Acer R13 Chromebook 13.3' 2-in-1 FHD IPS Touchscreen - Intel Quad-Core MediaTek MT8173C 2.1GHz, 4GB RAM, 64GB SSD, HDMI, Bluetooth, Chrome OS (Renewed)

This laptop is amazing. Maybe I've suffered through the era of massive 17" laptops for too long, but this laptop is a real game changer. The touchscreen works perfectly and so does the touchpad. I've never had a touchscreen and I really like it. Being able to extend my arm(s) to scroll and interact via the screen vice a mouse or touchpad is really nice.The quality of the laptop is top notch. I feels like an aluminum brick but ti's still pretty light. The designers clearly put some engineering effort into the screen hinge because it holds its position no matter what - making the "A-frame" position no problem. Using the laptop as a tablet is also a real novelty. I don't use this mode too often but it does have its time and place.As far software and hardware. This laptop runs Chrome OS, very similar to your typical Android-powered phone. Not a big jump for me since I have a Pixel phone. It has 4 GB of RAM and a 64 GB SSD. Very good stats for such a small package. I do a lot of cloud based computing (e.g., remote Jupyter notebooks) so I can't speak to how it runs any demanding software yet. You have to enable Linux (beta version for now) to use a typical Linux terminal, otherwise you can try to use the CHRome SHell (crosh). It has essentially zero portability to your typical linux environment so I recommend just enabling linux. I had to go into some deep settings and enable a software flag since the option wasn't in my settings though. Just ask Google. Google Play is installed by default and I've found most apps I need there.I LOVE that this laptop still has things like the USB C port (same as my Pixel, conveniently), one USB port, one HDMI port, and your typical 3.5 mm audio jack. There's also a microSD slot for you RaspberryPi enthusiasts. The only marginal complaint I have is that the keyboard keys are somewhat small, but that's to be expected from a small form-factor laptop. There's also no delete, home, or end buttons for you keyboard shortcut enthusiasts. Minor inconvenience but I think the touchscreen more than compensates for it.Overall, I definitely recommend this product. Light, portable, compatible, great battery life so far (~12 hours per charge).

Despite being called an R13, this Chromebook seems to be unrelated to the Acer R11, which I upgraded from. The hinges of the latter have been replaced with a single long hinge, this Chromebook uses an ARM chip (similar to those used for high end cellphones), the ports have been modernized (it charges using a USB-C port, also like your cellphone!), and the cheap plasticy look for the R11 is gone, replaced by a faux aluminium (but still plastic in reality) case.The latter belies the only real problem I have with this, which is its still cheaply made, a budget laptop and I don't know if it'll last longer than the R11 I had, which had I/O problems from the start, and had more major problems a little over a year afterwards. The screen wobbles when you type (and more when you touch it!) The keys sometimes seem to miss presses - not often, but enough to be annoying.On the positive side: the screen is beautiful and really high quality. ChromeOS continues to get better and, like the R11, this version supports Android apps and Crostini (albeit many binaries are difficult to get hold of due to the ARM64 architecture) - the latter means ChromeOS isn't the locked down browser-only OS it started as. You can do software development. run LibreOffice, and more thanks to that feature.Performance is good too. I tried a few Android games and they worked better in the higher resolution than they did on my lower resolution/smaller screen R11.I think the negatives are worth overlooking considering the price, and I'd also recommend it over the R11.

I can't speak to the details of Chromebooks. I don't like them; I'm a PC person. So when my child needed a laptop for remote learning, that's what I got after struggling with a useless Chromebook in the spring for a week before returning it. However, the Dell I bought my child was not capable of running Google meet. It hogged too many of its limited resources and crashed every time. So I ended up with this Chromebook, and it's worked like a dream! My only issue with it is that I can't easily switch accounts, no matter what instructions on the Internet says, it doesn't give me that option. I wanted a separate account for my child (separate from the managed school account), so he could run other apps not allowed by his school (since it's our device and not theirs). But there is no option to easily switch and since he's 6, I didn't want the switch to be difficult for him. But the primary thing I needed it to do - run his google meets - it does and it does perfectly.

Initially the Chromebook seemed to be exactly what I was looking for, but the more I used it the less happy I was with it. It wound up being bigger than I really wanted, which I could live with, but frankly the unit's functionality as a tablet is sub-par. The screen doesn't autorotate correctly and the onscreen keyboard kept popping up when I was using it in computer mode. Over all it simply was not at all what I hoped it would be. Neither a well functioning laptop nor a large tablet, just a poor attempt at both. I will mention however, that I was quite happy with the seller and their prompt, pleasant responses to my return inquiries.

This chromebook does everything I need it to do. I love the crossover apps between my phone and chromebook.Many people said the negative was that I would need internet to use my chromebook, Once I stopped and thought about it, I realized that I almost never used my laptop whole not connected to the internet. As it turned out you will not need the internet to use this device. It has enough memory for apps that work offline . I recommend this to the majority of computer users out there. Not for heavy computer use but many lap tops aren't either.

Everything seems to work well. I'm a Chromebook fan of 3+ years. Only complaint is I wish Google would make a PC operating system as well so I could ditch Windows forever.