Acer Chromebook 11 (CB311-8H-C5DV) - Review 2022

A few premium-price chromebooks let you do serious piece of work within Chrome Os—and brand you await sharp while doing it—but most chromebooks are plain, depression-cost churners for elementary tasks. The new Acer Chromebook eleven ($269.99) runs with the latter chromebook crowd, given its bargain toll, small characteristic set, and low ability ceiling. Information technology doesn't offer anything special, and it'due south on the pokier side, merely if you need to exercise little more than browse the web, sling words, and run some Google Play apps, it'south a safe, well-built buy. If you can spend a bit more, though, its 2-in-1 convertible stablemate, the Acer Chromebook Spin 11, is our Editors' Choice among student chromebooks, while the Asus Chromebook Flip C302CA is our overall height chromebook pick.

Chrome, With a Splash of Color

Like many an inexpensive chromebook, the Chromebook xi has a chassis fabricated of thick plastic with an uninspiring experience. That'south not necessarily a knock—for a laptop to cost this lilliputian, you simply can't wait a pricey alloy or metal. Despite the toll-conscious plastic, the laptop feels sturdy, not flimsy or prone to flex. The keyboard deck is brushed black plastic, but Acer spiced up the look with a lite blue hue on the chapeau and bottom. Not everyone will love that shade, but it adds some way and fun to an otherwise bones box. It'southward a perky footstep upwards from this model's predecessor, last yr'southward sober Acer Chromebook 11 N7.

The Chromebook 11 is prissy and compact, perfect for tossing in a bag and toting to class or onto a train. It measures 0.71 by 11.65 by 7.83 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.43 pounds. It won't have up much room in a purse, or be a burden hanging off your shoulder. Acer's Chromebook eleven Spin is slightly bigger (0.82 past xi.7 by 8.1 inches, 3.09 pounds), and the Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook and the CTL Chromebook J41 are also close in size. Dell'south Chromebook 3189 Education 2-in-1 is larger (by a pocket-sized margin) at 0.viii by 12 past 8.ii inches and 3.16 pounds.

All of that is to say: In terms of size and weight, these chromebooks of the aforementioned screen-size class (11.6 inches) are a toss-upwards if portability matters much. In contrast, if the Acer Chromebook 11 isn't quite trim enough for y'all, the Asus Chromebook Flip slims things down further, at just 0.53 inch thick. It costs actress, only the difference in thinness puts that Asus model in its ain class among this lot.

The Acer Chromebook xi'south keyboard is reasonable quality and responsive to type on. I don't have any complaints about the feel or the layout—and that'due south by no means a given, at this low of a cost. The touchpad, on the other paw, is not as solid. It works well enough and is generously wide, but it doesn't feel satisfying to click, and, at times, information technology skips when you swipe. You need to use a house finger.

The audio quality from the speakers is of the same flavour: serviceable, not impressive. The speakers will suffice for the occasional YouTube video short in a pinch without bumming you out, but I'd suggest keeping your favorite headphones on hand for listening to music or watching anything long-course.

The brandish is an 11.6-inch IPS panel, bearing a native resolution of merely 1,366 by 768 pixels. With most laptops in the year 2022, you wouldn't want to go any lower than 1080p (1,920 by 1,080 pixels) for native resolution, but nosotros're dealing with a very low-cost organization here, and a minor screen. A 720p native panel is fine for the screen size and for the toll, even if it volition far from stun y'all. The picture quality is decent, though it doesn't get particularly bright even at the maximum brightness setting.

Also, know that while 720p is non the norm among budget laptops as a course anymore, information technology is nonetheless quite common among small-screen chromebooks like this one. Indeed, Acer'due south own Chromebook Spin 11, as well equally the Dell Chromebook 3189 Education 2-in-1, the CTL Chromebook J41 mentioned above, and the Lenovo Flex eleven Chromebook all tout the same native resolution (some of them at higher prices, in fact). No impact-screen technology is available for the Acer Chromebook 11's screen at this time, though Acer says it plans to add bear on input equally an option in the futurity.

Acer has yous covered on the connectivity forepart equally well as you can await from an nether-$300 chromebook, factoring in 2 USB iii.0 ports and two USB Type-C ports. The latter kind are often seen simply on more expensive systems, so it's nice to be able to connect whatever USB Type-C peripherals that yous may own to a budget machine like this.

