Uploaded November 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Chromebooks are great for students. They're inexpensive, easy to use and come with a bunch of great privacy features. But any laptop meant for the small, clumsy hands of a child needs to also be durable.
To save you from buying a laptop that breaks on the first fall, we dropped 11 of the best Chromebooks — both standard and rugged models — from a height of 2.5 feet and 4.5 feet onto carpet and concrete, and then inspected them to see which of these held up the best.
Among these popular Chromebooks is the Asus Chromebook Flip C434 (our favorite overall Chromebook), Google's expensive Pixelbook and a handful of budget laptops, like the Samsung Chromebook 3.
After dropping them and inspecting them for damage, we gave each of the 11 Chromebooks a durability score and ranked them from best to worst. This group of Chromebooks did a good job overall, but, as expected, some devices held up better than others.
FULL ARTICLE ON LAPTOPMAG.COM: laptopmag.com/features/chromebook-drop-test
Chromebooks are great for students. They're inexpensive, easy to use and come with a bunch of great privacy features. But any laptop meant for the small, clumsy hands of a child needs to also be durable.
To save you from buying a laptop that breaks on the first fall, we dropped 11 of the best Chromebooks — both standard and rugged models — from a height of 2.5 feet and 4.5 feet onto carpet and concrete, and then inspected them to see which of these held up the best.
Among these popular Chromebooks is the Asus Chromebook Flip C434 (our favorite overall Chromebook), Google's expensive Pixelbook and a handful of budget laptops, like the Samsung Chromebook 3.
After dropping them and inspecting them for damage, we gave each of the 11 Chromebooks a durability score and ranked them from best to worst. This group of Chromebooks did a good job overall, but, as expected, some devices held up better than others.
FULL ARTICLE ON LAPTOPMAG.COM: laptopmag.com/features/chromebook-drop-test
