Electronic Arts is stepping back into Middle-earth. The publisher has announced a free-to-play mobile game called The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth. The RPG is the first EA mobile title based on J.R.R. Tolkien's works. EA Capital Games is developing the game. The studio was behind another successful collectible mobile RPG in 2015's Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.
Heroes of Middle-earth will include characters from both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, along with collection systems, turn-based combat and "immersive storytelling." EA said in a press release that players will experience "iconic stories from the world of Tolkien and take up the fight against the great evils of Middle-earth." Unsurprisingly, given that this is a free-to-play mobile title, there will be microtransactions.
“We are incredibly excited to partner with The Saul Zaentz Company and Middle-earth Enterprises on the next generation of mobile role-playing games,” said EA's vice-president of mobile RPG Malachi Boyle said. “The team is filled with fans of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and each day they bring their tremendous passion and talents together to deliver an authentic experience for players. The combination of high-fidelity graphics, cinematic animations, and stylized art immerses players in the fantasy of Middle-earth where they’ll go head-to-head with their favorite characters.”
This will be EA's first LOTR title since 2009's The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, as Polygon notes. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, NetEase and Glu Mobile (which EA bought last year) are among the other publishers who have released mobile LOTR games.
EA expects to start limited regional beta tests of The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth this summer.
There’s a good chance you have enough devices with wireless charging support that a single-device pad or stand just won’t cut it. However, buying a multiple-item charger can be a headache. You not only have to contend with varying levels of support, but different designs — the last thing you want is something that won’t fit on your nightstand. Don’t fret, though. We’ll walk you through what you need to know while shopping for a multi-device charger, and recommend a few models that belong on your short list.
Future-proofing
It won’t be shocking to hear that your phone choice influences your choice in chargers. Only iPhone owners will need to consider Apple Watch compatibility. Likewise, you’ll need an Android phone if you expect to power a Galaxy Watch. Buy an iPhone 12 or newer and you can attach your phone magnetically using MagSafe, while the latest Android phones often have some form of fast wireless charging.
However, it’s not simply a question of getting the fastest charger. You should consider what you might buy in the future. Don’t buy a two-device charger if you have an iPhone and AirPods, but have been eyeing an Apple Watch. And if you think you might switch to Android (or vice versa), you’ll want to get something more generic that doesn’t lock you into any one ecosystem.
Some chargers include cradles, trays and other features that are heavily optimized for particular products, and might not even account for year-to-year changes. Some vertical stands are too tall for small phones like the iPhone 13 mini, for instance. While you can never completely guarantee that next year’s phone or watch will work, it’s worth buying something more likely to last.
Having said all this, don’t be afraid to get a charger with vendor-specific features if you’re fiercely loyal to one brand. Apple isn’t expected to ditch MagSafe any time soon, and Samsung will likely keep making Galaxy Watches for a while to come.
Where and how will you use it?
Sebastian Bednarek on Unsplash
You’re probably buying a multi-device charger with one location in mind. It might sit on your nightstand or on your desk. Not everyone buys a charger just for themselves, though; you might want to use one as a shared station for you and a partner.
If the charger will sit on your nightstand, you’ll likely want a compact, stable unit that won’t swallow all your free space or tumble to the floor. You may also prefer a lay-flat phone pad so your screen is less likely to keep you awake. The Apple Watch and some other smartwatches can double as tiny alarm clocks, so you might want a vertical charging option for any wristwear.
At a desk, however, you may want a vertical phone stand so you can check notifications. Will the charger sit on a low table? Horizontal pads may make it easier to grab your devices in a hurry. Travel chargers should fold up or otherwise protect the pads while they’re in your bag. And, yes, aesthetics count. You may want something pretty if it’s likely to sit in a posh room where guests will see it.
If it’s a shared charging station, you’ll want something with multiple generic surfaces, and you’ll probably have to forgo charging more than one watch at a time. In those cases, consider the handful of 4-in-1 chargers on the market, or models with USB ports.
Performance
It’s no secret that wireless charging is typically slower than wired, and powering multiple devices adds a new wrinkle. As these chargers often have to support a wide range of hardware, you’ll have to forget about the fastest, device-specific options from brands like Google, OnePlus and Samsung.
