Cloudbooks

Yes, it’s yet another type of laptoppp – jjust what yyou’ve been waitingg for…

What are they?

Acer’s new range of cheap, fast and light laptops. They come with Windows 10 Home, but are designed to be used in the ‘cloud’.

What does that mean?

It means you should forget about downloading software to it. Instead it’s a device for doing everything online that you currently use Desktop-based programs for, including composing emails, editing documents, and saving videos and photos.

How much are they?

The cheapest one – the Aspire One Cloudbook 11 – costs £180, has an 11-inch screen and comes with a 16GB SSD. A second 11-inch Cloudbook with a 32GB SSD will be more expensive, though Acer has yet to confirm by how much. Both will go on sale in the UK in September.

A month later Acer’s 14-inch Cloudbooks will arrive. There are two models: the 32GB Cloudbook will cost £200, while pricing for the 64GB version hasn’t been announced.

So are they just basic Windows 10 laptops?

In a way yes – these are not supercomputers. They are powered by the Intel Celeron processor, found in many budget laptops, and come with only 2GB of RAM. These low specifications mean that Cloudbooks don’t require fans to keep them cool, and are therefore very quiet. The lightest model weighs just 1.15kg, the same as this bag of oranges from Iceland ( www.snipca.com/17573), though we don’t recommend using it while eating these (keyboards react badly to citric acid).

What about battery life?

Good point. It’s between six to seven hours, according to Acer. Also – crucially – they come with 802.11ac Wi-fi, which is the latest and fastest technology for doing things online.

Are they like Chromebooks?

Yes. Both are low-powered laptops that are ideal for browsing the web, but not for more intensive PC tasks. And they’re similarly priced (see our four-star review of the £215 Dell Chromebook 11 in Issue 455, for example). The biggest difference is that a Cloudbook comes with Windows 10, which it will have to load every time it switches on. That means it’ll probably take more time to start up than a Chromebook, which only has to load the very basic Chrome OS. People who use Chromebooks love how quickly they start up (typically in less than 10 seconds). However, Cloudbooks will still feel like a hare compared with your tortoise of a PC.

Acer would have been thrilled by some industry analysts predicting that Cloudbooks will kill Chromebooks. To help convert those currently using the latter, Acer is offering some web freebies with each Cloudbook.

Ooh! Such as. . .?

A year’s free subscription to Office 365 ( www.snipca.com/17574), Microsoft’s business-focused version of Office 2013, which normally costs £79.99. This will interest you if you want more powerful, advanced office tools. You also get 1TB of free storage in Microsoft’s Onedrive, and access to Acer’s online apps for editing photos, writing documents, organising files and making music (these have been given the annoying name ‘abapps’: www.acer.com/abapps).

Should I buy one?

We wouldn’t like to say until we review one, which will happen soon. Because Cloudbooks run Windows we think they will appeal to people tempted by Chromebooks, but who still seek the familiarity of an operating system. In other words, if Chromebooks feel like too big a leap, the Cloudbook could be the perfect compromise.