Acer Chromebook 15 Review: Greater Than the Sum of its Parts By Chrome Unboxed

A lot of times we look at Chromebook spec sheets, and we get excited about screens or processor speeds, but with the Acer Chromebook 15. What we're going to be talking about today, none of the spec sheets actually get anybody excited most of the stuff is kind of middling. It's got a decent processor, a decent keyboard and a decent screen and all those things, and none of them are bad and none of them are best. It's not the best at really anything. However, what Acer is done here with this device has taken a bunch of decent things and put them together to make a really, really excellent, solid holistic package. So we want to dive in and show you why? So, first up, let's talk about build quality, thanks.

We've done a really, really great job here. Most of the device is aluminum, so the lid, the surround around the screen and the deck and the sides of it are all aluminum, and it's a powdered finished aluminum, not the brushed finish, so it doesn't pick up a lot of fingerprints and all that aluminum makes for a nice sturdy chassis while coming in at a full pound lighter and three quarters of an inch thinner than its predecessor, which was all plastic and should have been lighter. So Acer has done a really great job with that now the bottom is plastic and honestly, that's okay. We don't turn the device over and look at it that often- and it serves its purpose- just fine, just like the HP Chromebook 13 g1 did overall I'll give a search terms up here. They didn't do anything groundbreaking or anything mesmerizing with the build of this device, but it works, and it looks good, and it feels nice and firm and solid and substantial in the hand.

Next up. Let's talk about the screen, so we're dealing with a 1080p screen here on a 15.6 inch display so 16 by 9, again, nothing out of the ordinary. It is a touchscreen and it is IPS. So you get nice wide viewing angles. It's not the brightest thing I've ever seen somewhere around 250 to 300 nits.

So it's not completely disappointing. It's also, not amazing, so you get it outside and direct sunlight you're, probably going to run into a few issues, but overall again Acer's put a decent panel in here. The viewing angles are perfect. The colors are perfect. The touch sensitivity is perfect.

I really don't have too many complaints about it sure when I set it up. Next to my pixel book, I noticed the difference, but overall 1080p on a 15.6 inch display is the right resolution for this display. I am the right size on the display and it just kind of gets out of the way it feels good. It looks good, and it behaves just as you would expect it to next up. We need to talk about the keyboard and the trackpad, because once again, Acer has done some pretty cool stuff.

Here the keyboard feels similar to what other Acer offerings feel like a tad bit. Mushy, not the click, a thing in the world, but a good amount of travel. What's really cool here is at this price point: they've included a backlit keyboard, so you get multi stage, backlighting six stages and all- and it's really nice to have if you're, in a dimly lit environment. If we're seeing Acer put in a 299 to $399 Chromebook backlighting at this price point I just don't see why it is that most Chromebooks don't come with it at this point they don't, so it's still kind of a perk and Acer did well to include it. Additionally, the trackpad is pretty good-sized again, it's very similar to other Acer devices, the Chromebook 14 last year's 15, it's plastic.

It blends in pretty well with the Chromebook overall and the aesthetic looks good, but this is probably my biggest pain point with this device, and I've read online that other people have had the same thing. The multi click thing that I've talked about in other Chromebooks is present here, so the trackpad kind of floats just a little before you push it down, then it hits the mechanism and then clicks, and so you get that weird kind of floating thing that's happening, and sometimes when you're typing, you can even hear it moving around it's just loose gray in it. I could open up the Chromebook and fix this. It's not that difficult to fix, but it's not something you should have to fix, and I've heard a few people complain about the same thing. So bear that in mind, if you're really picky with your trackpad, that could be something that turns you off with this one, but overall the tracking of it.

The smoothness of the gestures I mean we kind of go over this a lot and Chrome OS does really well with that stuff. As far as getting through the UI, this one does just fine I, just don't really care for the click mechanism. Next up, let's talk about input and output, and so this device actually has what has become pretty standard at the end of 2017 for Chromebooks and then what looks like it's going to stay standard through, probably the early parts of 2018, at least so. Usually you have Chromebooks with either just a couple. USB CS or you have this layout, which is two USB sees two US beys, there's usually one on each side and for me personally, it's my favorite layout.