That’s not to say these will be slow, but there just isn’t much separating them on the speed front. As a general rule, the quickest multi-device chargers tend to top out at 15W for phones. And you’ll need a MagSafe charger if you want to get that full 15W on an iPhone.
It’s rare that you’ll find a truly slow example, mind you. Even some of the most affordable options we’ve seen will recharge your phone at a reasonable 7.5W or 10W, and the 5W for other devices is more than enough. If you’re only docking overnight or while you work, speed won’t make a huge difference. Just be sure that whatever you buy is powerful enough for a phone in a case. It’s also worth noting that fast charging for other devices is rare, although you’ll occasionally find speedier options for the Apple Watch Series 7.
Quality, box contents and small details
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The difference between a good charger and a great one often boils down to little details. You won’t always need to pay extra to get those, but a larger outlay may be worthwhile to avoid frustrations for years to come.
A textured surface like rubberized plastic or fabric will reduce the chances your expensive gadgets will slide off their charging points. The base should have enough grip and weight that the charger won’t easily shift out of place. Any floating or vertical stands should be sturdy — steer clear if there’s any wobble.
You’ll also want to make a note of what’s included in the box. Some chargers don’t ship with power adapters, and we've seen numerous models whose Apple Watch “stands” are merely holders for your existing charging puck.
Then there’s helpful touches like status lights for confirming correct placement, although you’ll want to make sure they dim or shut off after a certain amount of time. And while it’s still true that cradles and trays can limit compatibility, you do want your devices to stay where you put them. Shelves and lips can prevent your phone or watch from sliding. Oh, and be wary of floating smartwatch mounts, as heavier timepieces might sag.
Engadget picks
At this stage, you should have a good sense of what you want and what to look for. Now, it would be impossible for us to test every charger, but we’ve tried numerous models and have a few favorites.
Best premium 3-in-1 charger: Belkin BoostCharge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Pad with MagSafe
Jon Fingas/Engadget
It doesn’t get much better than Belkin’s most advanced model if you’re an Apple devotee. The BoostCharge Pro 3-in-1 pad offers 15W MagSafe charging for your iPhone, fast charging for the Apple Watch Series 7 and a space for AirPods or other earbuds with Qi-compatible cases. The base is weighty, covered in rubberized plastic and includes a discreet status light for your earbuds. More importantly, it supports more devices than you might think. Although the Pro pad uses MagSafe, the horizontal layout lets you charge virtually any phone at reduced speeds. We also have to give Belkin kudos for one of the most convenient Apple Watch chargers we’ve seen. It not only works horizontally and vertically, but includes a knob to adjust for different sizes and third-party cases.
This is quite large compared to some 3-in-1 chargers, so it’s not the greatest choice for a nightstand. Consider the smaller footprint of its counterpart, the BoostCharge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with MagSafe 15W, if you have an iPhone 12 or newer. You also won’t find USB ports, and the indented earbud pad rules out a second phone. Still, it’s easily worth the $150 asking price.
There are many quality high-end chargers to choose from, but Logitech’s Powered 3-in-1 Dock offers a few features that help it rise above. It consumes relatively little space, and the rubberized horizontal and vertical chargers deliver up to 10W while gripping your devices tightly, so both you and your partner can top off.
It has a few limitations, though. The vertical stand isn’t well-suited to the iPhone 13 mini and other small phones. And while the floating stand works with most Apple Watches, heavier ones tend to sag (such as this author’s steel Series 5 with a Leather Link strap) and might not charge properly. If those aren’t issues, though, your $130 will be well-spent.
Best budget 3-in-1 charger: Anker 533 Wireless Charger
Anker
You can find plenty of more affordable 3-in-1 chargers. Few, however, offer quite as much for the money as the Anker 533 Wireless Charger 3-in-1 Stand. It folds up for travel, offers an adjustable-angle 10W vertical stand and lets you charge an Apple Watch either horizontally or vertically. There’s also a 20W USB-C power adapter in the box, so you won’t have to buy an aftermarket brick (or rely on proprietary cabling) to get started.
The limitations mostly stem from the cost-cutting measures. You probably won’t have room for a second phone. And like some chargers we’ve seen, the Apple Watch mount is a bring-your-own-cable affair that only supports older USB-A connections. The included cable with your Series 7 or SE won’t work here. At $60, though, this is a good bargain.
