Dell Chromebook 11
A likeably compact and fuss-free Chromebook – but it lacks a real selling point to justify the price
Dell’s take on the compact, low-end Chromebook looks physically similar to the Acer Chromebook R11 – leaving aside the colour scheme. At £310, though, it’s quite a bit more expensive.
What the extra money chiefly gets you is a faster processor. The Chromebook 11’s Celeron N2840 ticks over at 2.16GHz, and boosts up to 2.58GHz. It’s partnered with 4GB of RAM, and together these components yield respectable performance, by Chromebook standards. In the JetStream JavaScript benchmark, the Dell Chromebook 11 scored 53 – an improvement of almost 30% over the Acer. And in the MotionMark graphical test, its overall score of 63
made it this month’s most visually capable Chromebook, aside from the Core m3-powered HP.
Unfortunately, while Dell’s Chromebook 11 outguns the Acer R11 on performance, it’s an inferior machine in pretty much every other way. For a start, it’s a standard laptop design; you can’t fold the lid back and turn it into a tablet, which is a shame because it’s small enough to make that usage model actually work.
The screen itself is also much less enticing. While the size and resolution are the same as on the Acer, this Dell model uses a bog-standard matte panel with no touch support. That’s a minus point for anyone planning to stock up on Android-friendly apps from Google Play.
What’s more, it’s frankly dull to look at, thanks to a mediocre maximum brightness of 217cd/m2 and a dreary 318:1 contrast ratio. If you want to watch videos on it, you’ll additionally have to put up with boxy speakers: they’re loud, but not very musical.
Finally, let’s talk about battery life. In our video-playback test, the Dell Chromebook 11 lasted just 7hrs 4mins before running out of juice – the worst performance of any Chromebook this month. It may be significant that this Chromebook’s processor is an older 22nm part, rather than the more power-efficient 14nm CPUs found in other Chromebooks.
On paper, the Dell Chromebook 11 might seem a sensible alternative to the Acer R11, trading off the latter’s bells and whistles in favour of a welcome performance boost. But with its more limited design, poor screen and subpar battery life, it feels like a very cheap bit of technology – which makes it difficult to recommend at this price.