One of the hidden benefits to owning a Chromebook are the perks that come with it. Google’s calling out one, specifically: every Chromebook owner can now get three free months of Priority access to Nvidia’s GeForce Now (GFN) service, just for owning a Chromebook.
And if you own a gaming Chromebook like the Lenovo IdeaPad 5, you can get even more: access to GeForce Now Ultimate, which grants access to the highest tier of GFN services.
Nvidia’s GeForce Now is Nvidia’s game-streaming service, one that allows you to bypass the inherent weaknesses of a Chromebook: its lack of powerful hardware. At one point, gaming on a Chromebook was restricted to whatever native Flash games were available. Now, gaming on a Chromebook works just like Netflix. Games streamed via Microsoft’s Xbox services or Nvidia’s GeForce Now live in the cloud, and you play them remotely via your Chromebook. GeForce Now and Xbox Game Pass differ only in that Nvidia’s services requires you to already own your games (though it now supports selects Xbox Game Pass games, too).
However, GeForce Now was built to give Chromebook players the experience of PC gamers: the Priority tier allows you to play up to 6 hours at a time at 1080p resolution, on PC servers running GPUs with Nvidia’s real-time raytracing functions (RTX) enabled. (After the six hours are up, you’ll have to begin a new session, but you can do so indefinitely.) The Ultimate tier gives you access to servers running RTX 4080 GPUs, up to 4K resolution, and up to 120 frames per second. You’ll be able to play for eight hours at a stretch, too.
What makes this perk so great is that Nvidia, naturally, expects you to pay for this service: $9.99 per month for the Priority tier, and $19.99 per month for the Ultimate Tier. Owning a Chromebook, then, will earn you about $30 worth of Priority tier credits, and just under $60 worth of Ultimate tier credit, too.
Don’t stop there, though. Did you know that owning a Chromebook comes with additional perks, too? Google’s Perk page has more: a one-month trial of Boosteroid cloud gaming, a free copy of Minecraft, a free three months of Minecraft Realms, 12 months of Google One, and more. The free GeForce Now subscription is just one hidden difference between a laptop and a Chromebook, helping the small inexpensive Chromebook become more valuable than it already is.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers' News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.