Budget

Acer Chromebook R 13 2 in 1 Laptop under $ 400

michael smit

October 30, 2016

Chromebooks were introduced in 2011 and took the market by storm. After years of laptop brands trying to catch up to desktop power, Chromebooks went the other direction and offered cheap, lightweight laptops. Years later, Chromebooks are still the leaders when you’re looking for a laptop under $400, and the Acer Chromebook R13 looks to be among the best Chromebooks on the market.

The Acer Chromebook R13 is a 2 in 1 convertible laptop. It’s lightweight and features a 13″ touchscreen. Within the Chromebook brand, it finds a nice middle ground between portability and power. Not only is this one of the best Chromebooks, it’s also one of the best acer laptops on the market.

This lightweight laptop doesn’t feature the sort of power you’d need to run modern games, but it’s got the power you need to be sure you can get work done and never need to worry about your laptop slowing you down. Whether you’re looking for a work laptop to take on the road or a college laptop to throw in your backpack and head to class, this is one of the best laptops under 400 dollars.

Now that we have a basic idea of what this laptop offers, let’s dive into the details.

Performance

Here’s the hardware that comes in the Acer Chromebook R13. It comes with 4GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and a MediaTek MT8173C Core Pilot Quad-Core ARM Processor.

This is very similar hardware with what you can find on smaller laptops with a cheaper price. However, the main difference is the quad-core processor. Mediatek isn’t a well known processor brand, an industry usually dominated by Intel and AMD. But preliminary benchmarks show it running very smooth. Cheap laptop.

The processor is much stronger than those you’ll find in smaller, $200 Chromebooks. You’ll feel this difference when you’re web browsing and the performance is smoother. You’ll notice is when programs load faster and image editing software runs better.

Design

The Acer Chromebook R13 features a 13 inch touchscreen with 1920 x 1080 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ration. The screen features mutli-touch gestures, such as running two fingers down the screen to scroll a page down.

The touchpad also allows for multi-touch gestures. It’s a single button, click anywhere touchpad that many modern laptops have begun using.

This is a 2 in 1 laptop, meaning that the screen flips around to become a tablet. This feature might not sound like much, but it adds a lot to its portability and multiple functionality. I have an Acer convertible laptop and find myself using it as a tablet all the time when I’m not doing serious work.

The Acer Chromebook R13 only comes in Silver, but it’s a color that will probably please most customers. It has an aluminum body and it’s 13″ size allows it to have a full Chromebook keyboard.

Operating System

If you’re seriously considering the Acer Chromebook R13, you need to be aware of what the operating system is on a Chromebook. Chromebook’s run Google’s own Chrome OS which they built from the ground up for their minimalistic, mini laptops.

Chrome OS is a Chrome web based browser which relies on Google Drive, Google Docs, and other similar apps to conduct standard computing tasks. These apps are designed to work online, but you can also set them up to save to your computer so you can use them offline.

Still, it’s important to know that you won’t be able to install many programs you can use on Windows, unless you do some complex alternate OS installations on the Chromebook. You can still work on Word documents, as long as you upload them into Microsoft Word.

All things considered, Chrome OS is a great operating system that’s simple to use and doesn’t have to worry about malware or viruses. It’s simply different, and as long as you’re aware of that it’s a great system to use.

Considerations

There’s not a whole lot negative to say about the Acer Chromebook R13. It’s a solid Chromebook design with good hardware from a proven Chromebook brand. If you’re looking for a lightweight laptop for work or a good laptop under $400 for college, this is an very safe bet.

That being said, if you’re just interested in a convertible laptop or in purchasing the best Chromebook, there are many other Chromebooks with similar hardware that come in 11” varieties. They won’t have quite as much processing power, but plenty enough for basic computing tasks.

Where the Acer Chromebook R13 shines is as a happy medium between a typical lightweight laptop and the best Acer laptops which are used essentially as desktop replacements. This machine isn’t tiny, but it’s certainly not huge. It won’t get you playing modern games, but it’ll never slow you down. Most importantly, it’s design quality is high and it’s cost at under $400 is very affordable.

The Acer Chromebook R13 is one of the best Chromebooks on the market.

Acer Chromebook R 13 2 in 1 Specs

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