I found myself in the market for a new Chromebook last week. Truth be told it wasn't for me, it was for my 14-year-old daughter Ella. She had been working off a decade-old 15'' Macbook Pro I had handed down to her. The MBP was a great machine but has begun to fail and with the new school year already started it was time for a replacement.
My studio, except one 8-year-old Acer Windows 10 laptop, is completely Mac. Chromebooks aren't completely foreign to me, I have worked on Chromebooks in schools for the past couple of years and I am a big fan of Neverware's CloudReady ChromeOS. The school board I worked for had education licenses of this software. We used those licenses to convert some older Windows laptops like Lenovo's 140e model. The ChromeOS was lightweight and allowed old laptop hardware that was struggling to keep up with the Windows OS to become speedy and useful again. I talked to Ella and she just needed to be able to do homework using GSuite, access Google Classroom, do research, watch YouTube and back her phone up to her iCloud account.
Acer Chromebook 11
Given her criteria and my budget, the ChromeOS was the obvious choice. I decided on an entry-level Chromebook because her needs were simple and at some point, I would hand down an older Macbook Air to her. Enter Acer's CB3-132-12LR Chromebook, X5-E8000 or Chromebook 11. You can pick this unit up at your friendly neighbourhood Costco for about $250 CDN. It doesn't get more entry-level then $250 for a laptop.
Specifications
I settled on this Chromebook because of its price point, some good reviews, 4gb of RAM, 64GB storage and its SD port. The SD card slot meant for about $25 I could add a 128GB SD card to give her some extra storage if she wanted to back up her phone locally. The nice thing about the SD port is that it allows the card to be completely inserted. If she wanted to leave the SD card in she wouldn't have to worry about it getting snagged or broken when she throws the laptop in a bag to take with her. The other thing that I learned well researching this laptop was that the screen produced a decent image for a cheap laptop. I wasn't disappointed. Even in natural light, the image is fairly bright and of better quality then I would have thought for this class laptop. Here is a list of the complete specifications:
- Processor & Memory
- Intel X5-E8000 processor
- 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM
- Drives
- 64 GB eMMC
- SD Card Reader
- Display & Video Graphics
- 11.6 inch HD IPS display (1366 x 768)
- Intel HD Graphics
- Communications
- Wireless 802.11 ac/b/g/n
- Bluetooth 4.0
- HDR Webcam
- Ports
- USB 3.0 (1 port)
- USB 2.0 (1 port)
- HDMI (1 port)
- 3.5mm Headphone Jack
- Operating System
- ChromeOS
- Dimensions
- 11.6" (29.4cm) Wide X 8" (20.4cm) Deep X 0.7" (1.9cm) High
- Weight: 2.4lb (1.1 kg)
The Bottom Line
We have only had this Chromebook for about 5 days, so we haven't put it through too much yet. There are several things I like about this unit including the Screen, SD port and the amount of RAM it comes with. It is speedy to boot up and doesn't seem to have any noticeable lag when streaming video. On the flip side, some things aren't as great. The sound quality is a bit cheap and hollow when playing through the onboard speakers. The screen is not a touch screen. The mousepad feels a bit cheap and clunky when clicking. The last thing to mention is this Chromebook has plastic shrouds, except for the top (backside of the screen) is made of thin metal. Coming from the Mac world the plastic feels a bit cheap and I worry about how easily this unit can be damaged if it is banged around. Only time will tell. Oh, I should mention that the battery is rated to last up to 10 hours. We have tested that yet, but so far battery life seems decent.
Pros
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Cons
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Overall, I think this is a great entry-level Chromebook for students K-12. University students may want something a bit more robust than this entry-level Chromebook.
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Disclaimer: All the opinions are my own and are not the views of any suppliers or manufacturers.