Acer Chromebook 15 2018 Review: A True Definition of Elegance

Acer Chromebook 15 2018: At First Glance

Looking back to 2011, when Acer sold its first Chromebook, there have been quite a number of releases since then. Also, we have seen a lot of improvement right from the first model up to the most recent model.

However, in this review, we will talk about a 2018 model of Acer Chromebook called the Acer Chromebook 15 2018. As we all know, Chromebooks are cheaper alternatives to low-end laptops that run on other operating systems.

Therefore, it is no surprise that the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 is cheap. Precisely, the laptop sells for $349.99 (price valid as of May 2022 when I wrote this review).

However, since there are so many Chromebooks out there, you might be prompted to ask if this Chromebook is better than others. Ensure you read this review to the end if you want to find out.

Acer Chromebook 15 2018: Design, Display, Ports, and Connectivity

I just couldn’t help but admire Acer’s craftsmanship on the Acer Chromebook 15. To be more specific, the laptop looks sleek, smooth, and stylish despite being inexpensive.

To be honest, there is nothing to frown at regarding this laptop’s look. It has a clean metallic body that does not accumulate fingerprints.

Moreover, due to its metallic body, the laptop should be durable and be able to endure rough handling. Besides, what gives the laptop its eye-catching appearance is its pure silver finish in and out.

Focusing on the lid, a colorful Chrome logo at the top left corner beautifies the Acer Chromebook 15’s lid. There is also an Acer badge in reflective silver color at the center-left of the lid.

Firmly, the lid is attached to the base by one long matte-black hinge. This hinge allows the lid to open up to 180 degrees, so you can spread the laptop flat if you like.

Overall, this laptop’s lid looks sturdy and not like something that will quickly wear out.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. The more interesting features are there waiting, and you will see them when you flip up the laptop’s lid.

Firstly, opening the lid unveils this laptop’s 15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution display.

Even though it’s not a touchscreen, this FHD display employs IPS (In-plane Switching) technology to deliver impressive performance. The IPS technology guarantees good color production and wide viewing angles for a wide room setting.

In addition to that, the display uses Acer’s CineCrystal technology. The CineCrystal technology makes a display look glossy and contributes to its color accuracy and image quality.

However, you may experience some inconvenience using such a display under direct sunlight. That’s because the glossy nature of the display makes it prone to reflection and sun glares.

Another feature of the Acer Chromebook 15’s display is its 16:9 aspect ratio. By aspect ratio, I mean the ratio between the width and height of a display.

Moreover, it might interest you to know that the 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio is the universal standard for displays. However, there are some displays that feature a 4:3 (fullscreen) aspect ratio.

Moving on, the Acer Chromebook 15’s display is surrounded by thick bezels. Although some people may like the thick bezels for providing enough protection around the display, others may hate them.

This is because they mostly cause distraction when watching the display from the sides. Nevertheless, the Acer Chromebook 15’s display’s top bezel has a 720p resolution camera at the center.

This HD camera should capture fairly decent images, provided the environment has enough light. Also, the camera delivers impressive performance for casual video calls with friends and family.

That said, at the base of the Acer Chromebook 15, the first thing you will come across is the keyboard. This keyboard is not particularly wide, and it lacks a dedicated number pad.

However, it has a good layout with enough gaps between the keys. Sadly, the keyboard has shallow key travel, which is to be expected because the Acer Chromebook 15 is quite thin.

Speaking of key travel, it is the total distance between the resting point of a key to when it is fully pressed. So, in the case of the Acer Chromebook 15’s keyboard, it has key travel of 1.4 mm.

Hence, typing on the laptop’s keyboard might not be particularly comfortable. That aside, at the bottom of the keyboard, you will find a touchpad with integrated click buttons.

Thankfully, the touchpad is wide, and due to the absence of dedicated buttons, there is plenty of space to swipe your fingers. Overall, you will enjoy using the touchpad because it is smooth and responsive, and the integrated buttons have adequate feedback.

At this point in this section of the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 review, let us talk about the ports and connectivity. To start with, on the left side of the laptop, you will see one USB 3.1 Type-C port and one USB 3.1 Type-A port.

Interestingly, this USB Type-C port also serves as power input for charging the Chromebook. Meanwhile, the right side of the laptop houses a combo headset/microphone jack, a microSD card slot, another USB Type-A port, and a USB Type-C port.

