Have yourself a merry Chromebook Christmas

Discover the laptop you’ll love this Christmas

Asus Chromebook
(Image credit: Asus)

If you want a laptop that’s fast, flexible and runs all your favourite apps, you can’t beat a Chromebook this Christmas. Powered by Google’s Chrome OS, these brilliant laptops are speedy, secure and available to suit every kind of user from absolute beginners to seasoned pros. 

Chromebooks are intelligently simple, because life is complicated enough.

Why a Chromebook is your perfect present

With a Chromebook you get the best of both worlds: the apps run locally on your Chromebook but use the power of the cloud to do the heavy lifting – and many of the best Chromebook apps are just as useful offline as they are online. For example you can work offline on Google Docs and sync your changes when you get back online; and your music apps such as Spotify or Netflix enable you to download songs or shows for times when you won’t be able to get a data connection.

Chromebooks run Chrome OS, which was created by Google to make laptops safer, more secure and more fun. Chrome OS was designed to be really easy to use, to run incredibly quickly and to deliver a safer, more secure kind of computer: one with built-in virus protection, super-speedy startup and brilliant battery life. Not only that, but Chrome OS doesn’t slow down over time like other operating systems can do, it starts fast and stays fast.

Chromebooks use multiple layers of security to keep you worry-free and your device safer. The built-in virus protection is constantly updated to protect you from newly discovered threats, and with support for multiple accounts you always have your own private space even on a shared computer.

Google Chromebooks Acer Spin

(Image credit: Acer)

Your favourite apps on your new favourite laptop

Whether it’s work, play or a bit of both, your Chromebook is your perfect partner. Every Chromebook comes optimised for Google’s apps: Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Maps, Google Photos and all the other Google creations. And they also run thousands of apps from the Google Play Store and on the web, including all the big names: Microsoft Office, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, WhatsApp, Zoom, Facebook and many more. There are stacks of great games in the Play Store too, and Chromebooks also work with Google’s brilliant Stadia games streaming service for console-quality gaming without the console – so you can get your game on when you’re far from home as well as when you’re comfy on the couch. Plus, if you need extra storage, you can get 100GB of cloud storage with your Chromebook with Google One for 12 months - just head to Chromebook perks.

High quality hardware from the names you already know

While Chrome OS is made by Google, most of the Chromebooks that run it are built by the biggest names in tech including Samsung, HP, Acer, Lenovo and Asus – although Google’s in there too with some nice designs such as the Pixelbook Go. No matter which brand you prefer, you can be sure of getting a Chromebook with long battery life; online and offline access to your data, files and apps; built-in security; automatic updates; and easy, safe and secure sharing with your family or colleagues. It’s also easy to create different user accounts for different family members so that you can share your Chromebook with the whole family and use Family Link to make sure the kids don’t see anything they shouldn’t.

Google Chromebooks Acer Spin

(Image credit: Acer)

The perfect partner for your Android phone

You can get even more out of your Chromebook when you connect your Android phone. You can unlock your laptop with a tap and automatically connect to any of the hotspots or Wi-Fi networks you’ve saved on your phone. And there’s no need to switch between devices to get things done: you can check your phone’s battery life and cellular signal, receive and respond to text messages, and more – all from your Chromebook.

New to Chromebooks? It’s simple to switch

Switching to Chromebook from a Mac or PC is easy as 1, 2, 3. All you need to do is sign into the Chrome browser on your current device with your Google Account, upload your files, photos, videos and music, and then sign into your Chromebook with the same account. It really is that simple. 

Google Chromebooks Acer Spin

(Image credit: Acer)

Power and portability for a fantastic low price

Chromebooks are powerful, incredibly portable and fantastically flexible. And they’re also superb value for money, often costing considerably less cash than similarly powerful PC or Mac laptops. That’s because those laptops are still designed to do things the old-fashioned way: while they can connect to the cloud they don’t live in it like your phone does, or like Chromebooks do – so they need lots of expensive hardware to do the heavy lifting that Chrome OS does.

Whether you’re looking for a bargain or a powerful pro-level laptop, Chromebooks tick all the boxes beautifully. Click here to see Currys’ Christmas Chromebook collection.

Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series. When she’s not scribbling, she’s the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR (havrmusic.com).