Android Magazine UK - Issue No. 49

Review

Unlessyouneedalotof

memory, the Acer is speedy

andhasagreatscreenand

long battery life

»Verdict

Value for money

You get an awful lot of quality for not much

money with the Acer

Features

Notmuchtosayhere.Decentcameraand

thestandardportsbutlittleelse

Design

Looks good when closed and keyboard is

well laid out but feels a little bit cheap

Performance

Struggleswithmemory-sappingtasks,but

day-to-day games and loading times are

really very good

PriceFrom £219/$249

»More informationwww.acer.co.uk

»Supplied byAcer

information

Acer Chromebook 13

Synced apps

Android phones running Lollipop are able

to sync up with the Chromebook.

Notifications and apps that are running

on your phone are instantly loaded onto

your Chromebook, so you don’t have to

keep checking your phone when

you’re using it

Auto-Bluetooth

The Chromebook is Bluetooth enabled

automatically so you can easily transfer

filesandphotosfromyoursmartphoneor

tablettothelaptop,evenifyouareinan

area without wifi. However, it can be

disabled with one click

N/A

better than worse than

Acer Chromebook

N/A

Great viewing

Watching movies. The 1920 x 1080 HD screen

delivers superb clarity when watching films.

Speedy boot
TheChromebookisrapidwhenbootingup,
taking20secondsfromopeningtodesktop.

Enjoying peace

The Chromebook runs pretty much silently,

making it perfect for watching TV and movies.

Play programs where everything is contained in a
small, pop up menu in the bottom-left corner. That
makes for a clean desktop and a menu set-up that
is a lot more user friendly than Windows 8. Beyond
the shortcuts to Google applications there are not
a lot of programs installed, which does make sense
as bloatware would seriously eat into the
Chromebook’s limited memory.
Its built-in webcam is capable of taking 1280x720
resolution photos. The image it produces is a bit
pixelated, but on the whole it’s a good camera and
would defi nitely suffi ce for Facebook pictures.
There is also a wide range of fi lters if you want to
play around and edit your pictures. The
Chromebook is nice and fast, with a quick boot-up
time and loads webpages, fi les and emails in a
matter of seconds – another bonus due to the lack
of bloatware. One of its big selling points is its
long-life battery. It is claimed that it lasts 11 hours
and although our tests showed it to be a couple of
hours less than that, it’s still very impressive.
Around the edges you’ve got two USB ports, a HDMI
port, headphone jack and AC adaptor point, all

spaced out around the back and the rear of the

machine’s sides, so from the front it looks very

clean and smooth. The keyboard keys are nicely

spaced out, so there is little chance of you

accidentally mistyping and they are very responsive.

The touchpad is nice to use too as it’s a good size

and reacts instantly to scrolling and clicking.

Overall there is little to criticise in the Acer

Chromebook 13. It looks good, its fast and the

screen is sharp. We would like the screen’s colour

to be a little brighter and the camera could be a bit

sharper, but generally it’s a very good machine.

Obviously the issue with all Chromebooks is their

memory capacity and limited processors, but

unless you are trying to perform a lot of memory

heavy tasks or play involving games, you should be

fi ne with the Acer. Streaming videos, playing simple

games and creating documents will all be easily

achieved by the Acer’s brand new processor, which

is impressively fast. Its specs might not quite stand

up to the likes of the Toshiba Chromebook or the

Samsung Chromebook 2, but for the price this is

defi nitely worth considering over its competitors.

»^ Operating system ............... Chrome OS

»^ Processor ...................................^ 2.1Ghz quad-core

NVIDIA Tegra K1

»^ Memory .......................................2GB

»^ Dimensions ..............................327 x 227.5 x 18mm

»^ Weight ..........................................1.5kg

»^ Display size ...............................13.3 inch

»^ Display resolution ...............1366x768 pixels

»^ Connectivity ............................ Wi-Fi, Bluetooth

»^ Expansion slot .......................SD card

technical specs

Battery life

3220mAH battery

provides 11.5 hours

use in energy saving

mode. Closer to 10

in standard mode