So you get all the benefits of USB like your monitor out going straight through that plus your power, and you can use either side whichever one is more convenient. But then you also have USB a for those peripherals that need some sort of dongle, and you don't actually have to have a dongle with you. So it's kind of a nice setup and I do wish that they had that on some other premium Chromebooks. Additionally, you have a micro, SD card slot and a Kensington lock. This one comes with 32 gigs of internal storage, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but the micro SD card slots again is a nice addition to have now that Android apps are available on these devices, and you're going to download a little more movies, more pictures, that kind of stuff it's nice to have some additional storage and this one's very, very easy to just slide an extra card in the side to expand your storage.

Additionally, you have an audio jack that serves just like every other Chromebook, so you know microphone headphone jack, but you have some really great speakers and some really cool machined holes that are on both sides of the keyboard, and it just looks really great. But additionally it sounds really great and well actually, let's let you have a test and hear it right now, so yeah, the speaker's sound amazing and by far from any Chromebook, probably any laptop I've actually heard. These are the best sounding speakers. So, if that's something you know most times when I review these devices, that's honestly the least of my worries, I, will say, and I've said throughout this video there's a bunch of middling specs. This is where they actually are proficient they're.

The best speakers. I've heard on a laptop in a long time, so well done for that Acer, and we can't talk about Chromebooks without talking about. What's inside them and with this device you get again some pretty middling specs, but they work, and we're going to discuss why they work here in just a second. What's inside is a Pentium n 4200, four gigs of ram 32 gigs of internal storage.32 gigs of internal storage is enough to get most people by if you're going to be downloading lots of movies slap, an SD card inside, but otherwise 32 gigs is probably enough to get most people by on a Chromebook four gigs of RAM. Again, it's enough for most people on a Chromebook, take the Samsung Chromebook pro, for instance, it still only comes with four gigs of RAM and honestly for most people's day-to-day use is plenty the Pentium and 4200.

Now it's a step-up from like say the Apollo Lake processor. So it's not in that core I line. It is a Pentium processor, that's in more of the Bra swell Apollo Lake line, but it performs pretty well, and we were seeing benchmarks on octane around twelve thousand eleven thousand on most days somewhere in between there, but it gets along. Just fine, and you know, benchmarks are synthetic real world use. That's that's where the rubber meets the road, and this device gets along really, really well.

I actually used it for a few days, as my only work device, with an extended display and doing all the things I normally do on my pixel book and really wasn't too frustrated with it. It performs it gets along way better than the spec sheet would have you believe, and so again, Acer's done a good job here of putting in the resources it needs to get by. On without breaking the bank, so without any special sections here in this review, we've covered all of it and relatively quickly, and that highlights one of the things that makes this Chromebook kind of unique and that seems odd to say that there are generic features about a Chromebook that make it unique. But what Acer is done with this device again I said it earlier: is they've taken a bunch of specs that don't look very impressive on a spec sheet put them together in a Chromebook that make a holistic package that is actually really impressive and great to use like it. It is one of my favorite Chromebooks that I've had in the office since we started this channel.

It's just enjoyable, I love the speakers I like the backlit keyboard. Trackpad annoys me a little, but it's got a touch screen for those Android apps that really need touch. Still. It really just covers so many bases pretty well. He doesn't have the best anything except for the speakers, and yet it's probably one of my favorite Chromebooks for overall use, and then we had to talk about the price right now on Amazon.

As of the filming of this, before we started, I looked, and it was three and $14 now that can fluctuate the set price for it is $399 so anywhere between their from 300 to 400 dollars. It's a great deal for this device, especially if you get down close to 300 bucks. I can't recommend this device enough. It's really great. It gets along way better than the spec sheet would show you, and it's really affordable, and it encourages me to know that affordable Chromebooks are getting really, really good because we're in an era now of pixel books and Samsung Chromebook pros we're six to eight to $1000 devices are becoming the norm.

Furthermore, it's great to see companies still investing in devices that don't cost an arm and a leg, and that are getting really, really good at doing so guys. If you like this, video subscribe down below hit the thumbs up, and until next time we'll see you.

Source : Chrome Unboxed