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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timgonzales - Friday, May 8, 2015 - link
Agreed. I'd like to see a bump in res and IPS spec become the norm for Chromebooks. As is, the display on the Dell Chromebook 11 is just terrible. At least in the non-touch version anyways.lexluthermiester - Saturday, May 9, 2015 - link
If it were running Android, ok. But ChromeOS? Seriously? Pass...SunnyDog - Sunday, May 10, 2015 - link
I'm very happy with this "ruggedized" Dell Chromebook model for my specific use case, for the price (paid $190 on Amazon for the base model, no touch screen). It's more durable with better build quality than typical Chromebooks in its price range, which is exactly what I was looking for. It's getting lots of use as the go to device for guests and family members, as a safer alternative to trusting them with my MacBook Pro Retina or iPad devices which I'm more cautious with. I often have it close at hand for convenience.In addition, I even use it at client sites for a variety of stuff (or to type up invoices etc.) when I want a keyboard but don't want to lug around my larger heavier more expensive ThinkPad. It's just rugged enough (compared to other Chromebooks). It is not a $3,000 and up ToughBook-class ruggedized laptop (Panasonic or Dell etc.) but at $190 I don't worry about it getting damaged, lost or stolen on the job.
It's targeted at schools. But I find the slightly more rugged design also fits well with my occasional use cases at work and works well around home as a convenient Web connected laptop for friends and family, for the price, despite its specs not being tops in every way.
SunnyDog - Sunday, May 10, 2015 - link
So it fits what I was looking for with kind of a secondary but somewhat ruggedized device with good battery life. The trade off being the display which isn't great but I can tolerate for the way it's being used.val580 - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link
I think it would be good to post photos comparing displays because I don't understand shit about all these display tests , I think a photo can sometimes make a better point than colors accuracy diagrams etcaj654987 - Monday, May 25, 2015 - link
People also need to be aware that its more than just a TN display problem with these low end chromebooks/netbooks. These are the same low quality screens that have been around since the netbook days, the off angle viewing is terrible (even by TN Panel standards). I have a 5 year old TN panel on my destop and the viewing angle is way better than these machines.Bottom line, that is the sacrifice that is made to build a $200 netbook/laptop/chromebook today. If you cant live with it, or if you have the money, then it would be worth it to buy a more expensive machine or to buy a used machine with older tech but a better screen.