ZDNET's key takeaways The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 is available now, starting at $649.
It's the most powerful Chromebook Plus device yet, and earned our Editor's Choice award for its fantastic battery, lovely OLED display, and ultraportable form.
There's a limit to its performance capabilities, and utilizing ChromeOS to its fullest comes with a learning curve. View now at Best Buy
It seems like every few months we're seeing new Chromebooks pushing the limits of what the devices can do. Their once-modest hardware and limited features have evolved into laptops well-armed for a wide range of use cases.
Now, with a little more powerful hardware and the latest AI-driven features in Google's ChromeOS, they clearly want to compete against the Windows/Mac dichotomy.
Also: I tested Acer's new business-friendly Chromebook and it nails all the essentials for pro users
The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 is the latest feature-rich Chromebook to hit the market, offering useful AI features, strong multitasking performance, a delightful physical build, and most importantly: a marathon battery.
It's powered by the new MediaTek Kompanio Ultra processor, the first ARM chip to appear in a Chromebook, featuring an NPU capable of up to 50 TOPS, up to 17 hours of battery life, and a sharp-looking OLED display. It also has some of the most RAM offered in a Chromebook, with a 12GB or 16GB option -- double what most other Chromebook Plus devices ship with.
All this upgraded hardware in a lightweight form factor, paired with the snappy and efficient ChromeOS results in an overall enjoyable device to use that's suitable for work, school, or everyday tasks. Even better, it starts at just $649, a steal for a new laptop in this economy.
I used this laptop over the course of a week, and found that the ARM-based MediaTek Kompanio Ultra chip feels fast and responsive in ways the everyday user will notice. It boots up in a matter of seconds, wakes up from sleep instantly, and handles multitasking like a breeze. With either 12GB or 16GB of RAM, you have more bandwidth to utilize multiple virtual desktops, something this device in particular is made to do.
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