Minimum requirements for Chromebook?

The sub $500 article and discussion made me start thinking about what would be considered the minimal acceptable specs for a Chromebook? Keyboard and screen quality are important too but a little harder to quantify but I thought I put this out there and see what others think.

Intel Core i3, 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB SSD storage? I think 1080P touchscreen should be minimums too. I tend to use touch more often when using Chromebook than Windows PC but that might be more of a personal preference.

I’ve had some rather poor experiences with the Chromebooks that schools provide but that might have as much to do with the poor construction, keyboards, screens and trackpads that those had more than the lack of CPU/RAM.

Conversation 12 comments

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    13 August, 2019 - 3:08 pm

    <p>Internal storage isn't a major concern unless you plan to run in developer mode. In standard mode, some apps like DOSBox could use a lot of local storage, but, FWIW, I haven't used more than 250MB for the 16-bit software. Apps and extensions do take up internal storage, but they're much smaller than Windows software packages.</p><p><br></p><p>For data files, you can only use ~/Downloads though internal storage. IMO, you'd be better off with an SD card assuming your Chromebook had an SD slot.</p>

    • skane2600

      13 August, 2019 - 4:21 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#449089">In reply to hrlngrv:</a></em></blockquote><p>Chromebooks are primarily a web-app oriented device. If someone is ok with operating that way, a Windows laptop doesn't need a lot of additional storage either. I see it as part of the "apples vs. oranges" aspect of comparing Chromebooks to PCs or Macs. The stuff you can't do on a Chromebook requires less storage.</p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        13 August, 2019 - 4:30 pm

        <p><a href="https://www.thurrott.com/forums/google/hardware/thread/minimum-requirements-for-chromebook#449125&quot; target="_blank"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></p><p>I don't dispute what you wrote, but it's tangential to the OP's question.</p><p>To be clear, Chromebooks can work quite well in standard mode with 16GB drives. 32GB drives would be extremely capacious. 64GB would be bordering on ridiculous, certainly not a minimum.</p>

        • Sprtfan

          13 August, 2019 - 7:06 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#449128">In reply to hrlngrv:</a></em></blockquote><p>It is all in how you use it. I have a 16GB Chromebook that is full and had to remove things to free up space. I could probably go with 32GB min instead of 64GB though. </p><p>I wasn't going with bare minimums to operate I was going for more the minimum someone would want for real world use similar to what Paul did for Windows laptops. </p>

          • hrlngrv

            Premium Member
            14 August, 2019 - 6:07 pm

            <p><a href="https://www.thurrott.com/forums/google/hardware/thread/minimum-requirements-for-chromebook#449168&quot; target="_blank"><em>In reply to Sprtfan:</em></a></p><p>Interesting. What takes up the most storage on your Chromebook? On mine, I've installed maybe 40 apps and 20 browser extensions, switched to developer mode, installed crouton and a modest Ubuntu chroot with xiwi, LibreOffice and Waterfox, and I still have about 3GB free out of 16GB. I also use a 64GB SD card.</p>

            • Sprtfan

              14 August, 2019 - 8:17 pm

              <blockquote><em><a href="#449332">In reply to hrlngrv:</a></em></blockquote><p>My kids use it for the most part and they have installed several games from the Play store. Mostly games from the Toca and MyPlayHome series. I could add a SD card but have not yet and I'm not sure how well the games would play off of it. </p><p>What drew me to my first Windows phone was the idea that I'd be able to buy apps that would work on both my computer and my phone. The Play store apps are a little buggy at times still but has mostly filled that desire. My kids have moved mostly into Minecraft now though and much prefer to play it on a PC. They still use the Chromebook for games some and comes in handy on trips. I just learned that you can do Netflix offline with Chromebook now which is nice. I'll add a SD card if I start doing that. </p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    13 August, 2019 - 6:43 pm

    <p>I've run CloudReady, a publicly available distro of Chromium OS on junk as old as an Eee PC with an Atom N270 and a GB of RAM and it's fine.</p>

    • codymesh

      14 August, 2019 - 8:19 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#449164">In reply to jimchamplin:</a></em></blockquote><p>what distro is this and is it free for anyone to try?</p>

    • Sprtfan

      14 August, 2019 - 10:09 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#449164">In reply to jimchamplin:</a></em></blockquote><p>I've tried CloudReady without a lot of luck. It was on really low end hardware though and might have been the issue. I thought it required 2GB of RAM? I tried it on 2 different models. I'll have to check what they are now though since it was a while ago. (<em>One was a Asus x205t don't think I have the other any more)</em></p>

  • Tony Barrett

    14 August, 2019 - 7:11 am

    <p>ChromeOS has incredibly low resource requirements – so low infact, Windows can only weep. I'm still running a 5 year old Chromebook, which has 2GB RAM, 16GB storage and a lowly Celeron – and it flies. I use it every day for web browsing and email – nothing too taxing, but it just keeps going, and updates are pretty much instant – even with 16GB, ChromeOS maintains two totally separate copies of the OS.</p><p>A ChromeBook doesn't need an i5 or i7, it doesn't need 16GB RAM and massive disks, so yes, you can buy a 'premium' Chromebook with all these, but it's overkill.</p>

  • Rachel Gomez

    07 March, 2022 - 3:13 am

    <p><strong>Requirement of chromebooks are-</strong></p><p><br></p><p>-Storage specs for Chromebooks</p><p>-Budget Chromebooks (under $300) should feature at least an Intel Celeron N4010 (or better), with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage.</p><p>-Premium Chromebooks should ideally feature an Intel Core i3/i5/i7, 8 GB of RAM and 128GB SSD storage.</p><p><br></p><p><strong><em>Regards,</em></strong></p><p><strong><em>Rachel Gomez</em></strong></p>

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