The best Chromebooks all have one thing in common: they’re small. The most popular Chromebooks have small, low-resolution 11.6-inch displays. They may offer a low price, stellar battery life, and fast performance — but sometimes you just want a bigger computer.
Acer’s
new Chromebook 13 appears to be just that computer, at least on paper.
It’s got a 13.3-inch display, same size as the 13-inch MacBook Air, with an optional 1080p resolution. The $299 1080p Chromebook 13 is both bigger and more pixel-dense than Dell’s Chromebook 11 or Acer’s own C720,
while still being a low-cost computer. The larger size display gives
Acer room for a full-size keyboard and a larger trackpad, things we
never complain about being bigger.
Not only does the Chromebook 13 have a larger, better display than almost every other Chromebook out there (the $1,300 Chromebook Pixel excepted),
it’s also the first Chromebook to use an Nvidia Tegra K1 processor. The
Tegra K1 lets the Chromebook 13 drop the fan and keep a slim profile,
while promising performance on par with or better than the Intel
processors in other Chromebooks. It also lets Acer boast of up to 13
hours of battery life (11 hours with the 1080p display), more than any
other Chromebook on the market.
There have been a lot of promises in the Chromebook world, but
few laptops have been able to follow through. Acer (and by extension,
Nvidia) is basically saying it’s done away with the usual compromises
you get with a Chromebook. I’ve been putting it through its paces for
the past couple of weeks to see if those promises have weight or if the
Chromebook 13 is just full of hot air.
First, the good news: the Chromebook 13 is the nicest designed
Chromebook Acer has ever made. It’s even fair to say that it’s the
nicest designed Chromebook this side of the ridiculously expensive
Chromebook Pixel. It’s a slim, svelte design — 0.71-inches thick and
3.31 pounds — that’s both attractive and well put together. It’s still
plastic in every place, but it’s not the cheap-feeling plastic that Acer
uses on the C720 and other Chromebooks. It’s as well built as the Dell
Chromebook 11, but slimmer and not as stumpy looking. The all-white
finish is striking and doesn’t pick up dirt and smudges as easily as I
would have expected it to.
Alongside the Chromebook 13’s sides are the standard ports: USB (2 USB
3.0 ports, one on the left, one on the rear), HDMI, headphone, and
power. There’s also a built-in SD card reader on the left edge. The
full-size keyboard is a joy to type on: it’s more spacious and much
nicer feeling than the C720’s clacky, cramped keyboard. The only thing
it’s missing is a backlight for typing in the dark, but I’ve yet to see
an inexpensive Chromebook that offers that.
Similarly, the Chromebook 13’s trackpad
is smooth and spacious, with accurate tracking and quick response. It’s
not the same as using a MacBook’s glass trackpad, but you’d be
hard-pressed to find a better one on another laptop in this price range.
The Chromebook 13’s bottom mounted speakers are louder than I expected,
but they tend to break up and distort when pushed to maximum volume.
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