Runner-up: Otterbox 3-in-1 Charging Station for MagSafe
Jon Fingas/Engadget
If you’re willing to spend a bit more and live in Apple’s universe, the Otterbox 3-in-1 Charging Station for MagSafe is worth your attention. The extremely small footprint is ideal for nightstands. You can tuck your phone, earbuds and Apple Watch into an area normally reserved for a single device. The company supplies a surprisingly powerful 36W USB-C power adapter in the box that serves as a fast wired option in a pinch.
The caveats are clear. The floating MagSafe stand rules out Android phones and older iPhones. You’ll need to bring your own Apple Watch cable, and the USB-A port won’t work with the USB-C cables bundled with newer watches. The horizontal-only watch mount also rules out clock functionality. The overall balance of space and utility is still difficult to top for $80.
Best 2-in-1 charger: Mophie Dual Wireless Charging Pad
Mophie
The 2-in-1 field is highly competitive and makes it difficult to choose an absolute winner. However, Mophie’s Dual Wireless Charging Pad hits many of the right marks. It can charge two devices at up to 10W each, making it a great pick for a two-phone household. The fabric surface with rubberized trim should keep your gadgets steady, and the status lights will confirm accurate placement. There’s even a USB-A port to plug in your watch charger or any other wired hardware.
The complaints are few. You won’t charge at 15W, and we’d rather have USB-C than USB-A. It’s nonetheless a safe choice at $80, and worth buying over less expensive options.
Runner-up: Samsung Super Fast Wireless Charger Duo
Jon Fingas/Engadget
Multi-device chargers from phone manufacturers tend to be either compromised or highly proprietary, but Samsung’s Super Fast Wireless Charger Duo (sometimes known as the 15W Duo Fast Wireless Charger) bucks that trend. It’s compact and delivers high-speed charging for one phone and an accessory, whether it’s a Galaxy Watch or another manufacturer’s earbuds. The status lights will even dim at night, and change color to indicate when your batteries are full.
This won’t help for two-phone households, and Samsung only guarantees 15W charging for some of its own phones (the Galaxy Note 10, Galaxy S20 and later). You’ll also want to be mindful of which version you buy, as there are variants with and without a power adapter in the box. Neither is cheap at respective prices of $90 and $70. This remains an elegant charger for nightstands and travel, though, and the pads are sufficiently device-agnostic.
Best charger for two people: Mophie 4-in-1 Wireless Charging Mat
Mophie
There are few wireless chargers built with more than one person in mind, but Mophie’s 4-in-1 Wireless Charging Mat is the most well-rounded of the bunch. The pad can handle up to four devices wirelessly at 10W, including two phones and two accessories. There’s also a spare USB-A port for charging earlier Apple Watch models (using the included mount and your own cable) or wired items. A fabric surface, subtle device trays and indicator lights will also take the mysteries out of charging.
This is a giant charger compared to most, and you might find it limiting if your home has more than one Apple Watch or accessories that won’t fit the smaller charging pads. Even so, Mophie is offering considerable value for $150. The 4-in-1 does more than some 3-in-1 chargers at that price, and it doesn’t suffer the compatibility issues of rivals like Nomad’s Base Station Pro.
If you're a Pokémon fan and want to boost your Nintendo Switch game collection, Best Buy has just launched an interesting sale. It cut the price of recent titles including Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, Pokémon Sword Edition and Pokémon Snap to $40, saving you $20 off the regular price. Even better, you can find the Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee titles for half off.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond ($40) and Shining Pearl ($40) are remakes of the original 2006 DS games with much improved visuals thanks to the Switch's hardware capabilities. They launched less than a year ago, so it's rare to see them with up with a one-third off discount. Pokémon Snap ($40), meanwhile, is a sequel to the 1999 Nintendo 64 classic. It came out early last year, and again, gives you the same wildly original concept (take the best photos from a train to gain points), with much improved Switch visuals.
