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Acer Chromebook R 13 Review

Acer Chromebook has kept launching Chromebooks over last couple of years and so this year too it has come up with the latest Chromebook R 13. Earlier Chromebooks had hardly any difference in terms of design and performance, this year the scenario has changed. This year model is very much different from the past. You can feel the change the moment you start using it. The stylish look and decent specifications will captivate you. The price is $339 which is not cheap, but justified considering the build material, design, and performance. It allows for multiple modes which is not different from the Lenovo’s Ypga Book. Let’s see what Acer Chromebook 13 has to offer to you.

The device has better support for Android apps with 13.3 inch screen and a 180 degree tablet experience.

 

Hardware

This is a beautiful laptop with a solid Aluminium and a full-180 degree reversible hinge which gives sufficient room which gives more a feeling of MacBook Air. You may think Apple and Sony for great design, but Chromebook R 13 is very much close to them.

R13 has great features such as a full-sized USB 3 port and a USB-C 3.1 port. The latter can be used as the charging port for the laptop itself as well as the other things and also offers high-speed data transfer. HDMI port and SD card slot ensure adequate connectivity in the device. Here are the full specifications from Acer.

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The 13.3 inch touchscreen display is good and 1080 p panel is adequately bright, color contrast is also up to the mark. The resolution should have been bit higher at this size, but it’s not that bad. Company has focused more on the performance than display. Glossy finish on the touchscreen has never been a good idea and Acer R 13 Chromecast is no exception.

The webcam is as good or better than any other laptop and the quality of onboard speakers and headphones are also satisfactory.

Experience

Chrome OS perfectly syncs with accounts data, making it a perfect experience for the users. The system supports Google Play and Android apps, though Android on Chromebooks is a slow and methodical rollout. However, the OS must support Android requirements such as location, orientation sensors and other things.

Chrome would run perfectly on R13. The device has newer ARM chips that bring in the power that the previous ARM CPU powered Chromebooks lacked. Quality of 1080p video quality is only affected by the stream itself, with no role of CPU.

Presence of MediaTek CPU translates into excellent battery life and great performance. The CPU won’t throttle under a heavy load. The processor architecture handles Chrome well. The same experience can be expected from the ASUS Chromebook Flip. USB 3.0 port was being able to use an SD card adapter and not have slow file transfers.

When at work, you will learn to fully appreciate the full-sized HDMI port and USB 3.0 port. You can plug it into a 1080p monitor with zero configurations. Logitech Unifying Receiver can be used with a wireless mouse and keyboard. A Bluetooth mouse too will get connected without issue. There is also the option of getting  affected with the desktop peripherals. Thanks to USB 3.0 port, you are able to use an SD card adapter and not suffer by slow file transfers.

The good thing about it is that you can use it with adapter having a USB 3.0 port with an SD card adapter without affecting the file transfer process.

Apps

Though chromebooks sold well, but companies are still keen on supporting other platforms. Building Chrome is also fairly easy. Adding Android apps support have changed this all. It is a major application platform and a lot of companies make it and they support all features.

Design

It has a good design in this price range and it is a 360-degree convertible device. You can use the hinge for all customery modes such as laptop, stand, tent, and tablet. The problem is that the hinge is little wobbly. A 13? 16:9 display makes it a weird tablet mode. iPad Pro has almost the same diagnol size , but it is more in dimension.

Keyboard

Building high quality keyboards has always been the advantage of Acer and this laptop is not an exception. This one performs great and you can do work while travelling and you will find it pretty comfortable.

Key features

Here are its key features:

  • MediaTek MT8173C Core Pilot Quad-Core ARM Processor
  • 3? Full HD Widescreen LED-backlit Display
  • Multi-touch screen
  • 4GB LPDDR3 Memory
  • 32GB Internal Storage
  • Up to 12-hours Battery Life

Summing up

Acer is a good quality 13-inch Chromebook having excellent support for Android. This serves all purposes and you would find no issue working in day to day use. The model and version is stable. A verified purchaser on Amazon writes: Very nice Chromebook for the money. I had reservations about the MediaTek processor before buying it, but it is much speedier than the Celeron N2830 in my Acer CB3-111.

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