Acer R11 Chromebook Review: An Affordable 2-in-1 Chromebook

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Acer R11 Chromebook: At First Glance

As a lot of people know, Chromebooks are getting increasingly popular day by day. This is because they offer sufficient performance for basic computing tasks and are very affordable.

Well, the Acer R11 Chromebook isn’t particularly different from other Chromebooks out there. To give more details, this laptop comes with an inexpensive price tag of just $341.00 as of December 2021, when I wrote this article.

Impressively, despite this inexpensive price tag, this Chromebook features a touchscreen display, 360-degree hinges, and an excellent battery life.

Are these features enough to convince buyers to get this laptop? To find out, you’ll have to read this review to the end!

Acer R11 Chromebook: Design, Dimensions, and Weight

To begin with, the Acer R11 Chromebook has a very simple design. This is not surprising, given that Chromebooks are typically inexpensive.

Thus, manufacturers tend to manage costs and feature basic designs on their Chromebooks.

That said, the Acer R11 Chromebook features a plastic chassis that has a matte-white finish. Impressively, this laptop’s chassis feels smooth and sturdy despite being made of plastic.

Moreover, the lid of this laptop gives it a little bit of elegance. To be more specific, the lid features an “Acer” logo on the top-left corner.

That’s not all; the lid also has a colorful Chrome logo brilliantly placed also on the top-left corner. On the downside, there is noticeable flex when you push the lid even a little bit.

Upon opening this lid, you will be greeted by an 11.6-inch touchscreen display. This display has an HD (1,366 x 768) screen resolution and delivers decent picture quality.

Impressively, this HD touchscreen display is surrounded by somewhat thin bezels. Also, on the bottom bezel, there is a shiny “Acer” logo finely placed in the middle.

That said, the Acer R11 Chromebook’s 11.6-inch display features In-Plane Switching (IPS) display technology. This display technology allows a display to deliver excellent viewing angles.

Thus, contents will remain accurate and colorful on the display even when viewed from extreme angles. This is particularly useful for the Acer R11 Chromebook since it is a convertible laptop.

Hence, when using the laptop as a tablet, the picture quality of the display screen won’t reduce. On the downside, the Acer R11 Chromebook’s 11.6-inch touchscreen display isn’t bright enough.

To give more details, the display has a maximum brightness of just 192 nits. With this max brightness, the Acer R11 Chromebook won’t be ideal for use in a sunny or well-lit environment.

Proceeding to the keyboard, the Acer R11 Chromebook features the standard PC keyboard. However, this keyboard isn’t back-lit and it features shallow key travel.

Thus, typing on this laptop won’t particularly be a fun experience. For clarity, key travel is the distance between a key’s resting point and fully pressed position.

On a positive note, the Acer R11 Chromebook features a spacious touchpad exactly below its keyboard. Moreover, this touchpad is very sensitive to touch, and it supports multi-touch input.

Also, unlike the keyboard, the touchpad’s integrated click buttons feature decent key travel.

Moving to the ports, the Acer Chromebook R11 doesn’t feature so many ports due to its compact size. To give more details, the left of the laptop houses only a power jack, an SD card slot, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 port.

The right side of the laptop, however, features a USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, and a Kensington lock slot. For wireless connectivity, the Acer R11 Chromebook comes with 802.11 WIFI and Bluetooth 4.0.

The Acer R11 Chromebook is definitely one of the most portable and lightest laptops out there. Specifically, this laptop measures 294 x 204 x 19.20 mm (W x D x H) and weighs just 1250 g.

Comparatively, the Acer R11 Chromebook is more portable and lighter than the Dell Chromebook 11. To be more specific, the Dell Chromebook 11 measures 303.3 x 206.0 x 20.7 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 1319.9 g.

In summary, although the Acer R11 Chromebook does not have a premium design, its design is still decent. Also, this laptop is lighter and more portable than most of its competitors.

However, the laptop features a small number of ports. Also, its display screen isn’t bright enough.

Notwithstanding, I believe the Acer R11 Chromebook deserves an eight out of ten rating in this design review section.

Acer R11 Chromebook: Processor (CPU) Performance

When it comes to processing power, the Acer R11 Chromebook makes use of a 4-core Intel Celeron N3160 CPU. This processor features a 1.60 GHz base frequency and a 2.24 GHz boost frequency.

In addition to that, the processor also comes with a 2 MB cache memory.

