I've been a Chromebook user for 7 years. My old one hit its end of life, so I ordered this model a couple of months ago and have been using it daily.
Highlights:
- Excellent battery life. The best battery life I've personally experienced on a laptop. Can go a couple of days on a charge.
- It runs cool. No fans, so no fan noise.
- Nice big smooth Gorilla Glass track pad. Very nice. Premium feel.
- Aluminum top cover with chamfered edges. The rest of the body is plastic but solidly built.
- 8-Core ARM CPU with a 26K Octane Score, almost twice as fast as my previous Chromebook which already was sufficiently fast.
- 8GB Memory. Many other Chromebooks in this range have 4GB.
- The device will receive Chrome updates until June 2029. 7 years. Nice.
- Wi-Fi 6 wireless
- 2 USB-C ports, 1 USB 3.0 port.
- USB-C Charging
- Thin. Under 3 pounds
- Very good keyboard feel. Backlit keys.
Other features:
- The screen is Full HD, IPS. Nice, but could be brighter. No problem at all for indoor use. Not really bright enough for outdoor (I tested it,) although the matte screen is helpful there.
- Headphone jack is there if you need one.
- The Chromebook comes with basic travel sleeve. Nice perk.
- The 720p Webcam is nothing spectacular but will get you through meetings
- Storage is a 64GB eMMC, not an SSD, but it seems fast and I have no issue with it.
Not necessarily negatives but worth mentioning:
- No HDMI slot. I don't really need HDMI anymore because Chromebooks can wirelessly cast the screen to my Chromecast. Or it can cast YouTube to my Roku. Beyond that there's always a USB-C to HDMI cable I could purchase if needed.
- No SD card slot. Would be nice to expand storage if needed in the future, but I suppose a USB flash drive could be used instead.
Could be better:
- Speakers - I guess I was spoiled by my Toshiba Chromebook 2 with fairly robust laptop speakers, because these Acer speakers, while up-firing, lack any bass and with music can be tinny sounding at times. They do have good stereo separation though. For voice, they're good and clear. But for music I will be bluetoothing to my external speaker or wireless headphones most of the time.
Summary:
Overall an excellent mid-range Chromebook! Highly recommended.
Update - November 2022: As I see other reviews have noted, occasionally the laptop will not connect to wi-fi when you first turn it on. Rebooting it resolves the problem and luckily Chromebooks reboot very quickly. (The issue does not occur when waking the laptop from sleep.)
Update - March 2023: The wi-fi connection issue has not occurred in a month or so, so it seems like they fixed it with a software update!
| Standing screen display size | 14 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Processor | 2.6 GHz mediatek_mt8127 |
| RAM | 8 GB LPDDR4X |
| Memory Speed | 2.6 GHz |
| Hard Drive | 64 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | ARM Mali G57 |
| Chipset Brand | MediaTek |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 8 GB |
| Wireless Type | Bluetooth, 802.11ax |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 3 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 15 Hours |