The other two titles with $20 discounts are Pokémon Shield Edition ($40) and Pokémon Sword ($40),released in 2019. While the games faced a backlash for not including all pre-existing Pokémon, they've gone on to sell nearly 25 million copies world-wide, becoming one of the fastest selling games on Switch. That popularity makes it hard to find them on sale, so a $20 discount is welcome news.
Finally, there's Pokémon: Let's Go Eevee! ($30) and Let's Go, Pikachu! ($30). Both those launched in 2018, ostensibly as remakes to Pokémon Yellow. At the same time, they bridge the gap between the core series and popular Pokémon Go mobile game, by turning the experience of catching Pokémon into a Go-style minigame. Half off is a very solid deal for these games, but it's not likely to last long.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Due to the ongoing chip shortage, BMW is temporarily shipping some vehicles without support for Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, according to report from Automotive News Europe (which we found through 9to5 Google). According to a statement the company gave to Automotive News Europe, BMW has changed suppliers and begun using a chip that does not fully support Android Auto or CarPlay. As a result, the company continued in its statement, affected vehicles will receive an over-the-air software update by "the end of June at the latest."
As 9to5Google notes, you can check if your recently purchased vehicle is affected by checking for "6P1" in the car's production code. It also seems that all of the vehicles in question were manufactured in the first four months of 2022, and have final destinations in the US, France, Italy, Spain and the UK.
This is not the first time that BMW has delivered cars missing certain non-essential features in order to avoid shipping delays. Last fall, the company omitted touchscreen features from some vehicles, also due to the global chip shortage. And BMW is hardly the only automaker to take this tack either. Last fall, around the same time BMW was grappling with the touchscreen issue, Tesla decided to ship some cars without USB ports. Then, earlier this year, Ford, shipped some Explorer SUVs without rear climate controls.
In the case of BMW's missing Android Auto and CarPlay support, it could be worse. As Automotive News Europe notes, when Mercedes-Benz was faced with a similar dilemma, it chose not to include the requisite chips in some vehicles, at which point customers would be forced to bring their cars into a ship to have them installed later.
The finalists that just missed out on a spot this time are Assassin’s Creed, Candy Crush Saga, Minesweeper, NBA Jam, PaRappa the Rapper, Resident Evil, Rogue and Words with Friends. All of those are classics in their own way, but it's hard to argue with any of the four picks.
Ocarina of Time made it into the Hall of Fame as a first-time nominee. The first 3D Zelda title is widely regarded as one of the best games of all time, and it remains the highest-scoring game ever on Metacritic. It paved the way for the last two and a half decades of action games. Ocarina of Time walked so Breath of the Wild could run.
Influential simulation and strategy title Sid Meier's Civilization was first named as a finalist back in 2016 and again in 2019. Arcade icons Ms. Pac-Man and DDR each made the shortlist once before.
They join the likes of Super Mario Bros., Doom, Mortal Kombat, Tetrisand Animal Crossing. As Eurogamer notes, Zelda and Pac-Man are the first two series with more than one entry in the Video Game Hall of Fame, though Super Mario Kart is in there as well.
As the first week of May comes to a close, a number of our favorite gadgets remain on sale, with some at record-low prices. Apple's latest iPad mini is the cheapest we've seen it at $400, while most AirPods have been discounted. Also, a bunch of Kindles are on sale at Amazon and you can still pick up a Roomba from iRobot for hundreds of dollars less than usual. Here are the best tech deals this week that you can still get today.
iPad mini
Valentina Palladino / Engadget
Apple's latest iPad mini is $100 off right now and down to $400, which is the lowest we've seen it. We still consider it to be the best small tablet. you can get, and the 2021 version earned a score of 89 from us for its modern design, solid performance, improved front cameras and USB-C charging.
Apple's AirPods Pro are back on sale for $175, which is 30 percent off their normal price. We gave them a score of 87 for their improved fit, good audio quality and solid ANC.
If you still prefer the original design to Apple's AirPods, you can grab the second-gen earbuds for $100 right now. That's 37 percent off their normal rate and only $10 more than their record-low price. We gave them a score of 84 for their improved wireless performance and solid battery life.
The high-end AirPods Max are $100 off and back down to $449. While not an all-time low, it's close to the best price we've seen. We gave the cans a score of 84 for their excellent sound quality, good ANC and handy onboard controls.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is cheaper than ever right now at $40. That's $20 off its normal price and the lowest we've seen it. Nintendo's first-party games rarely go on sale like this, so if you haven't picked up the cozy title yet, now's the time to do so.
