In case you missed it - the Acer CB3 is $130 at Best Buy.
I grabbed one because I figured it'd be foolish not to. My first impressions?
I love the keyboard. I like it even more than I like my 13" HP windows machine. The key travel is great and the keys are reliable. It's comfortably spaced for my hands. I'm not going to claim it's going to be perfect for everyone, but I dig it. The track-pad is amazing too. I think it's the first time I've opened up a laptop and the track-pad was sensitive enough to drag the mouse across the screen within the area of the pad. Again, that's not for everyone, but I love it. The multitouch gestures work too, pretty consistently as far as I can tell.
The speakers are stupid good. Stupid. Like, uncomfortably loud and clear for a computer this size. There's a reason I'm mentioning it immediately after the keyboard. I was testing it at work with the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack and one crescendo later I was a complete distraction for the entire office. They're really great. I can't wait to do some media consuming with this little laptop.
The screen? It's fine. It's not a full HD display, but I kind of dig the mat screen. It can get pretty bright. I have it on full brightness right now in the sun coming in through the window (it's still too early in the season for outdoor blogging in MN) and it's visible. I don't know that I would ever do anything like that if I had the option to not do it, but it works. Now that I have spun my chair 90 degrees so I'm not in the sun I can turn the brightness down. You're not going to write home about it for any reason. It's a screen that does what a screen should do at about the quality you'd anticipate a screen should be.
My last Chromebook was the HP 14" and I every time I opened and closed the screen I felt like things that weren't designed to flex were definitely flexing. This Acer feels like a much more solid device. I also like it more than the original Samsung 11" from a build perspective. The only weird thing is the white textured plastic. It really feels like a toy between the material and the weight. That being said though, Best Buy had it side-by-side with the faux-leather Sammy. Both felt equally toyish, especially considering that obviously faux leather back. Again, there's a personal bias here.
I'm kind of bummed that the charger isn't just a microUSB charger, but you can't win them all. It's a long cord. That's kind of nice. It's almost 9 ounces for the charger, which, when the computer weighs in at just over 2 lbs, I feel like there's a lot of weight here. And it doesn't have a really graceful way to manage the lengths of cable that come out of either side. It's going to be a mess, I'm going to have to get used to that.
As far as performance, so far everything's smooth. I have Facebook, Twitter, Google play music, and Reddit open behind this tab, and I have a few hangouts open too. Scrolling is still pretty dang smooth and my music is running just fine. I guess time will tell as I do more with this, but I'm pretty excited about the performance of the Intel chip so far. Battery life is great too. With music going and my screen at a comfortable 2/3 brightness, it says I have 91% battery left, which the Chromebook decided was 7 hours and 32 minutes left. That's nuts. I'm probably not going to be able to type these first impressions for that long, so I'm not sure I'll verify that estimate, but that's probably a pretty good guess based on the current use.
ChromeOS is still ChromeOS. If you've used it, you get it.
But yeah, for an impulse purchase, I'm really jazzed. This seems to be a much nicer device than I would normally think of when I spend $130. Go get one!
I grabbed one because I figured it'd be foolish not to. My first impressions?
I love the keyboard. I like it even more than I like my 13" HP windows machine. The key travel is great and the keys are reliable. It's comfortably spaced for my hands. I'm not going to claim it's going to be perfect for everyone, but I dig it. The track-pad is amazing too. I think it's the first time I've opened up a laptop and the track-pad was sensitive enough to drag the mouse across the screen within the area of the pad. Again, that's not for everyone, but I love it. The multitouch gestures work too, pretty consistently as far as I can tell.
The speakers are stupid good. Stupid. Like, uncomfortably loud and clear for a computer this size. There's a reason I'm mentioning it immediately after the keyboard. I was testing it at work with the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack and one crescendo later I was a complete distraction for the entire office. They're really great. I can't wait to do some media consuming with this little laptop.
The screen? It's fine. It's not a full HD display, but I kind of dig the mat screen. It can get pretty bright. I have it on full brightness right now in the sun coming in through the window (it's still too early in the season for outdoor blogging in MN) and it's visible. I don't know that I would ever do anything like that if I had the option to not do it, but it works. Now that I have spun my chair 90 degrees so I'm not in the sun I can turn the brightness down. You're not going to write home about it for any reason. It's a screen that does what a screen should do at about the quality you'd anticipate a screen should be.
My last Chromebook was the HP 14" and I every time I opened and closed the screen I felt like things that weren't designed to flex were definitely flexing. This Acer feels like a much more solid device. I also like it more than the original Samsung 11" from a build perspective. The only weird thing is the white textured plastic. It really feels like a toy between the material and the weight. That being said though, Best Buy had it side-by-side with the faux-leather Sammy. Both felt equally toyish, especially considering that obviously faux leather back. Again, there's a personal bias here.
I'm kind of bummed that the charger isn't just a microUSB charger, but you can't win them all. It's a long cord. That's kind of nice. It's almost 9 ounces for the charger, which, when the computer weighs in at just over 2 lbs, I feel like there's a lot of weight here. And it doesn't have a really graceful way to manage the lengths of cable that come out of either side. It's going to be a mess, I'm going to have to get used to that.
As far as performance, so far everything's smooth. I have Facebook, Twitter, Google play music, and Reddit open behind this tab, and I have a few hangouts open too. Scrolling is still pretty dang smooth and my music is running just fine. I guess time will tell as I do more with this, but I'm pretty excited about the performance of the Intel chip so far. Battery life is great too. With music going and my screen at a comfortable 2/3 brightness, it says I have 91% battery left, which the Chromebook decided was 7 hours and 32 minutes left. That's nuts. I'm probably not going to be able to type these first impressions for that long, so I'm not sure I'll verify that estimate, but that's probably a pretty good guess based on the current use.
ChromeOS is still ChromeOS. If you've used it, you get it.
But yeah, for an impulse purchase, I'm really jazzed. This seems to be a much nicer device than I would normally think of when I spend $130. Go get one!
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