Our Acer Chromebook R13s are just over a year old. It's time for an evaluation and some comparisons to the MacBook Airs they replaced. The prompt for this post comes on the heels of helping a colleague with a MacBook Air that is still running Mavericks, a version of OSX, vintage 2013. So, here goes.Things I really like about the Acer R13 Chromebook.
Updates!
Beyond an occasional restart to update notice, I have never been nagged to update. In fact, the Chromebook on which I am writing this has the latest OS. It's already up to date with no intervention by me. Updates happen during a restart, and restarts take ten seconds or so. Compared to the MacBook, with its incessant update notices and nearly hour long update reboot, this thing is a refreshing pleasure. Updates just happen, and I don't need to know or care.
Industry standard ports!
Real USB A and C ports, a real micro SD card reader, along with a real HDMI port mean that I don't have to shell out for proprietary adapters and dongles to connect to a projector or charge the unit. The unit can, in fact, be charged with nearly any USB C connection and even an old phone charger. Compared to the expensive, fragile, frequently broken mini display port adapters, and expensive, proprietary chargers, the R13's ports are refreshingly standard.
Touch screen!
The touch screen works and works well. It's handy for pinching in or out on text, images, or entire pages. The touch screen allows an increasing number of Android apps to function well on the device. And, the touch screen lets me quickly and easily add my signature to documents and PDFs.
Speed!
The device is responsive and starts quickly.
Working in a cloud centric environment!
There are still word, powerpoint, and excel fans in the district, and they are saving their work - often years of intellectual sweat and capital - to their local desktops, document folders, or in a number of cases, download folders with thousands of unorganized, frequently duplicated files. That's a major problem since the majority of those users are relying on a single device to preserve that intellectual property. They are one coffee spill, one static shock, one virus, one drive failure, or one theft away from losing *all* that content. Sure, they could use Backup and Sync, Dropbox, or another cloud provider to automatically sync content to off-site storage. But in practice, few EWG users do. And of the few who do, sync is not active because their account got logged out for some reason like a password change or inactivity - and they are completely unaware that sync has stopped. Can you say disasters waiting to happen? That doesn't happen with a Chromebook or the R13, because files you save are (or can easily be) saved directly to your Google Drive (where they are available to any connected, authenticated device). So if your R13 suffered the indignity of Frisbee Golf, crumpled misshapen and askew, you can login using the next available Chromebook and, without data loss or tech help, keep working.
Tablet Mode!
Collecting data for an experiment? Find it more convenient to use a tablet? Don't need a full keyboard or want to use an on-screen keyboard? Open the screen all the way, and your R13 becomes a tablet whose capabilities are rapidly increasing as Chrome OS evolves.
Here are some areas where the R13 falls short and where the outgoing and ongoing MacBooks have a distinct advantage.
Overall build quality!
There is no denying that Apple's hardware is top tier. The MacBook Air is my favorite computer of all time; it is easily the best laptop I ever used. It's smooth, responsive, sleek, and solid. It feels great to the touch. The keyboard and track pad are customizable, and unmatched by the majority of hardware on the market. The R13 is no Apple, though. While parts of the device are aluminum, there's plenty of plastic and a floppiness that reeks of, "Almost, but not quite, low price hardware." The screen hinge struggles to prevent the screen from wobbling when touching the screen unless you are in tablet mode. The track pad is not as smooth as the Apple's, and if you actually click using the track pad, the click sound is decidedly crunchy feeling and cheap sounding. It does not inspire confidence in long term, trouble free operation. The trackpad is lacking to the point where an old Dell USB mouse is a handy usability improvement.
Processor!
The R13's processor works well. Mostly. But some of the emerging tools being released for Chrome, like Linux containers, work with Intel processors, but not the quad core MediaTek powering the R13. That's a major bummer for those who want to experiment with and learn about the future of Chrome OS.
Overall
Do I miss the MacBook Air? No, because I got a great deal on the buyout and now own it. Do I still use the MacBook Air? Occasionally, but it is no longer the first device I reach for. Would I recommend this route for users with similar requirements? Absolutely.