Both the PS5 and PS4 versions of Elden Ring are still $10 off and down to $50 — a pretty good discount for a popular new title. The game has been widely acclaimed since it came out, despite some performance issues that have now been resolved. You could easily get lost in its open world, intriguing story and challenging gameplay.
Both the 40mm Galaxy Watch 4 models are $76 off and down to a new record low of $174. We gave the Galaxy Watch 4 a score of 85 for its bright, crisp display, comprehensive head tracking and improved third-party app support.
Amazon's latest Kindle Paperwhite is 25 percent off and down to an all-time low of $105. It has a number of improvements over the previous model, including a larger screen with more front lights, an adjustable warm light and USB-C charging. Also, the standard Kindle is down to $55 and the Kindle Oasis is on sale for $200.
Amazon's Echo Show 8 is back down to an all-time low of $90 right now, while the tiny Echo Dot is on sale for only $28. The Show 8 is one of our favorite smart displays and we gave it a score of 87 for its minimalist design, lovely screen and good sound quality. These deals are part of a larger Amazon device sale that may have some good gift options if you're still on the hunt for a Mother's Day gift.
Through May 9th, new and free LastPass users can upgrade to a paid account and save 20 percent. That will bring a Premium membership down to around $29 annually instead of the usual $36, while Families would cost about $38 annually and Business down to $58 per user each year.
Samsung's latest Frame smart TVs have been discounted on Amazon, so you can grab the 55-inch model for $1,297, which is $200 less than usual. A few size options are on sale, so you can choose the one that fits best in your home. It's rare to see sales on the latest TV models, and these new Frames have a new matte finish that helps reduce reflections, so they will hopefully blend even more into your home when you have them on Art Mode.
iRobot's affordable Roomba 694 is still on sale for $180 right now, which is a record low. This is one of our favorite budget-friendly robot vacuums thanks to its easy to use mobile app, good cleaning power and sleek design.
The Roomba j7+ robo-vac and the Roomba s9+ are both $200 off right now and down to $599 and $799, respectively. These are both advanced machines from iRobot, with the j7+ sporting a pet poop detection feature, while the s9+ has the strongest suction power of all of the company's robot vacuums. Both also come with clean bases, so you won't have to empty their dustbins manually after each cleaning job.
The new Beats Fit Pro earbuds are $20 off and down to $180. That's one of the best prices we've seen all year, and they earned a score of 87 from us for their comfortable fit, punchy bass, solid ANC and loads of handy features.
The Beats Studio Buds are back down to a record low of $100. We gave them a score of 84 for their tiny, comfortable design, balanced sound and quick-pairing on both Android and iOS.
Jabra's new Elite 4 Active earbuds are $20 off and down to $100, which is a new record low. The budget-friendly Elite 3 are also on sale and down to only $60. We gave the Elite 4 Active a score of 84 for their comfort fit, solid sound quality and customizable ANC, while the Elite 3 came in at 88 thanks to their good battery life, reliable onboard controls and comfortable fit.
Anker's Eufy RoboVac 11s is on sale for $150 thanks to a discounted price and an extra $50 coupon on the product page you can clip before adding the item to your cart. We consider it to be one of the best cheap robot vacuums you can buy due to its slim frame that helps it get under furniture, good suction power and included physical remote which lets you change cleaning modes, set schedules and more.
JBL's Charge 5 Bluetooth speaker is down to $150, which is only $20 more than its all-time low. This earned a spot in our portable Bluetooth speaker guide thanks to its bright sound, long battery life and USB-C port for charging.
As always, Geoff Keighley will be the master of ceremonies for Summer Game Fest Kick Off Live. Expect new game announcements, world premieres and fresh looks at other upcoming titles. Immediately after that event wraps up, Day of the Devs: Summer Game Fest Edition will shine the spotlight on a bunch of indie games.
