Acer Chromebook 14, Aluminum, 14-inch Full HD, Intel Celeron N3160, 4GB LPDDR3, 32GB, Chrome, CB3-431-C5FM

I've kept an eye on Chromebooks for the last couple of years as a possible option for a low-cost laptop. I'm a long time Windows user but started using Chrome as my browser of choice a few years back. I also have an Android phone that's tied to Google's services and appreciate how well the user experience transfers between the phone and desktop. After an honest evaluation of my laptop usage habits, I decided a Chromebook could meet my needs.I'm not a gamer and use my laptop primarily for email, web browsing, and light document work. I also have Linux and Windows workstations on my network and access them via SSH, VNC, and RDP. I'm been quite pleased at how well the Chromebook has worked for all these tasks. The free SSH client from the web store works to logon to my Linux machines and can even do public key authentication and port forwarding, enabling me to tunnel my VNC connections through SSH. The Chrome RDP app also works well, connecting to my Windows machines with good performance, and I can access files on my NAS using Network File Shares After using the Chromebook for the last couple of weeks, I'd confidently recommend one for everything but gaming and special purpose applications.The quality of this unit exceeds my expectations, and if feels solidly built while still very thin and light. The keyboard and track pad are both quite good, although I always use a real mouse. Battery life is excellent, and I can get several days use before needing to plug in. With a solid CPU and 4GB of memory I can run a dozen or more open tabs with good performance. I'm not sure just how many things I need to open to notice performance degrade because I haven't hit that point. Saving the best for last, the full HD screen is one of the primary reasons I chose this Chromebook, and it is wonderful. Scaling works nicely when needed using either Ctrl with mouse wheel to scale just the browser contents or using Ctrl, Shift, +/- to scale the resolution of the entire screen. I've shopped around for Windows laptops with higher resolution screens and they are all well beyond this price point. To me, this Chromebook is a great value.

A month or so ago, the screen on my Toshiba Chrome 2 was broken (no fault of the computer, just someone slamming it shut in anger), necessitating its replacement. This Acer is the third computer that I bought in replacement, so I feel I'm in a pretty good position to judge where it stands relative to what else it out there right now.I'm a Chrome OS early adopter, having bought one of the early Chromebox's that were given out at the Google I/O off of eBay, and having bought my Toshiba Chromebook a couple of years ago. I'm somewhat sold on Chrome, the feature I like best about them is that the continuous updating and cleaning up of the OS. My Chromebox is about four years old and it works better now than when I bought it, and that's with zero attention paid to updating/upgrading/virus protection/etc. ever. It "just works" and it doesn't stop just working.So my first choice was the SUS C300SA-DS02 Chromebook 13.3" HD, which sells for about $225 on Amazon. It wasn't a horrible computer, but it looks and feels very cheap and underpowered. So I sent it back and instead ordered an ASUS ZenBook UX305UA 13.3-inch. It was of course much nicer, and I was looking forward to putting Windows Office on it so that I could get some more work functionality out of it. But I was amazed to learn that ASUS Windows laptops, apparently all of them, lock the function keys in such a way that you have to simultaneously press the function key in order to perform their non-function functions (i.e. if you press "F12" by itself you get the developer's code window rather than volume up), and it cannot be changed. It's hardwired into the computer, not even opening the BIOS can change it. That was a plain non-starter for me, I'm constantly fiddling with volume and brightness controls on my laptops, so having that as a two-hand operation . . . no way.So . . . reconsidering also the extremely marginal functionality of native Windows Office as opposed to Google Docs/Office Online, I decided to go back to another Chromebook, but this time the Acer Chromebook 14. Boy am I glad I did! This computer looks and feels like a $1000 laptop. It's a beautiful, solid all-metal device, with a nice, wide great looking screen. The trackpad works well, and the internals seem to be very quick, I haven't noticed any stuttering on anything as of yet. My only quibble might be with the keyboard, which is a bit shallow for my tastes, but it's decent enough. At $300 even, you'd be crazy to settle for one of the $200+ Chromebook when a vastly better machine can be had for just a little bit more. If you're looking for a computer in the range of this size and price and functionality, I would recommend this one.