Acer’s adds a chubster to its burgeoning Chromebook range
The number of Chromebooks available is increasing rapidly, though many of them are just too small for me to use on a regular basis. For those who crave a bigger keyboard and screen, Acer has now released the C910, a Chromebook for the distinctly harder working Chrome OS fan.
Picking the C910 up for the first time, you’d be easily forgiven for thinking it was a low-cost PC running Windows. And given the technical specification, that option probably isn’t as implausible as it would be with other Chromebook designs.
The C910 is built around the Broadwell dual-core Intel Celeron 3205U 1.5GHz and comes with 4GB of RAM and 16GB of SSD storage. That might seem a modest amount for local file storage, but Chrome OS is primarily a cloud environment, where your documents are centrally secured online.
However, the biggest selling point for me was the 15.6” screen, big enough for document work even if it’s only a 1366 x 768 resolution on this version.
However, the downside of all this powerful and useful gear is that this is also the heaviest Chromebook I’ve reviewed, at a hefty 2.19kg.
That’s a mild disappointment, even if Acer did exceed my expectations by including 802.11ac wi-fi, a webcam and enough battery capacity to deliver a realistic nine-hours of use.
Where this design is a revelation is in the performance available, because as Chromebooks go, this one seemed rocket assisted compared with others. Web content is painted rapidly and smoothly, YouTube streams cleanly, and moving between apps is all but instantaneous. As a Chrome device, it’s a dream.
While the trackpad on the C910 is fine and large, adding a mouse through one of the included USB ports can turn this into a much more fluid experience, especially if you’re required to tag multiple files or organise contents.
For those with a monitor handy, it’s possible to hook it up through HDMI and work at a higher resolution or even use multi-display mode.
Features like this underline how the Chrome OS is now maturing and how you can use it to do many of the things you’d normally associate with a Windows PC. That said, there are some places that even the C910 falls down, specifically playing certain video file formats and editing large video files or still images. These are domains where a Windows PC is still king.
The C910 is also devoid of any upgrade potential, with the single exception of an SD card slot. While I understand the idea of additional storage is at odds with Chrome OS, allowing owners to make some enhancements would make this hardware seem distinctly more like a PC.
A more curious choice Acer made was the texture that it placed on the casing, which I assume was meant to look like carbon fibre. It does briefly, when you first unpack the machine, but not long after it becomes a haven for dust and marks that soon make it look rather abused.
Along with the weight and texturing, the other disappointment of the C910 is the keyboard. Given the amount of space available, it seems unnecessarily cramped, isn’t backlit, and it doesn’t have the positive key travel needed for rapid typing. Although adaption to it may be possible, I didn’t immediately warm to that critical part of the design.
But the bigger issue here is that the larger screen and increased computing power has a cost, and one that elevates the C910 into the same space as some of the cheaper Windows PCs. For another £70, you can get machines like the Lenovo G50-70, which offers a Core i3 CPU, Windows 8.1 and 500GB of internal storage. You can still run Chrome on these, but they also have access to the Windows ecosystem, critically.
Where the C910 wins out is that the machine will go a working day on a single battery charge, and switching from it to your next Chromebook only requires you to input your Google account information and password.
That last point is the distinct advantage that Chromebooks, and the C910 in particular, has successfully gained for itself, because while Microsoft is making strides towards cloudbased account transfers, it will never be as elegant as it can be under Android or Chrome OS.
What Acer needs to do is work on shedding half a kilogram or more off the C910, make a superior keyboard and find a better way to detail the surface, and it'll have a winner.
For those who just want a decent platform for Chrome, at this price the C910 is a major notch up from the Atom-based notebooks and easily worth what Acer is asking for it. Mark Pickavance
A big Chromebook with excellent performance.
Specifications
• Intel Celeron dual-core processor 3205U (1.5 GHZ).
• 4 GB DDR3L SDRAM.
• 16 GB solid-state drive.
• 15.6" HD Screen, Intel HD Graphics.
• Up to nine-hour battery life.