Acer Chromebook 13

While Chromebooks continue to grow in popularity there’s also been another area of expansion worth noting, that of screen size. There are 14in models from HP (Chromebook 14) and Toshiba (Chromebook 2), and now Acer now throws its hat into the ring with a new 13.3in variant to accompany its very fine C720 range of smaller devices.

The white plastic chassis of the Chromebook 13 is pretty unremarkable if truth be told. The matt finish is certainly preferable to some glossier machines we’ve encountered, but the chunky hinge area looks perfunctual and somewhat bland design-wise. The joins feel sturdy though, which is the most important thing, and there are several useful ports scattered around the body.

The left flank offers a USB 3.0 port and an SD card reader, while the right houses the headphone port and charging socket. This might seem a little miserly, but around the back there are also an additional USB 3.0 and HDMI output, presumably arranged this way as the slim sides of the machine offer little room for ports of this size. We have to say, after using a similarly designed Samsung Chromebooks for years, that having USB ports at the back is not an ideal placement. Sure it means you can taper the flanks and avoid bulky construction, but from a user point of view it’s just a bit awkward.

Opening up the Chromebook 13 reveals a clean, spacious keyboard set in black to nicely contrast the white body. In use it’s responsive and easy to type on, although we would prefer if manufacturers stopped placing keys so close to the enter key. It’s a niggle, but one that makes little sense to us, especially on a machine like a Chromebook. The trackpad is smooth and accurate, with all the multi-touch, navigation gestures included in Chrome OS executed with little fuss.

Of course, one of the main features of the Chromebook 13 is the screen, which boasts a full HD resolution of 1920x1080. This is another relatively new thing in Chromebooks, with only the £799 Pixel, and Toshiba’s Chromebook 2 being able to make such a claim. The difference between those devices and this though is that the others come with IPS panels, while Acer opted to use the more standard TN display on its machine. The difference is stark. While the rendering is sharp, colours are muted and pale, and the frosty panel just looks somewhat lacklustre when compared to the vibrant Toshiba. In fact that screen is really the biggest problem for the Acer. Six months ago this device would have been impressive, and to be fair in many ways it still is, but it’s hard to recommend when you know that for only a small amount more you can get a system that has a far better display.

The Acer does, however, have a lot going for it. The nVidia Tegra K1 Quad-Core CPU is fast, and was able to cope with plenty of open tabs, streaming video in the background, and barely skipped a beat as we continued browsing various websites. This is aided by the 4GB of RAM under the hood, something we’re very glad to see as the 2GB often found in earlier Chromebooks could result in stifled performance.

In our SunSpider benchmarks the Acer scored 660ms, which placed it at the lower end of the scale, but in everyday use we found the device quick to load up web pages and had no complaints.

Battery life is also good, with our tests draining it dry in nine hours, 20 minutes, making it one of the longest lasting Chromebooks yet.

Sound is also decent, with the twin underside speakers outputting respectable levels with a good range of tones. Wi-Fi supports 802.11ac, which is good to see, and while the 32GB of internal storage might seem small, but it’s generous for this class of machine. It’s augmented by the two years of free 100GB Google Drive space that comes with all new Chromebooks.

The normal caveats apply when you consider buying a Chromebook. In essence, you have to be happy to do most of your activities in the cloud, using Google services.

You also need to factor in that Chromebooks can’t run Windows software such as Photoshop and iTunes, as they just won’t work on the platform and are unlikely to appear in the future. If this isn’t an issue, then we think you’ll find Chrome OS an easy-to-use system.

The online apps, plus normal web-based services, mean you can get an awful lot done on one of these machines, and the streamlined interface (in essence a browser) will be familiar to everyone. Google’s office suite (Docs, Sheets, and Slides) is a very good option for normal day to day tasks that don’t rely too much on advanced formatting, plus you can also access the online versions of Word and Excel if you want your Microsoft fix.

The Chrome App store continues to grow, with loads of useful tools for productivity, entertainment, and content creation, most of which are free. A number of apps can also work offline too, with the Google suite being the most notable.

Verdict

Acer knows how to make good, solid, reliable Chromebooks, and this model is no exception. If you can accept the screen, it’s is a very nice machine that will get the job done.