Acer C720

Acer has recently supplanted Samsung as the number one selling Chromebooks in the world, mainly due to the success of various C720. This particular variant of the C720 seen in entry-level point of the range of Acer Chromebook, the eschewing the touchscreens that adorn its more expensive sibling. This means that the price is only £ 199, which will surely get a great deal of useful technology.

As you might expect the plastic casing is of course, finished in a smart, bluish gray to a fair job of simulating metal while feeling strong enough for everyday use. The choice of material also has the advantage of producing a lightweight C720 £ 2.76, so throwing it in your backpack and heading out for is never ending pain of the shoulder of the day. For a cheap, little machine also packs a fair amount of the pier, with HDMI, SD card reader, two USB slots, one of which is USB 3.0.

While many of the first Chromebooks came on the market in the ARM chips in their center, Acer has taken a different path and decided to equip its wide-C720 with Intel Celerons. The particular 1.40GHz chips (2955u) is based on the technology Haswell, resulting in increased battery life when compared to the previous Acer C7 Chromebook that. The manufacturer declares amazing 8.5 hours of running time, which is not too far off we managed 7hrs test. Not bad at all.

That magic Haswell C720 also provides a waitress feel when running several open tabs. Music is happy to stream in the background while we browse Amazon and Google Play Facebook, but like many things Chromebook to be a bit stodgy if you get too greedy or add video to the mix. 2GB of RAM will likely not help, and it is an area that we would like to see the increased number of platforms generate, but one thing to note is the speed of your internet connection will significantly affect the overall performance. Something can not alter the web is how the C720 feels under the fingers. We've been very impressed by their Chromebook keyboard in the past (with Samsung, HP 2012 and 11 both having excellent surface typing) but the one here feel a little shallow and spongy. It's not bad, because here, but it is not yet match the competition, and Acer made the choice to consolidate the Enter key and Hash is disappointing. The touchpad is fine though, and handles multi-touch gestures efficiency and minimal drama. There are separate buttons for left and right clicks, but we've used two finger tap to open the menu by clicking right now, and actually prefer that method.

Another area where money is saved the display. We do not expect or 4K resolution IPS panel in such a cheap machine, and certainly we do not. Instead there is a 11.6 "Active Matrix TFT Color LCD, which is bright and clear. Colours are a little dull, the 1366 x 768 resolution left some icons looking slightly jagged times, and viewing angle is limited, but like most things in the C720 is decent and fully available on a daily basis. you can also enjoy making the device and the USB flash drive full of movies to soothe your senses on a transatlantic flight.

Chrome OS itself has developed well over the past few years, to the point where they feel sufficiently complete to use on a daily basis. Offline capabilities for Google Docs also make it more stable work machine. The multi-touch gestures enable clearer navigation, while the overall simplicity of the OS lets you get into things without distraction. For a great many people, it would be more than enough.