Acer Chromebook 13: 1080p with Tegra K1
by Jarred Walton on January 23, 2015 10:00 AM ESTClosing Thoughts
Chromebooks are always a bit of an interesting topic for me. On the one hand, I really like some of what they offer as a glorified web browser, email checker, etc. On the other, I’ve got a smartphone – not to mention tablets – that can do all of that nearly as well. What you don’t get with a smartphone or a tablet however is the experience of a real laptop. That turns the Chromebook into a sort of modern typewriter with extras, and while the starting price of $199 to $249 (depending on the Chromebook in question) might seem a bit too high for some, for others this is a great alternative to a tablet.
As far as Acer’s Chromebook 13 goes, let’s start with the 13.3-inch display. This Chromebook is a bit larger than others, but while it might not be ideal for a student looking to put something into their backpack, it’s going to be easier for people whose vision isn't so great (like me, or perhaps more importantly, my parents) to read. The 1080p display in the Acer is a disappointment in terms of overall LCD quality, but it does result in more screen real estate, which is important now that Chrome OS supports windowing of apps. It’s also something you can set on your lap or in an airplane or on a desk and you don’t have to try and hold the screen the whole time, an area where for me tablets and smartphones fall short.
What really pushes the Chromebook 13 up the list in terms of something that I can recommend is the typing experience. So far, it’s the best of the bunch for Chromebooks that I’ve handled (and I’ve managed to at least poke at most of them now), so as a typewriter it definitely works for me. The overall aesthetic is also a plus, and I really like having a fanless laptop with no moving parts other than the keys on the keyboard and the hinges – less stuff to break. Even under full load (as much as you can load a Chromebook), the CB13 never gets more than slightly warm to the touch in my experience. Battery life is also near the top as far as Chromebooks go, with Internet surfing breaking the 10 hour mark. Turn off WiFi and just start typing and you’re likely to get closer to 11-12 hours. Even video playback clocks in at a rather impressive eight hours.
In terms of complaints, I really only have a few. First is that the 1080p display should have been a lot better than this, but at $249 the price has now dropped to the point where it’s not as big of a problem. The other complaint is that performance just isn’t really there if you do anything moderately taxing in terms of surfing the web. 1080p YouTube content works fine, but some of the complex websites can still be slower to load than I’d like. As noted in the performance section, the older Acer C720 with its Celeron 2955U ends up being substantially faster in pretty much every meaningful test I could come up with, outside of a few graphics specific workloads.
NVIDIA for their part has pushed Tegra K1 as the most powerful graphics solution in an SoC, and that’s mostly true – at least back when TK1 first launched in the first half of 2014. The problem is that using TK1 in a Chromebook opens it up for comparison to a lot more than ARM SoCs, and Chrome seems to hit the CPU a lot harder than Android in normal use. We end up seeing once more that while it may not be the lowest power option, Intel’s Core architecture is very difficult to beat once we’re looking at laptops. That same comparison incidentally also applies to Bay Trail, though the gap should be a little narrower. It’s why I think Acer’s next Chromebook, the CB15, is going to be the one to beat, but the 15.6” display is going to be a bit of a problem. Give me an updated Chromebook 13 with a fan to help cool a Broadwell-U processor and fix the display and I’d have basically the Chromebook I want.
Looking at the bigger picture, it’s impressive how much Chrome OS has improved since the first time I looked at a Chromebook a few years ago. With offline apps and real multitasking, all built around a secure platform running what is perhaps the world’s most popular browser, for those that don’t need to do anything really complex a Chromebook might be just what they’re after. I’d love to see more apps (and more importantly, better apps), though with a bit of work it’s possible to repackage and run some Android apps on Chrome OS now. There are also a ton of applications and other software available in the browser that will run on a Chromebook, but finding replacements for things like Microsoft Office or Photoshop is asking for too much in my book, at least for now.
Probably the most compelling argument for Chrome OS is if you’re tired of supporting certain family members or friends that constantly seem to download and run malicious software that trashes their PC; I don’t know that it’s “impossible” to get a virus on a Chromebook, but it would certainly be a lot less likely than on Windows. That’s perhaps a big part of what has helped make Chromebooks so popular in the education system, and I know our school district and many others are now using Chromebooks instead of Windows in the classroom. I can’t see many businesses switching to Chromebooks in the near future, but as the platform continues to evolve and the apps improve, that just might change.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
71 Comments
View All Comments
lefty2 - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Beware, Haswell and Broadwell Chromebooks are being subsidised by Intel, but the subsidy is only tempory. As soon as Intel corners the market the subsidy will disappear and they will be replaced with cheaper Bay Trail chips:http://techtainian.com/news/2014/6/1/intel-is-subs...
is a strategy by Intel to make
JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Intel subsidizes a lot of things by offering chips at discounted prices. You'll note that the article talks about Haswell Celeron chips being subsidized by Intel, and yet here we are with a Broadwell Chromebook six months after that article was written. And yes, a lot of Chromebooks in the meantime used Bay Trail.Celerons are used in other laptops besides Chromebooks, but where the limited RAM and other cut corners are a problem on Windows that's not generally the case with Chrome OS. Intel may have dropped the price of the Celeron chips $50 to get into things like the C720, but as I've just shown with the benchmarks, C720 at $249 (i.e. unsubsidized) would hardly be a bad option.
