Acer Chromebook 315 Review: An Affordable Sleek Laptop

Acer Chromebook 315: At First Glance

As most people know, Chromebooks are getting increasingly popular among students. This is because they offer adequate performance for basic computing tasks and are very affordable.

Well, the Acer Chromebook 315 isn’t any different from other Chromebooks out there. To give more details, this laptop offers decent performance and comes with an inexpensive price tag of just $154.99.

However, this price tag was accurate as of the time I wrote this review in December 2021. Thus, the price may have changed when you’re reading this review.

Do you want to find out more about the Acer Chromebook 315? If yes, then you have to read through the remainder of this review.

Acer Chromebook 315: Design, Dimensions, and Weight

To start with, the Acer Chromebook 315 comes with a fairly basic design. This is not surprising though as Chromebooks are low-budget laptops basically meant for students.

However, we have seen a few Chromebooks with a premium look and feel.

That said, the chassis of the Acer Chromebook 315 is quite slim and is made of aluminum. To add to that, the laptop’s chassis feels smooth and sturdy due to its aluminum build.

Moving on, the laptop comes with a silver-finish lid that is attached to the laptop with two hinges. Furthermore, there is an Acer logo at the top-right edge of the laptop’s lid.

However, there is noticeable flex when you push the lid even a little bit. This is something expected though as lids on most Chromebooks and a few expensive laptops flex when pushed.

Therefore, with the noticeable flex present on the Acer Chromebook 315, it is only advisable to handle the laptop with care. If you are careful in handling the laptop, then you will have nothing to worry about.

Moving on, when you open the laptop’s lid, you will be greeted by black plastic bezels surrounding the screen. However, these bezels are relatively wide.

Nevertheless, the bezels aren’t so bulky to the extent that they will obstruct you from viewing the screen well. Speaking of the screen, the Acer Chromebook 315 comes with a 15-inch display screen.

Chromebooks’ displays are not usually this huge, but it’s really nice to have the extra screen space. Moreover, the laptop’s display features an HD (1366 x 768) resolution that allows it offers decent picture quality.

In addition to that, this laptop’s display has impressive viewing angles. Thus, viewing the display from different angles won’t be an issue.

That’s not all though, the display also has an impressive brightness. To give more details, the laptop’s display has a maximum brightness of 261 nits.

That said, above the Acer Chromebook 315’s display, you will find an HD webcam that has a green light on the side to notify when it is active. Sadly, the video quality of this webcam is somewhat poor.

Proceeding to the keyboard, I consider the Acer Chromebook 315’s keyboard as one of its weakest features. While key travel is decent, the keys on the keyboard feel really spongy and this results in an unsatisfactory typing experience. 

If you’re wondering what key travel means, it is the distance a key on a keyboard dip when you press the key.

On a more positive note, this Acer laptop’s keyboard has a backlight feature. Therefore, you will be able to type seamlessly in the dark or in a dimly-lit environment.

For the trackpad, the Acer Chromebook 315’s trackpad is positioned off-center beneath the keyboard. I find this position somewhat awkward.

However, the trackpad performs just like you would expect. Specifically, the trackpad is very sensitive, precise, and has decent key travel.

Having said all that, let’s now discuss the ports and connectivity of the Acer Chromebook 315. This Acer laptop features two USB Type-C ports on the left side as well as the power port.

On the right side, however, there are two USB Type-A ports, a microSD card slot, and a headphone jack. However, this laptop lacks some essential ports like an Ethernet port, Thunderbolt port, and HDMI port.

The absence of these ports can be forgiven though, considering the super-cheap price tag of the laptop.

About the weight, the Acer Chromebook 315 weighs around 1800 g. This weight is fairly hefty, but you should still be able to lift up the laptop with one hand.

In comparison, this laptop weighs slightly less than the Lenovo IdeaPad S145 15API which weighs 1850 g. However, the Acer Chromebook 315 is quite hefty when compared to the ASUS Vivobook 15 F512 which weighs 1587.57 g.

In terms of dimensions/size, the Acer Chromebook 315 measures 380.5 x 256.3 x 19.95 mm (W x D x H). Comparatively, this laptop is quite slimmer and portable than the Lenovo Ideapad S145 15API which measures 389.9 x 265.2 x 19.9 mm.

In conclusion, this laptop offers a fairly decent design and build quality for a low-cost laptop. Hence, I will rate the Acer Chromebook 315 an eight out of ten in this design review section.

Acer Chromebook 315: Processor (CPU) Performance

In terms of processor, the Acer Chromebook 315 comes with two processor options. To give more details, there are some models of the laptop that comes with an AMD processor while some feature an Intel processor.

However, this review is based on the Acer Chromebook 315 that features an AMD processor. To be more specific, this review laptop comes with a 2-core AMD A4-9120C processor with 1 MB cache memory.

Furthermore, this processor has a base frequency of 1.60 GHz and a boost frequency of 2.40 GHz

Equipped with the 2-core AMD A4-9120C, this Acer Chromebook is adequate for basic computing tasks like word processing and web browsing. However, the laptop lacks the ability to execute heavy computing tasks or multitask.

In fact, during my research, I was able to find out that this laptop can only work smoothly with six Chrome tabs opened. Additionally, these chrome tabs may include video streaming on YouTube.

With that being said, it is fair to say that with the AMD processor, the Acer Chromebook 315 is far from being a powerful machine. However, it is important to remember that this is an incredibly cheap laptop and in fact a Chromebook.

