The Dell Chromebook 11 Touch Review
by Brandon Chester on May 7, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Chrome OS
- Chromebook
Battery Life
Battery life on Chromebooks is typically very good, as they don't have much going on in the background. I would like to add some WebGL and video playback to our web browsing test in the future, but I still think it's a good representation of the amount of page loading that users do on their Chromebooks. The Dell Chromebook 11 has a 43Wh battery, which is as large as some Chromebooks with 13" displays. One would hope that this results in a substantial battery life, and indeed it does as you can see below.
The Dell Chromebook 11 achieves the highest score on record in our web browsing battery test. At 13.13 hours it pulls ahead of the Chromebook Pixel which I had previously praised for its stellar battery life. A more relevant comparison at this price point is Toshiba's Chromebook 2, which trails the Dell Chromebook 11 by over six hours in this test. The display in the Dell with its lower resolution and smaller gamut definitely plays no small part in this, but for someone concerned primarily with battery life the Dell Chromebook 11 looks like the Chromebook to buy.
While tablets and smartphones tend to achieve longer battery life in our video playback test than our web test, the situation is reversed for Chromebooks. Given that many Chromebooks take advantage of dynamic backlighting and contrast like tablets do, I suspect that the issue comes down to software optimizations. Even so, at 8.03 hours the Dell Chromebook 11's battery life during video playback is still pretty good, and again is ahead of the Toshiba Chromebook 2.
Charge Time
Long charge times have never been much of an issue for laptops, as they've never been limited by many standards for how high the wattage on their chargers can be. Unfortunately the charge time test is another test that I've introduced for our Chromebook reviews, and so the Chromebook Pixel ends up being the only other Chromebook data point. The rest of the results in our chart are for Windows laptops. However, the time to charge for a device is really independent of the operating system, and I'll be adding more Chromebooks to this chart as time goes on.
Dell includes a 65W AC adapter to charge the Chromebook 11's battery, and to charge from a completely empty state to 100% takes around 2.3 hours. It's not as fast as the Chromebook Pixel's charge time, but it's slightly quicker than most of the Windows laptops on the chart.
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Refuge - Monday, May 11, 2015 - link
I just can't take you seriously...Lord of the Bored - Friday, May 8, 2015 - link
A. Yes, Chromebooks can have a more conventional version of Lunix installed on them.B. The high cost for the amount of computer you're getting is because this one's "ruggedized." If you want the most bang for your buck, you don't get an armored computer. But if you want a computer that will take a licking and keep on ticking, you pay the premium.
nandnandnand - Thursday, May 7, 2015 - link
Is that the "Professor" on screen?webdoctors - Thursday, May 7, 2015 - link
This key paragraph should be in bold and giant font:I'm honestly very disappointed with the Dell Chromebook 11's display. I had thought the industry had moved past TN displays, with even the $99 HP Stream 7 sporting an IPS panel. With poor viewing angles, a low resolution of 1366x768, and poor color reproduction, the display on the Dell Chromebook 11 really has no redeeming values. It's especially disappointing when compared to the equivalently priced Toshiba Chromebook 2 which does very well in all of our tests and has a much higher resolution of 1920x1080 on a slightly larger 13.3" panel.
I have the Toshiba Chromebook, and the light weight and amazing screen really make it standout.
SM123456 - Thursday, May 7, 2015 - link
The $99 HP Stream 7 has a 7" screen limited RAM and a much slower processor though, plus if you want, there are Chromebooks with 1080P IPS screens if you want. The 720p 1366x768 screen isn't particularly noticeable, but the TN display with its narrow viewing angles and washed out display is. Still, a lot of people are OK with that and prefer not to pay for a better screen. Sill I guess it is each to his/her own.sorten - Thursday, May 7, 2015 - link
A web browsing machine with an 11" screen with 13x7 resolution. So ... what distinguishes this from the netbook of years past?jabber - Friday, May 8, 2015 - link
Well netbooks had a smaller 1024x600 res screen so there is that.Plus netbooks were really slow.
timgonzales - Friday, May 8, 2015 - link
I had the non-touch, 2GB version of this Chromebook from Amazon for $189.99 (before tax) and had to return it because the display was god awful. My sister-in-law recently bought an HP Stream 11 and, surprisingly, it has a significantly better screen in comparison.zodiacfml - Friday, May 8, 2015 - link
This is just perfect for schools which explains most of the design.You don't know how invaluable the Wi-Fi AC is in a dense classroom. Dual stream adds icing on the cake. 30 of the same device in a classroom should not be a problem for a single Wi-Fi AC router or access point.
The display is pathetic though. This should drop in price around $200 - $250 where you could find Windows 8.1 laptops without the AC standard.
jabber - Friday, May 8, 2015 - link
1366x768 is actually fine on a 11" screen. Anything larger and it's unacceptable.However, if using that res at 11" there is no reason not to spend another $5 on a calibrated IPS spec panel to at least make it look better.
However, I would accept a 1440/1600x900 as a budget 11" option.