Gadgetory

this video is brought to you by NCI XCOM great technology selection and service hey guys Eber here with hurricane ax and the Chromebook has been around for a few years now and with the release of new and more efficient chips to run the system it is an excellent incentive to revisit the Chromebook and see how far we've come to satisfy a growing desire for online media consumption and productivity work so today we're taking a look at the Acer Chromebook 13 that has finally been launched in Canada priced at an affordable $400 price point and while he can find $400 laptops at that's your total budget the Chromebook in this instance may actually provide better value with overall better experience the white hard plastic chassis feels surprisingly good with a slim minimalist design that after a while picks up every single dark blemish and signs of wear starts to appear almost immediately it weighs about three pounds that feels a little heavy for what it is but it's only 0.7 inches thick so carrying the Chromebook in my bag was not a problem plus everyone should appreciate the small power brick although these need to get down in size and Vidya joins the game as this is the first Chromebook to host the Tegra k1 a quad-core processor clocked at 2.1 gigahertz four gigabytes of ddr3 LSD RAM a 32 gigabyte SSD and a 13.3 inch 1080p matte display since 32 gigabytes is not that much for storage Acer includes a free subscription of 100 gigabytes on Google Drive for two years just note that you have to pay monthly after that time period taking a physical tour of the Chromebook on the left side there is a single USB 3.0 port along with an SD card slot a power jack and a headphone / microphone jack on the right and an HDMI port and your second USB 3.0 port on the back I personally do not like this USB placement at the rear since it might annoy most users when plugging in their USB devices there are two LED notification lights right below the screen that indicates when the system is on or off and if the battery is fully charged the keyboard layout is excellent to satisfy any functionality for Chrome OS the top row has dedicated shortcuts for return forward and refresh page maximize your window a multi button that explodes your open apps brightness and volume control and finally the power button the caps lock has been replaced with a search button that once you are aware of this comes into constant use if you plan to rely on Chromebook for a lot of Correspondence such as email schoolwork Google Docs etc I'm happy to report key bounce and travel distance feels extremely satisfying but the palm rest offers plenty of room for comfort and I really enjoy typing this review without any hiccups the touchpad is pretty responsive for your day-to-day tasks but if you are working with applications that require pinpoint accuracy I would recommend using an external mouse the 1080p display is sharp enough to view content on the color reproduction wasn't as accurate compared to premium IPS panels or AMOLED displays but considering the price point I've got to give a shout-out to Acer for including this resolution one thing that I found interesting is an option in the settings to set the display to scale all the way up to 2400 by 1350 I'm not sure why this wasn't advertised but if you want to work with extra pixel density you have that option as well although there are no options to enable text scaling on the display for a better viewing experience but I got used to it eventually there are two speakers hidden at the bottom of the chassis the audio really surprised me for the price it's clear I didn't notice any distortion with volume at maximum level however the base was non-existent and the audio tends to get muffled when listening to music with a Chromebook on the lab here's a listen of how the Chromebook sounds the battery life was all over the marketing materials when the Chromebook 13 was released thanks to the power efficiency of the Tegra k1 chip however under heavy use sort of your worst case scenario it lasted a disappointing 5 hours and 47 minutes that's at 100% brightness and a constant reverse cycle running a webpage and a YouTube video on a loop again with casual usage a full day lasted no problem into the next with 8 plus hours of runtime with browsing the web reading and some Google Doc work the standby time during sleep mode was exceptional and the battery levels dropped only 1% after 2 hour break the Tegra k1 did keep up pretty well in terms of performance streaming HD content and music on the web was not a problem but I noticed occasional freezing with 15 tabs open on Chrome so serious multitasking just not might be a positive for the Chromebook my experience with Chrome OS was surprisingly good I was able to learn the basics quickly and spending most of the time browsing the web and using Google services constantly all my settings and preferences were synced perfectly you can use the Chromebook offline and most of Google's productivity apps like Google Docs Google slides and Google Forms worked fine and synced up when going back online so in conclusion Acer truly stepped up their game with the Chromebook 13 at the outstanding price point with acceptable build quality and slim profile the excellent keyboard and a reliable touchpad turns the Chromebook into an exceptional productivity tool the included HDMI output could come in handy and the Tegra k1 is an excellent chip for day-to-day tasks although I wouldn't go crazy multitasking with it the 1080p display is appreciated at this price point but the colors aren't the best for viewing content the battery life was outstanding from what I've seen so far compared to regular PC laptops and personally I would recommend the Chromebook 13 for students and individuals that can get away using Google Apps and are content with the simplicity of Chrome OS so this concludes this review thank you so much for watching make sure to subscribe for more similar content and give us a like if you found this review helpful and as always we'll see you in the next one