2023 Chrome Unboxed Year in Review

2023 has been quite the year here at Chrome Unboxed. From new Chromebooks announced at CES to the launch of perhaps the best Chromebook ever made and the arrival of Chromebook Plus, there’s been a lot to talk about in the world of ChromeOS and Chromebooks, so we wanted to take a quick look back and stroll down memory lane a bit to highlight the biggest news from the year.

Chromebook Plus is introduced

Without question, the biggest news of the year came in October as Google officially welcomed Chromebook Plus to the world. With a new hardware baseline (8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, 1080p screens and webcams), Chromebook Plus sets a new standard for mid-range Chromebooks. The idea is simple and is already starting to work: if you want a great experience at a great price and don’t want to do tons of research, Chromebook Plus basically guarantees you make a smart decision.

A new Chromebook King is crowned

At CES 2024, kicking off the year, we got our first hands-on with the wildly-good HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook. We would follow that experience with a full press event in February and soon after, the Dragonfly Pro was available and in new users’ hands.

With an uncompromising eye on quality, speed, and aesthetics, the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook is without doubt one of the best Chromebooks ever built. It is attractive, has the highest build quality, a wildly-bright 1200 nit screen, bright RBG backlit keyboard, haptic trackpad, super-fast internals, and arguably the best speakers I’ve ever heard on any laptop. It’s the best of the best, and it was really amazing to see 2023 start off with that device.

Chromebook deals everywhere

One big change in 2023 was the fact that we didn’t see massive down times with Chromebook deals. Granted, the same deals never hung around too long at any given time, but the rotation never stopped. There really wasn’t a single point in 2023 where there wasn’t a deal of some sort on at least a few Chromebooks, and that’s why we started keeping up with them in our daily Chromebook tracker that you should definitely bookmark and check out on a pretty regular basis if you are in the market for a new ChromeOS device.

Chrome and ChromeOS begin to part ways

We’ve seen the writing on the wall for a while now, but 2023 saw the first real strides in Google decoupling the Chrome browser from the ChromeOS operating system. It’s not a simple task, obviously, as there is massive overlap in the two that has existed for years at this point. But by the end of 2023, we’re in a spot where you can turn on Lacros (the code name for the new Chromebook browser) if you choose via experimental flags and enjoy a Chrome browser that treats account management and settings just like you see it on all other major operating systems. 2024 will definitely bring the full separation out of the box with no flags necessary, and that will be a massive step for Chromebook users across the board.

Stadia says farewell

2023 also officially marked the end of Stadia – Google’s excellent-but-failed streaming game service. Everyone that tried Stadia knew it was the best version of game streaming available, but great tech isn’t always enough to keep the ship afloat, and after trying to continue pressing forward, Google decided it was time to pull the plug on its aspirational gaming project. Thankfully NVIDIA GeForce NOW was in a position to continue on, and it is not only excellent in its overall functionality, but keeps getting better with more titles joining the fray week after week.

AI takes steps forward

You can’t really talk about 2023 without mentioning AI. Whether you want it or not, AI is about to be crammed into every single facet of computing it can be for the foreseeable future. While I don’t think AI is a fad that will go away, I do think we’ve put the cart before the horse a bit on the marketing side of things. With the AI smarts coming to Chromebooks early in 2024, for example, no specialized AI hardware will be needed, and the improvements look pretty awesome. Simply put, AI is here to stay, but will likely look a lot different than what is currently getting attention in the media.

Pixel Fold’s surprising durability

Finally, I wanted to highlight a post that got a ton of views and was super interesting to me. Over the summer, I was testing the Pixel Fold and using it on a golf cart. Turns out, I didn’t have my magnetic mount secured all the way, and after hitting a small bump, the Fold went flying free of its restraints and hit top corner first on the asphalt. I completely expected to pick it up and witness one if not two cracked screens, but the device was no worse for wear. Kudos to the Pixel Fold being far more durable than expected or to Google’s own case for being more protective than you would imagine.

Clearly that’s not everything from 2023, but those are some of our favorite highlights of the year. So much happened and is set to happen in the coming year, but New Year’s Eve is always a great time to reflect, look back on all that has occurred, and get excited for the new year. I think it will be a big year for ChromeOS and Chromebook Plus specifically, but I also expect some nice development in the Chromebook tablet market, too, so be on the lookout for all of that and more as we ring in the new year.