The Best Back-to-School Chromebook Deals From Best Buy

The cash-strapped student who still wants a capable, classroom-ready machine for taking notes, attending virtual classes, or typing out essays

Lightweight, compact and yet still comfortable to type on, the ASUS Chromebook CM14 represents one of the best value purchases of the BTS season. No, you won’t be gaming in 4K on this svelte machine, but with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of extra-fast eMMC onboard storage and a built-in HD webcam with microphone, you’ll have no trouble using it to keep up with your studies. The 14-inch screen offers a great compromise between portability and legibility, while also making space for a larger keyboard and trackpad, and ASUS even went the extra mile by including a MicroSD card slot for faster media uploads.

The student who studies in coffee shops and cafeterias, beds and bean bag chairs

If you’re chasing the portability and versatility of a tablet without losing the functionality that laptops offer, check out the Lenovo Flex 5i. The 14-inch, 1920×1200 touchscreen is beautiful and responsive, whether you’re reading your notes or watching a lecture, while the incredible hinges offer a 360-degree “flip and fold” design (it’s not called the Flex for nothing!) that makes it easy to find the perfect viewing angle. Internally, the Flex 5i features a 13th generation Intel Core i3 processor with six cores, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Perhaps best of all, for students looking to improve their productivity, you get access to 12 months of Google One AI with your purchase, including an additional 2TB of cloud storage. A backlit keyboard and powerful battery offering up to 10 hours of use on a single charge round out this highly capable machine.  

Those who want the portability of a Chromebook without sacrificing screen real estate

It takes some serious design chops to create a feature-rich laptop with a 15.6-inch screen that still weighs under four pounds, so hats off to HP. Their Chromebook is the perfect compromise for students eager to take their classroom work seriously but unwilling to sacrifice their late-night TV or movie streaming sessions. With 16GB of extra-speedy DDR5 RAM, a 64GB eMMC flash storage drive and Intel UHD Graphics, this is a capable multimedia machine, whether you’re doing light photo or video editing or rewatching a classroom lecture. It even features respectable sound, a rarity in Chromebook land, thanks to its dual-speaker setup and stereo tuning, as well as a full keyboard with number pad, a major plus for math and science students.

Students on the go, chasing the lightest and most portable option possible

Even a compact laptop can start to weigh you down if you’re constantly on the go, which is why the ASUS CX1 is such a standout. Its 11-inch screen and 2.73-pound weight offer forget-it’s-there portability, for the student whose class schedule takes them all over campus. Despite its small design, it still manages to pack in 4GB of DDR4 RAM, 64GB of eMMC flash storage, and a dual-core Intel Celeron processor, as well as plenty of ports (two USB-A, two USB-C and a microSD card slot). Of course, all the portability in the world won’t help you if your laptop dies, so ASUS included a three-cell, lithium-ion battery good for up to 13 hours of use on a single charge, which is more than enough for even the busiest of students.

Younger students who are more accustomed to navigating an operating system with their fingertips than a trackpad

An entire generation has been raised on touchscreen devices, and HP has made the perfect 2-in-1 Chromebook for them. The x360 folds completely flat, for when you want to tap and swipe your way through your apps, but it also opens up like a traditional laptop, giving you the typing speed of a real keyboard. Under the hood, it’s no slouch either, offering 4GB of speedy DDR5 RAM, 64GB of snappy eMMC flash drive storage, and a two-cell, 45-watt battery good for up to 12 hours of battery life off a single charge. Add to that an HD webcam and built-in microphone and you have a genuine, no-compromise option offering the best of both tablets and laptops.

The student looking for a Chromebook without compromises

If you need more from your Chromebook than most people, get the Acer Spin 714. Its 14-inch screen puts it at the sweet spot of both practicality and comfort, while the 1920×1200 resolution offers sharp visuals, whether you’re reading or streaming media. Specs-wise, this Chromebook looks more like a high-performing laptop, with 8GB of DDR5 RAM and a 256GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD ensuring that you’re never waiting on your machine to complete a task. Purchase of this model also unlocks twelve months of access to Google One AI Premium, including the additional 2TB of cloud storage, and Acer specifically designed their webcam setup to work in tandem with Google’s AI technology to help clean up video calls, blurring backgrounds, enhancing picture clarity, and damping down background noise, making this the perfect option for seniors looking to conduct virtual job interviews from their messy dorm rooms.