Acer Chromebook Spin 13 Review: Performance at a Premium By Chrome Unboxed

So, this is the Acer Chromebook spin 13, the business-ready corporate Chromebook from Acer for 2018 and the device checks a lot of boxes. It does a lot of stuff right and that's not to say it doesn't have its downsides, but it's a's. A great device overall spoiler alert right off the top, but we want to talk through all of those things because it commands a pretty high price, mainly because Acer has targeted this at the business sector, and so it's even hard to get hold of right now. You can usually find the i5 model, but there are multiple models, and eventually I think we'll start seeing these in consumer channels, and so we want to talk through all the good and the bad with this device, because eventually, if you're thinking about buying this, hopefully you'll have multiple choices to make and different configurations. And you can decide for yourself based on what we talked about here. What a good price is for this device, because I can tell you the MSRP s.

We're going to talk about here in a few minutes are a little high on this one, but it does do a lot of good stuff, and so we want to get into all of that and help you make a purchasing decision before we get into all the parts of this review. This video is brought to you by Word VPN and if you're online I'm, assuming since you're watching a video about a Chromebook, you probably get online a lot with either this device or your phone or an iPhone or an iPad or computer Word VPN has you covered in all ways on all devices they'll help you browse the web in privacy, and they have a 30-day money-back guarantee as well. So if you want to try them out head over to Chrome unbox com4 /, Word VPN and get started today, so let's talk about the build quality overall, all aluminum chambered edges. The thing looks really, really good. Does it look as good as say the pixel book and I? Don't think, so it doesn't look like a MacBook.

It looks like an Acer device, they're they're not cutting edge as far as aesthetics go, but overall the device looks good, and it would look great in any kind of corporate or business atmosphere, and so they've done a good job of kind of meeting the need of the consumer. Who's gonna use this device. I wouldn't say it's ugly, but it's not exactly a looker either it just kind of gets the job done. It feels good. It feels solid without weighing a ton and without feeling like a tank and as we'll talk about here in a minute, packed a huge screen into an overall package that feels nice and tight.

So let's talk about the display because it's a major selling factor on this device- it's bright it's three by two, so it's kind of got that taller aspect: ratio like the pixel book and overall, the colors just look perfect. It's its! It's just pleasing to work from, and it's really hard to explain that if you've not worked from a 3x2 display kind of like the pixel book or the pixel slate or the Microsoft Surface, or something like that, it just gives you a little of added screen real estate, so is thirteen and a half inches. Furthermore, it sounds like it would be any other 13-inch device. But at that aspect ratio it really feels like you're working on a 14 and 14 and a half inch device and at 20 256 by 1504 resolution. I know that's weird: it gives the device a nice sharp display without forcing more pixels than you really need in there.

So we can talk about 4k displays and all that kind of stuff. Your eyes can't pick that stuff up from a few feet away. There's never time. I looked at this display and thought: oh you know it's, it's not quite a quad HD, or it's not quite a 4k display I can see. Pixels I couldn't see any of the pixels on it.

It looks sharp it looked gorgeous and that's less stuff for the processor to have to deal with whenever it's rendering anything on the page so well done. Acer. This display is an absolute knockout moving on to input methods. This is a place where the device falls down a little for me, the pixel book. Again, as I've always said, it's kind of my gold standard, I love the travel it has and the clicking of the keys and this device actually has the keys feel like they have more travel than the pixel book.

For instance, that's not a huge selling point for me. I, don't want them to be super shallow, but I don't need a ton of travel on a keyboard I just like for there to be a click response, so that I know that your fingers know whenever you've hit the key. This one can get a little mushy from time to time, and so it wasn't terrible. It just isn't great either, but the keys are backlit, so that is a nice plus, especially when you're paying top dollar for a Chromebook. Moving on to the trackpad, it is Gorilla Glass.

So that's that's great. Any device I think at this point that is four or five hundred dollars and up should have a glass trackpad. They just work better than plastic or metal ones, but my issue with this trackpad is it's actually a little shallow. So a lot of times our trackpads are getting more and more square, so they're actually getting taller the way we use them, and so your habits just kind of develop around the different dimensions of trackpads, and this one tends to be a little shallow. For me, the width is fine, it's just shallow, and so Chrome OS does a good job of palm rejection, but sometimes on this device.

It feels like it's doing too a bit of a job. There was a lot of times. I was going to either move the mouse or try to click in an area where it was trying to reject my palm and so a lot of Miss clicks and a lot of issue just moving the mouse around the screen over the course of time. I started getting used to it. It's its habitual stuff, and so you'll, you'll evolve around that.