Despite the numerous ports on this laptop, it still lacks Ethernet and HDMI ports. For wireless connectivity, the Acer Chromebook 15 features Bluetooth 4.2 and a WiFi 5 (802.11ac).

As a final note in this section, I will talk about the dimensions and weight of this laptop and make a few comparisons. Regarding that, the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 measures 378.4 x 256.5 x 19.0 mm (W x D x H).

It also weighs just 1800.7 g. In comparison, the Acer Chromebook CB3-532-C47C measures 383.5 x 256.5 x 24.1 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 1950.4 g.

Hence, the Acer Chromebook CB3-532-532-C47C is bulkier and heavier than the Acer Chromebook 15 2018.

All things considered, I will rate the Acer Chromebook 15 a nine out of ten in this design review section.

Acer Chromebook 15 2018: Processor (CPU) Performance

The Acer Chromebook 15 2018 has a dual-core Intel Celeron N3350 CPU. As a dual-core processor, the Intel Celeron N3350 has two cores where individual tasks can be processed.

You should be aware that the more cores a CPU has, the higher its processing power. Hence, a dual-core processor such as the Intel Celeron N3350 has more processor power than CPUs with a single core.

In addition to its cores, the Intel Celeron N3350 also has 2 MB of cache memory. If you don’t know, cache memory is a small memory that temporarily stores data for fast access by the CPU.

Apart from its cache memory, this laptop’s Intel processor runs at a base frequency of 1.10 GHz and can be boosted to 2.40 GHz. However, because this processor is a low-end processor, the laptop won’t be able to effectively handle demanding workloads.

However, it should work just fine when performing simple tasks like word processing and web browsing.

For more analysis on this processor, let’s take a look at the Acer Chromebook 15’s result in a Cinebench R10 test. Before I talk about the result, let me remind you of what this test does.

Simply put, the Cinebench R10 is a test that measures a CPU’s performance by putting its cores through a series of workloads. While carrying out the given tasks, the test also measures how quickly the CPU is able to complete them.

Thereby, delivering two distinct scores which are the single-core score and the multi-core score. For your information, the single-core score is generated when one of the processor’s cores is put through a series of workloads.

Meanwhile, the multi-core score is generated when all the processor’s cores are put through a series of workloads. Besides, a high single-core and multi-core score on the Cinebench R10 test indicates fast and good processor performance.

So, back to the test result, the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 delivered a single-core score of 1490 points. Also, it recorded a multi-core score of 2654 points on the test.

Comparatively, the Acer Chromebook CB3-532-C47C, which uses an Intel Celeron N3060 CPU, has a better processor performance. Specifically, on the Cinebench R10 test, this laptop delivered an 1800 points single-core score and 3426 points multi-core test.

Therefore, considering the test results above, I will rate the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 a seven out of ten in this processor review section.

Acer Chromebook 15 2018: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Acer Chromebook 15 2018 has one RAM slot and comes with a 4 GB LPDDR4 RAM stick on the slot. Sadly, 4 GB is also the maximum RAM capacity that the laptop supports.

Therefore, you will not be able to upgrade the laptop’s memory beyond 4 GB. Nevertheless, 4 GB RAM should be fairly enough for this laptop since its Chrome OS is not all that resource-heavy.

In fact, this memory size should allow you to perform some light multitasking on the laptop. Speaking of which, you should be able to stream an HD video and run 5 Chrome tabs simultaneously on the laptop without experiencing too much lag.

However, switching between the Chrome tabs might make the laptop’s performance slow down a bit.

At this point, it would have been nice to offer a benchmark test result based on the laptop’s memory. However, I was unable to obtain an appropriate benchmark result for this Chromebook.

This is because Chromebooks run on Chrome OS, and Chrome OS doesn’t support most benchmark test tools. Therefore, I will be rating the Acer Chromebook 15 based on its RAM size and multitasking performance.

In that case, I will rate the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 a seven out of ten in this section of the review.

Acer Chromebook 15 2018: Storage Options and Performance

Coming to storage, the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 features 32 GB eMMC. Sadly, because eMMC is a type of storage that is usually embedded into a computer’s motherboard, this laptop’s 32 GB of storage space cannot be upgraded.