That said, now let me share a Geekbench test result of the processor performance of the Acer Chromebook 315. Geekbench is a benchmark test that measures the overall processing performance of a laptop.

Additionally, the higher the score on the benchmark test, the better the performance of the laptop’s CPU. Thus, based on the Geekbench test result, the Acer Chromebook 315 scored 1493 points.

This score is not entirely bad for a laptop with an AMD processor. However, when compared to the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436, which uses an Intel processor, Acer Chromebook 315 performed less.

Specifically, the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 scored 2586 points according to the Geekbench test result.

In conclusion, I will be rating the Acer Chromebook 315 a seven out of ten in this review section.

Acer Chromebook 315: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Acer Chromebook 315 features a 4 GB DDR4 SDRAM on its single memory slot. Moreover, the 4 GB RAM is the maximum memory the laptop supports.

Thus, you cannot upgrade the memory of this laptop to more than 4 GB. However, it is not surprising to see that the max memory capacity of the laptop is small.

This is because Chromebooks are designed to handle fewer memory-demanding tasks. Also, they come with ChromeOS which is really light and less memory demanding.

Thus, even with the 4 GB RAM, the Acer Chromebook 315 should be competent for handling day-to-day computing tasks, and light multitasking.

Delving into its performance and how it handles multitasking, this Acer Chromebook can only open a few applications concurrently. For instance, the laptop should be able to open about ten chrome browser tabs while running apps like Spotify and Google Docs.

For further verification of the laptop’s memory performance, I will now include the benchmark performance test results. Specifically, the benchmark test is a PCMark for Android which is a tool that tests the performance of a device under office-related workload.

Furthermore, a high score on this benchmark test indicates a better performance. According to this benchmark test results, the Acer Chromebook scored 9447 points.

This score is actually okay but it isn’t enough to beat the score achieved by the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436. Specifically, the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 scored 9932 points on the benchmark test.

Lastly, in this memory review section, I will be rating the Acer Chromebook 315 a seven out of ten.

Acer Chromebook 315: Storage Options and Performance

In terms of storage, the Acer Chromebook 315 comes with an eMMC storage drive with 64 GB storage capacity. Many may find 64 GB storage space to be too small to save their documents, games, videos, and songs.

The good news is that the laptop features a microSD card reader for storage expansion. With that, you will be able to save more files on the laptop.

Besides, the Acer Chromebook 315, like any other Chromebook offers a free 100GB of Google Cloud Storage. You can click on this link to find out how you can activate this free Google Cloud storage on your Chromebook.

I ought to include a CrystalDiskMark test result in this section based on the Acer Chromebook 315’s storage drive. However, Crystaldiskmark doesn’t support an eMMC storage drive.

It only supports Solid-state drive (SSD) and Hard disk drive (HDD). Therefore, I will be rating the laptop based on the availability of storage space and options.

Hence, I will rate the Acer Chromebook 315 an eight out of ten in this storage review section.

Acer Chromebook 315: Graphics Card Performance

The built-in GPU that comes with the Acer Chromebook 315 is an AMD Radeon R4 Graphics. This graphics card runs at a boost GPU frequency of 600 MHz.

To add to that, this graphics card is an integrated graphics card. This implies that the graphics card is embedded in the CPU of the laptop.

As a result, the graphics card lacks dedicated VRAM. Therefore, it shares the laptop’s memory – the 4 GB memory we already discussed in the memory review section – with the CPU to function.

For this reason, the GPU will not be able to run graphic-demanding tasks or games. However, the graphics card will smoothly run most android games like Asphalt 8 because they are usually less graphics-demanding.

I should include benchmark test results in this GPU review section, as we normally do at www.itechguides.com. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a benchmark test result during my research.

In conclusion, the Acer Chromebook 315’s GPU is just enough for playing android games. Hence, I will rate the laptop a six out of ten in this GPU review section.

Acer Chromebook 315: Battery Life and Performance

When it comes to the battery, a 3-cell Lithium-ion 4670 mAh battery powers the Acer Chromebook 315. Furthermore, Acer claims that this battery can last up to 10 hours.

However, it is hard to believe manufacturers’ claims nowadays. Therefore, I conducted thorough research to confirm this claim.

During my research, I discovered a piece of information about the battery life of the laptop from a battery rundown test. The battery rundown test involved looping a 4K video till the laptop dies, while its brightness is set to the medium level.

According to this battery rundown test result, the Acer Chromebook 315 lasted for 6 hours. This battery life may not be particularly great, but it will suffice for most students.

Moreover, even though the laptop’s battery life isn’t up to the 10 hours that Acer claimed, it is still better than most Chromebooks available. For example, the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 lasted only 5 hours and 2 minutes based on the same battery rundown test.

Therefore, I will rate the Acer Chromebook 315 an eight out of ten in this battery review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The Acer Chromebook 315 is a good option for people or students who are on a tight budget and looking for a laptop to perform basic tasks. Moreover, this laptop features an impressive 15.6-inch display screen that has HD resolution.

However, the laptop has some major shortcomings. These shortcomings include its poor keyboard and lack of essential ports like Ethernet port.

Also, this laptop comes with a poor graphics card that is limited to running only Andriod games. Overall, as long as you are sticking to basic tasks like web browsing, word processing, and light multitasking, the Acer Chromebook 315 should serve you well.

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