Long term, we'll have to see what's available and the pricing -- and we still don't have a clear idea how much the 1080p IPS Chromebook 15 from Acer will cost. But if they can get that out at $299, it's guaranteed to win a ton of awards. At $349, it ends up more like the Toshiba Chromebook 2: lovely display, but $349 for a Chromebook is getting to be a bit high in pricing.
errorr - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
of course what you suggest is illegal as well...
savagemike - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Doesn't Toshiba offer a 13 model with an IPS display? I think it only has a baytrail though.One great thing about ChromeOS you didn't mention was the upgrade paradigm/procedure. It takes literally 10 seconds or so to upgrade my Chromebook. Compared to the hours of my life I've spent tapping my fingers and waiting for Windows to cycle through installing updates it's a breath of very fresh air.
I would actually say a Chromebook does 100% of what 'most' people want. I think you'd only have to look at some simple numbers to see that 'most' Windows computer users aren't in fact running Photoshop or high end games or anything like that. And the Windows machines available at these same prices would not be a good choice for those activities at any rate.
Most computer users are surfing the web, doing some e-mail and facebook and that's about it.
I see a lot of comments about needing Windows to do 'real work'. This usually referring to MS Office I suppose. A lot of businesses run using Google Docs though. And I'm sure their work is just as 'real' to them. So I don't really get such notions. You can do plenty of 'real work' on a Chromebook, depending on what your work is. There certainly isn't anything stopping you from doing school work or running a business or writing the great American novel on one.
I'm interested to see what Google does with ChromeOS going forward. Frankly I think the answer lies in the massive uptake of containerization going on in the Linux community.
It would be very easy for Google to take advantage of the wide range of powerful Linux apps while still maintaining the high security and ease-of-use of Chromebooks if they implemented some type of Docker type container mechanism into the heart of it.
JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Yes, I mentioned the Toshiba CB2 with 1080p IPS a couple times. As for the "100% of what most people want"... no, I don't believe that at all. It's 100% of what some people do, sure, but even my non-techie wife ran into limitations pretty quickly when I had her use a Chromebook. Some of it was due to differences in how you use the laptop (where are my files kind of stuff), and she could live with the platform if necessary, but there are lots of small things that can get missed. Maybe it's 99% of what most people need, but that 1% can still be too much if it's an important item (e.g. a bank site that doesn't work properly with Chrome, though that's rare these days).savagemike - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Use certainly depends on ... well... use. But of the handful of friends and family I help out with computer stuff most only need to know anything about the file system ever to download and install applications. Typically a browser or virus program or flash plugin installer and the like. Most of that stuff goes away with ChromeOS. For the little that's left I don't find using the file system any worse than explaining how to use a traditional file system to them.But yes, certain people will have certain needs or uses which either wouldn't work or would require learning a new routine.
AmdInside - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
Agreed. When patch Tuesday is here and I see an update to .Net I cringe cause those are the slowest updates, even with Windows installed on an SSD.harrynsally - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I'm not digging Chromebook's power / functionality / utility.I just purchased a Dell laptop with 15.6" touch screen, Intel Haswell core i3, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, DVD, HDMI, USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0, 6 cell battery etc. for $299. For less than $100 replaced the HDD with a Samsung 250 GB 850 EVO SSD,
OK, it came with Win 8.1 OS. I've been using Windows since it first came out (e.g. 3.1, 95, XP, 7) and have yet to have a malware issue. I set it up to boot to desktop mode (e.g. have a Android tablet for touch apps) and find the Win 8.1 experience comparable to Win 7 and sometimes better. Additionally, MS just announced that they will provide a free upgrade to Win 10 (to users of Win 7 and 8.1).
I find the ability to easily choose/ add upgraded components, run applications and have productivity independent of the cloud, USB / HDMI connectivity and much higher performance for just a few $ more, a no brainer.
On a budget? My daughter just purchased a ASUS laptop with 15.6" screen, Intel 2.16GHz N2830, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, HDMI, USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 and Win 8.1 BING for $219.
JarredWalton - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I don't know when the last time is I actually got hit by malware/virus on one of my PCs. But I have friends and family I help who are not as savvy that get malware ALL. THE. TIME. It's crazy to me -- like a person will have a system for less than two weeks, and it has malware (that happened with my dad just this past month). I'd blame porn sites for some users, but that's not even the problem on some of these systems. It's looking for "free [anything]" and going to the wrong web sites, or searching for a web site in Bing instead of typing in the URL (that's what got my dad I'm pretty sure).I'd love to say the solution is user education, but that just doesn't work. Get yourself a bunch of friends or relatives with children 8+ years old who are allowed to use the PC on a daily basis and I guarantee some of them will get hit with malware within a month. I tend to fix at least 20 computers a year where the only problem is that they got hit by malware. Thankfully, most of them aren't as bad as Cryptowall, which wiped out my dad's desktop and is asking for a $2000 ransom. (And that was with Norton AV running.)
BackInAction - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
@JarredWalton: I hear you loud and clear! My father gets stuff on his machine within days after I clean it. I dread going home. I just can't protect him enough from his stupid habits. In his case, I think is 'gun' sites. And randomly clicking on anything that pop-ups up in his face.While my kids were young it wasn't much of a problem. Now that they are older it is crazy ("gee I can get free music, or the latest episodes of Teen Ware-wolf before it is on Netflix, from this site, all I have to do is download this .exe." Doh!). I had to remove their admin rights. It is a bit of pain now and then, but it was the only way I could keep sane.
That said, I have a Chromebook (13" Toshiba for $180 last fall) and they all fight for it. I don't care what they do on that thing. I can wipe and rebuild it in 15 min if needed.