyboard. This might be the first Chromebook with one although the controls are limited to a few colors and there doesn’t seem to be a way to customize colors to a specific range of keys.
What struck me in reviewing this device is that it’s probably one of the better Chromebooks on the market overall even for non-gaming. Beyond the nice display it has a great 1080p webcam, a number pad for spreadsheet power users, and great performance in both Chromebook functions including running Android and Linux apps.
One shortfall though is that its Intel processor will have some compatibility issues with popular Android games like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile. Both of these popular games crash constantly on the device similar to how they perform on other Intel based Chromebooks.
It’s pretty reasonably priced at $599 for the i5 version. A lower cost i3 version was loaned to the channel for review although it does not appear to be available at the time of publication.