Eventually, if you use this, it's just something you need to know if you go out and purchase this device one other thing, this one has a third input method, and it's another selling point of the devices. There's a garage stylus on this one, and so you can grab the stylus right out from underneath pull it out and use it whenever you need it stow it away, it doesn't need batteries, it's EMR, and so it's gonna work really well. Artists are gonna, like it more and in inks, as well as any other EMR stylus on a Chromebook inks we've talked about it a million times. It seems like the pen behaves exactly like. You would think 4000 plus levels of pressure.

It does a perfect job, but one thing that this one does better than other garage stylus is that it's larger it actually is big enough to fit in entirely in your hand, like a pen and so instead of being like this little toothpick that you're trying to write with it can sit kind of more. Naturally, in your hand, as you write on around the sides of the device we're coming up on a port selection- that's pretty normal in 2018, so a USB Con either side and then one USB, a port on the left side of the device. Alongside an SD card slot and headphone microphone, jack and I've said this before, and I'll say it again. This is my favorite layout of ports, mainly because with the USB-C on either side, you have the ability to charge and/or dock the device and either side, whichever one is easier for you to use and then on those times when you just, you need a dongle to move something over to a more legacy device or an SD card reader, or something like that. You have it there in the event that you don't have a dongle to or an adapter for it.

So internally, this device actually checks a lot of boxes as well and comes in multiple configurations. The one that we have been testing is the core i5, eight gigs of ram 128 gigs of internal storage. There's one level above that with 16 gigs of ram, same storage, same processor, and then there are two i3 models, one with four gigs and one with eight, both of them with 64 gigs of internal storage. And so, if you're kind of thinking oh well, which one should I go, which one should I think about getting right now, the only one you can really get a hold of. Is this one? So the i58 gig a hundred twenty-eight gigs of internal storage? What I would think and what I would tell you that if you're watching this a few months from now and availability has started to expand if you can get your hands on the core i3 with eight gigs of RAM I, think that's going to be the sweet spot, because the core i3 from what we can tell benchmarking and regular use, is just as fast as the core i5, at least in Chromebooks.

Anyway, I don't know if it's just Chrome OS doesn't really take advantage of what the hi-5 offers or what, but there's really not much sense in spending any money on it. Unless it comes with the particular upgrades and storage and RAM that you're looking for so that's the one I would shoot for, however, that one is still eight hundred dollars, and so that's where we have to start talking about price versus what you're getting in this device, and we're going to get to that as we wrap up this video, but I can tell you. Obviously you probably know this with this kind of internals. This thing breezes through anything and especially with a slightly less pixel dense display than some other high-res Chromebooks I mean it just breezes along. It doesn't run into a lot of the issues.

Some other ones run into one thing: I can tell you that might be off-putting for some people, you'll notice, it has fan ports in it. It does have a fan. It's its the U series processor, which they're way more powerful, but they do need a fan from time to time and every once in a while, I would hear it kick on. Usually you're not going to hear it. It's not going to be a big deal, but when they do kick on they're slightly noticeable they're, not terribly loud, but they are they're.

So taking all this stuff that we've said about this device, it sounds obviously like Acer has done a lot of right, and they have. This is a great device, and I've really enjoyed using it. It really comes down to price. At this point and I. Don't know that Acer is gonna, come off that price too much, because their marketing to the business crowd their marketing to corporate and I.

Don't know that they're really trying to compete with the HP s and the Lenovo's and the Dells that we're seeing at five and six hundred dollars that have similar spec layouts and similar good points and bad points, and so because of that you're going to have to kind of keep your eye on stuff and look around, and hopefully you know, go to Chrome and Viacom, and if we see a deal on it, we'll let you know, but the minute you see if it becomes available to consumers the core i3 8gig version of this device for a few hundred bucks off at that point, I would absolutely say, go and get it is would. It would be a great device at a great price, but some of you may be looking at this and going hey. You know.900 bucks is that sounds great I'll pay that for the one that you're testing right there the way that this one is better than some other devices in that price range. Are you get that larger screen? There's no other device with the 3 by 2 screen at this size, and it's just been a joy to use, and I really like having the stylus on me at all times, because and then, when I think that I need to take a note or pull something. I can just yank the yank that pin out and use it or I.

Don't get that on something like the pixel book. So am I telling you to go, buy it, maybe not, and I hate to be that indecisive I. Just think that at some point we're going to see some sales on this, and it'll be much easier to say at that point. If you're watching this video, and can get it for a little cheaper, absolutely go get this Acer's done a good job of putting it really, really good device together. It's just a little steep at this point, but guys, that's it for this one.

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Source : Chrome Unboxed