You'll be able to watch the Summer Game Fest double bill on a wide range of platforms, including YouTube, Twitch, Twitter and Facebook. For the first time, you'll be able to catch Summer Game Fest Kick Off Live (and, in December, The Game Awards) at IMAX theaters in the US, Canada and the UK. If you really want to see a bunch of trailers and teasers for upcoming games in IMAX, you can buy a ticket for Summer Game Fest on May 12th.
“Video games are the most powerful, immersive and spectacular form of entertainment in the world, so it’s only natural to bring them to fans in IMAX, the world’s most immersive cinema format,” Keighley said in a statement.
Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 is now cheaper than ever at Amazon, where the 40mm Bluetooth-only version is currently on sale for $174. That's a new all-time for the wearable and is $76 less than its retail price of $250. The watch has been on sale a few times for $200 over the past months, but the lowest it got before this was $180 ahead of Black Friday last year.
We gave the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 a score of 84 in our review and praised it for its comprehensive health tracking capabilities. It has a 3-in-1 biometric sensor that enables body mass scans and new sleep-tracking features, such as continuous blood oxygen detection that can help assess your sleep quality more accurately. We also praised the watch for having a sharper and brighter screen than its predecessors.
Since Galaxy Watch 4 is loaded with Wear OS, it has much better third-party app support than previous versions. You can download apps directly from the Play Store — there's even a section that shows which of the apps on your phone has a Wear OS counterpart. In addition, Samsung has added gesture controls to the device via the One UI that will let you answer or dismiss calls by flicking your wrist or lifting your arm.
Although only the 40mm version is on sale for $174 right now, you can also get its bigger counterpart at a discount. If you prefer a larger smartwatch, the 44mm version of the Galaxy Watch 4 is currently available for $230, which is only around 90 cents off its all-time low and $50 less than its regular price.
Gaming has been one of Chrome OS’ weak spots for years. Most Chromebooks have lower-power hardware paired with an OS built on web technology, so playing AAA titles found on Windows has simply not been an option. Cloud gaming, like Google’s own Stadia, offered a solution of sorts, but many players have been eager to see how Steam would fare, after Google announced Valve's platform was in an early alpha phase.
News Editor Nathan Ingraham tested things out on one of the seven Chromebooks that can run Steam, an ASUS Chromebook CX9 with Intel's 11th-generation Core i7. (Google says Steam required a device with at least a Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM.) He explains that many games run like a dream; however, his attempts to play 2018's God of War, originally released for the PS4 and ported to Windows in January this year, was apparently a “totally unplayable slideshow.” God of War’s spec requirements demand either NVIDIA's GTX 960 or AMD's R9 290X graphics cards — it wasn’t a huge shock.
While Google and Valve will improve the Steam experience from this early alpha, it's fair to say Chrome OS will never be the place to play cutting-edge games. But, Steam's library is vast, and there are thousands of titles — most playable offline, something Stadia can’t offer.
The six-episode series debuts on Disney+ on May 27th.
Lucasfilm and Disney+ celebrated May the 4th by offering another look at the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series. There's not a ton of new footage, but it includes a peep at Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) being pieced together, which is much more than the breathing cameo from the previous trailer.
The New York Times has revealed it added "tens of millions" of new users in the first quarter of 2022 thanks to Josh Wardle's hit word game. That led to the company's best quarter yet for subscriber additions to games, and "many" of those incoming players have stuck around to try other games.
The company will start mass-producing Universal Flash Storage 4.0 in the third quarter.
Samsung has introduced the latest iteration of its Universal Flash Storage product, which it says is much, much faster than its predecessor. UFS was created to enable SSD speeds for cameras, phones and other devices, but this version — called UFS 4.0 — can reach 23.2Gbps per lane. That's double the speed of UFS 3.1, the storage used in Samsung’s Galaxy S22.
It may be smaller than the Beam, with some high-end features.
Sonos' rumored budget soundbar was briefly posted online at Colombian store KTronix. The listing suggested g it will be called the Sonos Ray and be smaller than the already compact Beam Gen 2 at just 22 inches long (versus 25.6in), if slightly taller and thinner. A previous leak hinted Sonos might release it as soon as early June. And while the Colombian price (about $323) likely won't reflect the exact pricing for the US, it does imply the rumored $250 sticker is at least close to the mark.
