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.
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damianrobertjones - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
Maybe admins need to log their family in as a local account.Either way, in my opinion, there's only a 5% reasonable point in having a chromebook even if it can do 95% of what a WIndows machine can do (Which I do not believe).
HotBBQ - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
You seem to be missing the entire point of a Chromebook. They are low cost alternatives to full fledged laptops or tablets. I bought a refurb one for myself and use it all the time to watch Netflix, Hangouts, emails, remote desktop, browse the web, and other tasks. Sure, I could use a tablet or my phone for these things, but this format works much better for me. I liked it so much I bought one for my parents who would sit in a cramped room with an ancient Vista desktop to do Hangouts with our kids. They LOVE the Chromebook because it is dead simple.Alexvrb - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link
But you can get full fledged laptops and tablets for the same price. So I think you're the one missing the point. The point is that they're good for someone to check email on and they're locked down tight so they're hard to screw up. Of course, that pretty much applies to modern Windows devices too now. The downside is that Win8 requires tweaking for more advanced users to be happy. Win10 looks to be pretty decent out of the box though. Unless you're just a diehard "I hate it just because also apps should die except on Android for some reason" kind of guy.talonz - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
Have you used a chromebook? You can't get a full fledged laptop with the same speed, battery life, and portability for double the price of a chromebook.Alexvrb - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
What does that have to do with cost? He said they're "low cost alternatives to full fledged laptops or tablets". He didn't say "well they have this or that feature!". But let's discuss these things anyway. Have you used a HP Stream 11? Compare that to the HP Chromebook 11. Same manufacturer, and largely similar hardware.Performance: Similar CPUs... but the Stream 11's N2840 has a higher turbo (200Mhz) than the N2830 in the Chromebook 11. Similar situation for graphics turbo. Both have 2GB of RAM, although Windows has excellent virtual memory support in case you really load up lots of tabs (ask the Anandtech authors, has been discussed before). ChromeOS uses less space so 16GB might not be the end of the world, but Stream has 32GB - not to mention recent Win 8.1 deployments have crunched down the footprint which means more space available on the Stream. Whoops.
Battery life? HP rates their Stream 11 at 8 hours 15 minutes on a 37Wh battery, and rates their Chromebook 11 at 8 hours on a 36Wh battery. Portability? The Stream 11 is the same size, only a hair thinner, and a hair lighter. Display? Same display. Whoops.
So clearly the Chromebook is cheaper? Nope. $199 for the Stream 11, $279 for the Chromebook 11. Whoops!
Alexey291 - Sunday, February 1, 2015 - link
And then we face reality. Have you actually tried using that "lower footprint" win8.1 on a n2840? I have. I'd rather never do that again. Because the footprint is so low that the system just freezes for seconds at a time. Windows performance tax has only increased with the years.Win8.1 install takes up 25 - 27 gb of roughly 30gb (post ntfs format) space. Enjoy your 3 - 4 gb of usable space. And yeah that v-mem is going to take the remaining 2/3 of that space. gg
Oh you will now say "get rid of the bloat". No no mate that's not how a pc for a grandmother works. You get what u paid for and you suffer with it.
And then u still have to have an AV suite, a firewall and a malware scanner running in the background. Cos you know. Windows.
azazel1024 - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link
Me thinks you are doing it wrong. That or maybe/possibly you have a large restore partition there. Including page file and hibernation file, a 32GB Windows 8.1 install, including all updates and the big update 1 (once cleaned up) should leave approximately 11GiB of free space with 32GB (~29 odd GiB) of storage. That isn't a ton of space, but should be plenty to install a fair number of windows store apps. Then load on an SD card or something for media and desktop applications.I'd still say the minimum for a "real" machine should be 60/64GB, if not double, but you can do it with 32GB without being a serious issues (heck, my laptop currently has a 32GB mSATA drive as its boot drive and it has 9.8GiB free with fully up-to-date Windows 8.1 on it and a few programs installed, though most stuff is on the 120GB 2.5" SSD in the drive bay).
stefstef - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
i agree. with the new low power, low cost Atom machines with Windows and the pricepoint at around 300 (even cheaper for tablets), the Chrome os hardly makes sense any more.syxbit - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
You're still missing the point. It's not just the price. It's the simplicity. My wife used to constantly get viruses, crash things, have to do data backups etc..Now she has a chromebook, and it just works.
jabber - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
And that is what a great deal of the computing public out there want. As much as we enthusiasts love out Windows machines, most really don't care and just want to get on with their day without being stopped by Trovi/Ask Toolbars and constant updates getting in the way. Unless Microsoft really knuckle under and make Windows 10 onwards far more idiot and bullet proof they really may as well give up in the domestic/home market.