24 AUGUST 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 378
THERARITYWITHwhich new Chromeboxes
launch is at least partially balanced by each
design coming in about half adozen different
specs. The Acer Chromebox CXI3 is aperfect
example.You can have it with an Intel Celeron
3865U and 4GB of RAM forabout £250, but
the version we tested packs aquad-core,
eight-thread Core i5-8250U, not to mention
8GB of RAM and a64GB SSD.
That all makes it something of a
powerhouse in Chromebox terms. Like their
laptop counterparts, Chromebooks,
Chromeboxes typically settle forless
horsepower,and afocus on cloud-based
applications and storage in order to stay
more affordable than equivalent Windows
systems. This particular £502 model might
be stretching the concept, but it does
allow forslicker,smoother everydayuse
than most Chromeboxes.
There’s not ahint of slowdown when
racking up browser tabs and running
multiple applications, and booting
up is almost instant. The CXI3’s
power is shown quitestarkly in
its Geekbench 4benchmark
results: 4,286 in the single-core
test and 11,106 in the multicore
test. Compared to the Celeron
3865U-powered Asus
Chromebox 3(Shopper368) we
tested last year,the CXI3 is
almost twice as fast on
single-core performance and
scored more than five times
higher in the multicore test.
Even though the Chromebox 3
is half the price,the numbers
still favour Acer’s device.
SMALL FAVOURS
The CXI3 also averaged 58fps in
the GFXBench Manhattan 3
offscreen test, which is again
about double what the
Chromebox 3managed. It’s still
relying on integrated graphics
–Intel UHD Graphics 620 –but
since you can only install
mobile-focused games
from the Playstore,this
will be enough to run just
about anything that’s
actually compatible.
We love the design, too.
It’s truly tiny at just
149x40x151mm, and is
ACER ChromeboxCXI3
★★★★★
£502•From shop.bt.com
VERDICT
Small,speedyandsurprisinglywellconnected,
thisisthebest-realisedChromeboxyet
CHROME OS MINI PC
flexible in how it
sits: you can have
it laid down flat,
stood upright with
the included stand
or even VESA-
mounted to the
back of amonitor
with the (again,
included) mounting
plateand screws.
Being so dinky
hasn’t harmed
connectivity,either.
Atotal of five
full-size USB3 ports (two at
the front, three at the rear) are
augmented by aUSB Type-C port, which can
output video if required. Alternatively,there’s
also an HDMI output on the back, along with
aGigabit Ethernet jack and Kensington lock
slot. Lastly,the front panel adds a
microSD card and combined
microphone/headset 3.5mm jack.
This is agreat mix forsuch a
diminutive PC, and although the
Asus Chromebox 3offers largely
identical connectivity,the CXI3
bests it by exclusively using
USB3 ports, rather than a
combination of USB3 and slower
USB2 ports, as the Chromebook
3does. Wireless capability hasn’t
been overlooked, either: both
802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2
are present and correct.
OUT OF SHAPE
If you want to save some cash,
you can fill two of those USB3
ports with the bundled mouse
and keyboard, but we wouldn’t
recommend it. The only
unappealing aspect of the CXI3
is the accompanying horrible,
plasticky, ergonomic-unfriendly
peripherals. The keyboard is
particularly poorly made.It
flexes to the point where not
all the rubber feet are in
contact with the desk,
causing it to slip around in
use.The fix, forwant of a
better word, is simply to
bend it back the other way.
It also has the
quintessential Chromebox
quirk of replacing
the Caps Lock key
with asearch key
–all the more reason
to replace it, unless
you’re happyto
relearn touch typing.
We plugged in a
random USB
Windows-layout
keyboard and it
worked fine,Caps
Lock and all.
Chrome OS itself is
fine.The usual caveats
about it lacking
Windows’ extreme
breadth of supported software apply,but a
combination of the Chrome browser and
Google Docs will suffice formany,and the
Playstore has ported versions of familiar
apps such as Word as well. On the Asus
Chromebox 3, we ran intoissues with Chrome
OS’s snap-to-edge feature,whereby(as in
Windows 10) you can drag an application to
one side of the screen to have it automatically
fill that half.Windowed apps would snap to
one side but not fill the whole space,but
luckily there are no similar issues here.
The dual-app view works nicely,successfully
improving the OS’s potential formultitasking.
GO BIG OR GO CHROME
The only other potential point of concern
would be storage,but 64GB is only low by PC
standards. Make proper use of cloud-based
apps, as intended, and it’s much easier to live
with than the 32GB offered on cheaper
Chromeboxes. Youcan always add more
capacity through the microSD slot, anyway.
In fact, the CXI3 represents by farthe
most comfortable Chromebox experience
we can recall having. It’s both compact and
well specified, attractively simple but able
to handle heavier workloads if necessary.
Pair it with aless terrible mouse and
keyboard, and it’s asuperb little computer.
JamesArcher
SPECIFICATIONS
PROCESSORQuad-core1.6GHzIntelCorei5-8250U•RAM
8GBDDR4•FRONTUSBPORTS2xUSB3•REARUSB
PORTS3xUSB3,1xUSBType-C•GRAPHICSADAPTORIntel
UHDGraphics620•STORAGE64GBSSD•DISPLAYNone
- OPERATINGSYSTEMChromeOS•WARRANTYOneyear
RTB•DETAILSwww.acer.com•PARTCODEDT.Z0SEK.001