Graduation is traditionally a big time for gift-giving, so if you know someone heading out into the real world who could use an upgrade after four (or more!) long years of higher education, we’ve got a host of options — even if the giftee is in deep with tech already.
For about as long as Chrome OS has existed, gaming has been one of its most notable Achilles' heels. Most Chromebooks have lower-power hardware, and the OS is built on web technology, so playing AAA titles found on Windows has simply not been an option. The rise of cloud-based gaming services like Google's own Stadia have helped the situation, but perhaps the biggest advance in Chromebook gaming came in late March, when Google announced that Valve's Steam platform was in an early alpha phase on Chrome OS. Just as you can on Windows, Mac and Linux, this lets you download and install games from the vast Steam catalog. As a Chromebook fan who also loves a good game, I had to give this a shot.
So Google provided me with one of the seven Chromebooks that can run Steam, an ASUS Chromebook CX9 with Intel's 11th-generation Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage space. These are hefty specs for a Chromebook, but Google specified that Steam required a device with at least a Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM. While Steam may eventually work with lower-powered devices, it's clear that many Chromebooks simply won't be able to cut it. But if you do have the right hardware, the Steam experience is pretty good, so long as you keep your expectations in check.
I didn’t have any problems getting Steam installed, but it’s a lot more complicated than setting it up on a Windows computer. You'll need to switch your Chromebook to the Dev channel, so don't do this on a machine you rely on for daily use. After that, you'll need to enable a specific flag in Chrome and type a few commands into the Chrome OS Crosh terminal. Once that's done, Steam will download to your machine, at which point you can login and start downloading games.
Right off the bat, any game that is supported in Steam for Linux can be installed without any compatibility issues. As I'm a massive Half-Life fan, the first two games I tried out were Valve's own Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 — two old games that don't require powerful hardware. Both, unsurprisingly, played like a charm. There were rare frame rate drops, but the experience felt identical to playing them on Windows or on a Mac.
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I decided to get crazy and install 2018's God of War, originally released for the PS4 and ported to Windows in January of this year. It was a totally unplayable slideshow. That's no surprise, though, as God of War calls for either NVIDIA's GTX 960 or AMD's R9 290X graphics cards with 4GB of memory. The Chromebook's integrated Intel Iris X graphics aren't in the same league. This is no real knock on the Chromebook, though, because a Windows machine with the same specs wouldn't be able to run God of War, either. I was mostly surprised that I was able to install it at all.
To install games like God of War, or any other titles that don’t have a native Linux version, you’ll need to turn on the experimental Steam Play compatibility tools. Once I did that, though, I could install just about any game I came across. Obviously, demanding games like God of War aren't going to work, but there are still tons of titles in the Steam library that are worth checking out. Both Hades and Cuphead ran flawlessly, and Fallout 4 worked pretty well too. It wasn’t as smooth as the other games I tried, but the first few hours were definitely playable.
The main catch is that the first time you run games using compatibility tools, they’re extremely slow to load. Steam has to "process Vulkan shaders" for a lot of titles, and this can take five to ten minutes or more on some games (like Fallout 4). Fortunately, this only happens the first time you launch a particular title.
Most of the games I tried were from Google's own list of recommended titles that had been tested on Chrome OS, and those experiences were almost all solid. The one game my Chromebook couldn't quite keep up with was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Google recommended playing that one with graphics on low, and said that only Chromebooks with an i7 processor would work. Even then, frame rates and control responsiveness was poor enough that I didn't want to play after a few minutes.
While Google and Valve will certainly improve the Steam experience from this early alpha, it's fair to say that Chrome OS will never be the place to play cutting-edge games. Chromebooks just aren't built with that kind of hardware.
But, Steam's library is vast, and there are thousands of titles across any genre that you can think of. Bringing that catalog to Chrome OS is a huge step forward for those who love games but don't necessarily need to play Cyberpunk 2077 with settings on high. Whether it's for replaying older classics like Portal 2 or trying newer releases like Hades, Steam for Chrome OS vastly expands the gaming you can do on a Chromebook. And if you really want to play The Witcher 3 or God of War, a streaming service like NVIDIA's GeForce Now can plug the gap. So far, the alpha build of Steam for Chrome OS is promising, and I hope that Google and Valve can make it work on more Chromebooks before long.
