If you're the parent of a child who's desperate to bring his/her laptop to school each day, you're probably going to want to buy him/her a Chromebook. These low-cost, lightweight devices don't offer much in the way of storage or processing speed, but they're stylish devices that are perfect for document creation and web browsing.
For less than $300 (about £178, AU$319), you can buy top-of-the-line Chromebooks like the Acer Chromebook 13, which is powered by Nvidia's ARM Cortex A15-based Tegra K1, and packs a 13.3-inch full HD resolution screen into a 3.31 pound machine - one of the lightest Chromebooks on the market. For $279 (about £165, AU$300), there's not much to love about this laptop.
The same can be said for the Dell Chromebook 11 ($279, £167, AU$300), a 2.9 pound workhorse with an 8-hour and 22-minute battery life that looks as good as it performs.
Cut from the same cloth are the new Acer Chromebooks, the Acer C910 and Acer C740, two bulldog laptops designed primary for students.
Specs and features
The Acer C910 ($299, £180, AU$330) is a 15.6-inch Chromebook that wears the crown of largest Chromebook on the market. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play with the C910, but I did get to test drive (kinda) its little sister, the C740 ($259, £159, AU$290), an 11.6-inch laptop that comes in both full HD and HD displays.
The C740 won't win any beauty pageants. The standard model features an unassuming charcoal-black resin topside finish, as well as a gray-on-black standard keyboard and touchpad. The touchpad is slightly off-center, which is somewhat annoying, but definitely not a dealbreaker.
You can get nine hours of battery life out of the C740 (according to Acer's projections), which is more than enough for someone who will be taking the device to school and then the library, where he/she will likely encounter tons of available plugs.
The C740 is powered by the new 5th Generation Intel Core i3-5005U processor or the next-generation Intel Celeron 3205U processor based on the Broadwell Micro-architecture (whichever you prefer). The device weighs only 2.87 pounds and measures 11.34-inches wide by 8.03 inches long by 0.79 inches tall.
It comes with a nice selection of connections compared to most Chromebooks, including MIMO 2x2 Wifi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, one USB 3.0, one USB 2.0 and one HDMI port. You can also pop an SD card into this device, in addition to a pre-existing 16GB SSD drive and either 2GB or 4GB of RAM.
Performance
As you can see from my photos, I wasn't able to test a working model of the C740. However, based on the spec sheet and the processors installed, you can safely assume you're not going to want to do any hardcore gaming or video editing on this device. It will run perfectly well if you limit the number of open applications and browser tabs, which you should be doing when you're plowing through homework anyway.
The genius aspect of this device is how rugged Acer was able to make it. It features a reinforced cover that Acer says can withstand up to 132 pounds of force, and its corners can tolerate up to 17.7 inch drops without suffering any damage. Acer built this bad boy with reinforced metal hinges that are extended and flex-free. This means you can grab the laptop any which way you like without having to worry about ripping off the display or popping out a screw.
Unfortunately, the resin-based finish on the laptop's top-side is incredibly prone to scratches and nicks, so your device will look like utter crap after having been slammed and crammed into a crowded backpack. The resin feels nice to the touch, but after awhile you'll want to put a cover on it to hide its flaws.
Early verdict
If your sixth-grader is dying for a laptop and you don't trust him/her to handle something expensive, I highly recommend the Acer Chromebook C740. It's sturdy build and lightweight design are perfectly suited to the novice laptop user. You won't cringe when your eleven-year-old chucks this device into his/her baseball bag and then slams the bag down into your car's trunk. And, because it is so cheap, you certainly won't freak if and when he/she ultimately destroys this thing by dropping it onto one of its corners from more than 18 inches. With that being said, there are sexier and more powerful Chromebooks on the market, and if you're not worried about bumps and bruises, you may want to look for something with a bit more giddy-up and pizzazz.
from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/1ALRKmn
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