Acer Chromebook 11.6" Review

The Acer Chromebook 311 is a cheap, tiny laptop. It's built for one thing: getting online and doing basic schoolwork. With Chrome OS, it boots fast and stays simple, but you're getting exactly what you pay for here.

The AMD 4500 CPU and 4GB of RAM are fine for a dozen Chrome tabs and Google Docs. That's it. The 11.6-inch screen is small and the 1366x768 resolution is low, ranking in the bottom 3% for screens. The 192GB eMMC storage is also in the bottom 10%. Don't even think about gaming or photo editing.

At $239, it's one of the cheapest new laptops you can find. You're trading everything for that price: screen quality, performance headroom, and storage. It's a value only if your needs are extremely basic and your budget is rock-bottom.

Don't compare this to a MacBook Pro or a gaming laptop. That's silly. For a student on a tight budget, look at used Windows laptops or older iPads. They'll offer more flexibility. If you're locked into the Chromebook world, spending a bit more on a model with 8GB of RAM and a 1080p screen is a massive upgrade.

Buy this only if you need the absolute cheapest, most portable device for checking email, writing papers, and browsing the web. It's a one-trick pony, and that trick is being affordable. For anyone else, the compromises are too big.