You also get a microSD bill of fare reader (it supports cards up to 128GB) and a headphone jack. The card slot is a must, since the system includes merely 32GB of flash storage inside, typical amid chromebooks. Because chromebooks rely largely on web-based apps, a heap of internal storage isn't necessary under nearly circumstances, simply you lot all the same may have documents and media files to transfer or store.

A 720p webcam in the upper screen bezel delivers decent quality for video calls. The Chromebook xi likewise offers back up for Bluetooth iv.2 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi wireless connectivity, and the whole works is supported past a 1-yr Acer warranty.

Mobile Celeron, Pedestrian Speed

The Acer Chromebook 11 is built around a 1.1GHz Intel Celeron N3350 ("Apollo Lake") processor and 4GB of memory. The CPU provides for the bones graphics acceleration, via the fleck-integrated Intel Hard disk drive Graphics 520. With the exception of a handful of expensive chromebooks, systems of this class are generally low-horsepower performers, but even because that, this Celeron is on the lower end. While the CTL Chromebook J41 mentioned before matches these specs, just a little more money can bump you up into quad-core CPU territory.

Performance may not be very important to you in an impulse-buy laptop similar this ane, merely take my word for it: Having a slightly hopped-up processor, versus this Celeron, does make a perceptible difference in a chromebook of this class. For starters, on the Acer Chromebook 11, the fourth dimension to boot upwards (from pressing the power button to landing on the sign-in screen) was a sluggish 15 seconds. Some of the competition boots in half that time.

That particular measure may not make or pause a chromebook for you lot, but it's an indicator of overall speed. We ran a few non-Windows benchmarks—the browser-based JetStream 1.1 and WebXPRT 2022 tests, as well equally the Chrome Os-specific CrXPRT suite—and the Acer Chromebook eleven turned upwardly middling scores across the board. (The latter two tests are products of Principled Technologies.)

The earlier-gen Celerons in models similar the education-focused Dell Chromebook 3189 2-in-1 show a decided footstep down in functioning, just older machines based on Intel's at present-deprecated Cadre Thousand chips outpace the Celeron in the Chromebook 11.

The Chromebook 11 is one of today'southward cheaper chromebook options, though, so that should be kept in mind, as speed is not the primary focus in a chromebook at this price. In my anecdotal puttering with the machine, running a Google Play app or ii was fine—your Netflix binging, largely dependent on your web connection, isn't going to lag—but loading upwards a handful of browser tabs took its toll. If y'all're trying to do many things at once (open lots of tabs, stream video, and run another app or two on the side), the Acer Chromebook 11 isn't going to breeze through it, just it's not going to go unusable, either.

Battery life was a sunny spot, thanks in part to the low-resolution screen and the power-sipping Celeron CPU. (A laptop's display is the biggest ability bleed, and pushing relatively few pixels, like on the Acer Chromebook 11, ways less free energy consumption, all else beingness equal.) The Acer model lasted a respectable nine hours and 13 minutes on our video-playback battery-rundown test. That's a solid result on its own, though it's worth noting that most of the models charted higher up, and some other competing models non charted here, lasted longer. Examples of the latter include the Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook (12:13), the CTL Chromebook J41 (13:05), and the Acer Chromebook Spin 11 (12:48).

It's hard to say whether a couple of hours of battery life in either direction will make or break a given chromebook for you. Merely if maximizing life off the charger is essential to you lot, opt for one of the longer-lasting alternatives cited here.

Not a Stunner, But a Coin Saver

Given its price, the Acer Chromebook eleven doesn't take hardware muscle to wow you. Its primary strength is in offering decent value for the coin.

This budget-minded chromebook is congenital well enough, because its all-plastic orientation, and it offers a reasonable feature ready compared to similarly priced chromebooks. Information technology is on the slower side, though, and you lot tin go a snappier chromebook if you can fork over most $100 more than. (If you can afford the $399 Acer Chromebook Spin eleven, yous'll enjoy more functionality and performance.) If $250 to $300 is your ceiling, however, you'll find the Acer Chromebook 11 perfectly satisfactory, able to do the simple jobs that it's fair to throw its way.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/laptops/28263/acer-chromebook-11-cb311-8h-c5dv

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