rat
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2008
- Messages
- 4,915
Just some general notes and impressions with the Acer C7 Chromebook.
Picked one up to replace my aging Aspire One netbook, first gen Atom CPU and capped at 1.5GB of Ram. The netbook served me perfectly well for in the bed browsing but the lack of ram was becoming a problem. Browers were crashing too often when I was trying to keep tabs open.
$199. C7 Chromebook. Dualcore Celeron 1.1Ghz CPU that is based off the Sandy Bridge procs. 2GB Ram. Expandable to 16GB. 320GB Hard Drive. Can chainboot Ubuntu. Seemed worth a try.
The build quality on this thing is actually pretty fantastic considering the cost. I rank it above my netbook's build and that's a first gen thing, usually they overbuild for those and cut back/slim down later on.
One single screw secures the bottom panel. Unscrew it and slide the entire panel off. Access to 2nd, unpopulated, memory socket, 7.5mm SATA hard drive, CPU cooler, wifi card, etc. Usual laptop guts. Takes DDR3 1066/1333 ram. HD can be swapped for an SSD. ChromeOS restore does not distinguish original hardware and you can easily restore it once the drive is replaced.
The CPU is no slouch. Best estimates based on benchmarks is that it's roughly equivalent to a 1.6Ghz Core2Duo. Almost never gets warm. Even at its hottest it's still cooler than the Atom netbook under load.
Chicklet keyboards continue to suck. Trackpad is a giant button and uses multitouch to distinguish between left and right clicks. Hate two finger clicking for right clicks, two finger scrolling is handy.
Netbook got to the point (due to the ever increasing complexity of video streams and compression) to where it could no longer play 480 streams fluidly. Even 320 sometimes had issues. Chromebook does 720 without breaking a sweat.
Local 1080p playback is no issue whatsoever.
Backlight is uneven and bleeds at the bottom. Color gamut is slightly muted. Not severe enough for me to complain. General tones are accurate, greys are grey without hint of coloring. Backlight is painfully bright. I have it set to 10% and could probably go lower.
The main motivation for getting the Chromebook was on the road gaming. Since I chainbooted Ubuntu on this system, this meant giving Steam for Linux a try.
TF2 runs okay. Turning stuff off helps a lot. Since I play on some pretty frantic multiplayer servers, I opted to go for maximum performance.
It actually does pretty well without looking too terrible. Onboard is an Intel HD 2000 GPU.
Screenshot example: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/577858410409529700/058CF0B0102CB7DCBCAC241FFD9F34A29A96E6B0/
Other, simpler, games like Closure, Shank 2, Spirits, Splice, Zen Bound 2, World of Goo, Braid, Limbo, etc... all play quite well. (Yes. They're all Humble Bundle games.)
Wifi in this thing is probably the best I've ever seen. It picks up APs I would struggle to see even if I was standing outside the house with my phone.
This is a damned good laptop/netbook. If I end up having anyone ask me what they should get and they end up only needing something to get online, check email, watch Netflix... I'll tell them to just get a Chromebook. ChromeOS is perfect for that.
For $199? It's pretty much worth getting just because.
Picked one up to replace my aging Aspire One netbook, first gen Atom CPU and capped at 1.5GB of Ram. The netbook served me perfectly well for in the bed browsing but the lack of ram was becoming a problem. Browers were crashing too often when I was trying to keep tabs open.
$199. C7 Chromebook. Dualcore Celeron 1.1Ghz CPU that is based off the Sandy Bridge procs. 2GB Ram. Expandable to 16GB. 320GB Hard Drive. Can chainboot Ubuntu. Seemed worth a try.
The build quality on this thing is actually pretty fantastic considering the cost. I rank it above my netbook's build and that's a first gen thing, usually they overbuild for those and cut back/slim down later on.
One single screw secures the bottom panel. Unscrew it and slide the entire panel off. Access to 2nd, unpopulated, memory socket, 7.5mm SATA hard drive, CPU cooler, wifi card, etc. Usual laptop guts. Takes DDR3 1066/1333 ram. HD can be swapped for an SSD. ChromeOS restore does not distinguish original hardware and you can easily restore it once the drive is replaced.
The CPU is no slouch. Best estimates based on benchmarks is that it's roughly equivalent to a 1.6Ghz Core2Duo. Almost never gets warm. Even at its hottest it's still cooler than the Atom netbook under load.
Chicklet keyboards continue to suck. Trackpad is a giant button and uses multitouch to distinguish between left and right clicks. Hate two finger clicking for right clicks, two finger scrolling is handy.
Netbook got to the point (due to the ever increasing complexity of video streams and compression) to where it could no longer play 480 streams fluidly. Even 320 sometimes had issues. Chromebook does 720 without breaking a sweat.
Local 1080p playback is no issue whatsoever.
Backlight is uneven and bleeds at the bottom. Color gamut is slightly muted. Not severe enough for me to complain. General tones are accurate, greys are grey without hint of coloring. Backlight is painfully bright. I have it set to 10% and could probably go lower.
The main motivation for getting the Chromebook was on the road gaming. Since I chainbooted Ubuntu on this system, this meant giving Steam for Linux a try.
TF2 runs okay. Turning stuff off helps a lot. Since I play on some pretty frantic multiplayer servers, I opted to go for maximum performance.
It actually does pretty well without looking too terrible. Onboard is an Intel HD 2000 GPU.
Screenshot example: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/577858410409529700/058CF0B0102CB7DCBCAC241FFD9F34A29A96E6B0/
Other, simpler, games like Closure, Shank 2, Spirits, Splice, Zen Bound 2, World of Goo, Braid, Limbo, etc... all play quite well. (Yes. They're all Humble Bundle games.)
Wifi in this thing is probably the best I've ever seen. It picks up APs I would struggle to see even if I was standing outside the house with my phone.
This is a damned good laptop/netbook. If I end up having anyone ask me what they should get and they end up only needing something to get online, check email, watch Netflix... I'll tell them to just get a Chromebook. ChromeOS is perfect for that.
For $199? It's pretty much worth getting just because.