Although this amount of storage space is quite limited, the laptop features an SD card reader for storage expansion. Besides, Chromebooks are intended to store files mainly on Google Drive storage instead of their local eMMC storage.

This is because, by default, Chromebooks come with 15 GB of free Google Drive cloud storage. In addition to the 15 GB cloud storage, Chromebooks also offer an additional 100 GB of Google Drive cloud storage space free for 1 year.

However, you can only access this additional 100 GB of storage after activating your Google Drive Space.

Having said that, it would have been nice to share with you the CrystalDiskMark test result for this laptop’s storage. Unfortunately, this test doesn’t support eMMC – it only supports SSD and HDD.

For this reason, I was unable to obtain the CrystalDisMark test result for the Acer Chromebook 15 2018. Therefore, I will be rating the laptop based on its storage options and capacity.

Hence, I rate the laptop an eight out of ten in this storage review section.

Acer Chromebook 15 2018: Graphics Card Performance

The Acer Chromebook 15 2018 comes with an integrated Intel HD Graphics 500 GPU. This integrated graphics card has a base frequency of 200 MHz and a boost frequency of 650 MHz.

However, as an integrated GPU, the laptop’s graphics card is built into the processor. Thus, it shares the system memory with the CPU so as to carry out graphics-related operations.

Due to this, the laptop will not be able to effectively handle graphics-demanding apps like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw. Also, the laptop will not be able to play high-end games smoothly.

Nevertheless, simple Android games such as Crossword Fun and Sudoku should work just fine on the Acer Chromebook 15 2018.

For more information on the laptop’s GPU capability, I will highlight its WebGL Aquarium test result. In brief, the WebGL Aquarium test is a web-based benchmark test that measures the graphics rendering capability of the computer’s graphics card.

It does this by displaying numerous 3D fish and calculating the frame rate at which the GPU can render a particular amount of fish. Obviously, achieving a higher frame rate in this test indicates a good graphics rendering performance.

Impressively, the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 was able to display 500 fish at a decent 51 frames per second (fps). This frame rate beats the category average of 39 fps.

However, compared with the Acer Chromebook CB3-532-C47C’s 56 fps, the laptop’s frame rate is slightly low. It is worth mentioning that the Acer Chromebook CB3-532-C47C uses the same graphics card as the Acer Chromebook 15 2018.

All in all, I will rate the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 a seven out of ten in this GPU review section.

Acer Chromebook 15 2018: Battery Life and Performance

Acer fortified the Chromebook 15 2018 with a 4-cell 3220 mAh Li-Po battery. According to Acer, this battery should last up to 12 hours on a single charge.

That’s impressive, isn’t it? However, we don’t just rely on a manufacturer’s claim.

Rather, we confirm using various tests. In this case, we will be looking into the laptop’s result on a web surfing test to verify its battery life.

Besides, this test involves surfing the internet continuously on the laptop till its battery quits. Also, during the test, the laptop’s brightness level is set to 50%.

So, at the end of the test, the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 delivered a battery life of 9 hours and 7 minutes. Although not up to Acer’s 12 hours claim, this laptop’s battery life is really impressive and can last a full day.

Moreover, compared with the HP Chromebook 11a, the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 has longer battery life. Specifically, on the same web surfing test, the HP Chromebook 11a delivered a battery life of 8 hours and 58 minutes.

All things considered, I will rate the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 a nine out of ten in the battery review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

As with most Chromebooks, the Acer Chromebook 15 2018 offers enough power to handle basic computing tasks. Also, the laptop features a sleek design with a lightweight build.

That’s not all; the Chromebook offers multiple storage options, including a whopping 100 GB of Google Drive cloud storage. Moreover, the laptop has an impressive battery life that can last a whole day.

However, the Acer Chromebook 15 2018’s memory cannot be upgraded beyond 4 GB. Additionally, the laptop cannot handle complex tasks due to its low-end CPU and limited memory.

Nonetheless, if you need an inexpensive Chromebook for office-related tasks or classroom work, you should consider the Acer Chromebook 15 2018.

I hope you found this Acer Chromebook 15 2018 review helpful. If you found the review helpful, click on “Yes” beside the “Was this page helpful” question below.

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Finally, for more Chromebook reviews, visit our Chromebook Reviews page. You may also find our Laptop Specs page very helpful.