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.

The new Acer Chromebook 14 feels like the beginning of a new generation for Chromebooks. I have owned an HP Chromebook 14 for a couple of years now, so I'll be making comparisons to that device in this review. I love my HP Chromebook, but there were two reasons it kept me from considering it as a 5-star worthy computer. Screen resolution and fan noise. The Acer Chromebook 14 fixes both of those by providing a 1080p IPS display and fanless design for complete silence.I set up both Chromebooks side by side and started with a screen quality comparison. While my HP screen had a narrow "sweet spot" where the angle and position to the screen looked its best, the Acer looks good at any angle, and fantastic from a straight on viewpoint. IPS technology is to thank for this. Both devices appear to obtain similar maximum brightness output, while the Acer does offer more fine-tuning of the lower brightness spectrum. I was pleased to find that the screen on the Acer Chromebook can open up greater than a 180° angle. The HP didn't even come close.While using these Chromebooks in tandem I noticed that while changing the wallpaper on the new Acer it would also change it to match on the HP just next to it within a couple of seconds. It was really cool to see how quickly the Google account updated in the cloud and copied settings over to other Chrome devices. This made it very easy to compare the image quality as I perused many different images on each device. The new IPS display on the Acer really does shine when compared to an inferior product. The colors are much more natural and the clarity of the higher pixel count is easily apparent.My next test was on the keyboards and touchpad. Honestly, the keyboards and touchpads on each seem to be extremely similar. It was hard to notice any real difference. I loved the keyboard/touchpad combo on the HP, so I'm glad the Acer Chromebook 14 provides the same experience. The Acer's touchpad does appear to be slightly larger, which is always nice.My final comparison test involved the speakers. The Acer has bottom mounted speakers just like my HP. They're probably extremely similar in design, and they sound very similar as well. I played identical YouTube videos on each one, pausing after every few lines to compare one after the other, and both sound good and get plenty loud at max volume. I can't say one was an improvement over the other. I believe the only way to improve the speaker design would be to implement a top-mount design, perhaps above the keyboard.My only real complaint with Acer's new Chromebook 14 would be the power supply/cable. The cable length is shorter than my HP's, so placement in certain situations where you need a charge could be an issue. Thankfully the battery life is so good that if you charge it before you go anywhere you should make it through your day without needing to top it off. The other thing to note is that Acer really skimped on the quality of the power supply cable. It's twice as thin as the HP's and I'm worried about the durability of it. I have dreadful visions of another company whose power cables are often much too thin and began to crack and fray. Here's to hoping that is never an issue!In the end this Chromebook fully deserves a 5-star rating. You get a fast web-browsing device with a full HD display, great keyboard and touchpad combination, and amazing battery life that exceeds other Chromebooks that are in its price range. It's hard to argue that it would benefit from anything else, except perhaps a backlit keyboard.