That said, with this processor, the Acer R11 Chromebook will deliver excellent performance for basic tasks like web browsing. However, the laptop might encounter a few issues when executing heavy computing tasks or heavy multitasking.

To give you a clear detail on how this laptop can perform with this processor, I will now share its result on a Geekbench test. If you are curious, Geekbench is a benchmark test that calculates the overall processing performance of a computer.

Additionally, a high score on this benchmark test indicates good performance. Thus, on the Geekbench test, the Acer R11 Chromebook delivered a score of 3,305 points.

Impressively, this score is well above the category average of 2,000 points. In fact, when compared to the ASUS Chromebook Flip C302, the Acer R11 Chromebook performed way better.

To be more specific, on the Geekbench test, the ASUS Chromebook Flip C302 managed to score only 2,586 points. It is worth noting that the ASUS Chromebook Flip C302 features an Intel Pentium 4405Y processor.

In conclusion, with its Intel Celeron N3160 processor, the Acer R11 Chromebook is limited to simple computing tasks. However, the laptop performed significantly better than one of its closest rivals on a CPU benchmark test.

Thus, I will be rating the Acer R11 Chromebook a seven out of ten in this CPU review section.

Acer R11 Chromebook: Memory (RAM) Performance Review

The Acer R11 Chromebook comes with a standard memory of 4 GB DDR3L SDRAM in its single RAM slot. Sadly, 4 GB RAM is also the maximum memory the laptop supports.

Thus, it is impossible to upgrade the memory of this laptop to more than 4 GB. Notwithstanding, with 4 GB RAM, the Acer R11 Chromebook should be capable of handling day-to-day computing tasks and light multitasking.

Speaking of multitasking, this laptop will be able to run about 10 Chrome tabs simultaneously without lagging. Also, less-intensive apps like Microsoft Word and Spotify should be able to run concurrently on the laptop without slowing down.

That said, for further verification of the Acer R11 Chromebook’s memory performance, I will now include the laptop’s results on a PCMark for Andriod test. PCMark for Android is an application-based benchmark test for measuring how a computer can perform under office-related workloads.

Furthermore, the higher the score on this benchmark test, the better the computer’s performance. So, according to this PCMark for Andriod test results, the Acer R11 Chromebook scored 7580 points.

Although this score is decent and well above the 5,000 points category average, it isn’t enough to beat the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436.

To give more details, on the PCMark for Andriod test, the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 was able to deliver a score of 9,932 points.

To end this memory review section, I will rate the Acer R11 Chromebook a seven out of ten.

Acer R11 Chromebook: Storage Options and Performance

When it comes to storage, the Acer R11 Chromebook features an eMMC storage drive, just like most Chromebook. Moreover, the storage capacity of the eMMC drive that this laptop comes with is 32 GB.

To be honest, 32 GB storage space will be too small for users to save their files, documents, songs, and movies. Thankfully, this laptop comes with a microSD card reader for storage expansion.

Besides, just like most Chromebooks, the Acer R11 Chromebook comes with free 100 GB Google cloud storage. To learn how to activate this free cloud storage on your Chromebook, you can click on this link.

As we do at www.itechguides.com, I ought to share the Acer R11 Chromebook results on the CrystalDiskMark benchmark test, which measures its storage performance. Sadly, the eMMC storage drive that comes with this laptop is not supported by the CrystalDiskMark benchmark test.

To give more details, CrystalDiskMark supports only Solid-state Drive (SSD) and Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Thus, I will be rating the laptop based on the storage options that it offers.

Hence, I will rate the Acer R11 Chromebook an eight out of ten in this storage review section.

Acer R11 Chromebook: Graphics Card Performance

For the graphics card, the Acer R11 Chromebook comes with an integrated Intel HD Graphics 400 GPU. This graphics card runs at a base frequency of 320 MHz and a maximum frequency of 640 MHz.

Also, as an integrated GPU, the Intel HD Graphics 400 shares memory with the CPU to perform graphics-related tasks. Hence, the Acer R11 Chromebook won’t be able to run graphics-demanding apps or modern games.

Notwithstanding, with this GPU, the laptop can play most games on the Google Play store, including Asphalt 8, with ease.

To further prove how good this GPU can perform, I will now highlight the Acer R11 Chromebook’s result on a 3DMark test. Briefly, 3DMark is a benchmark test that measures how well a computer can render 3D graphics.

Furthermore, on this test, a high score indicates a great performance. In other words, the higher the score, the better the performance.

So, based on the 3DMark test results, the Acer R11 Chromebook scored 3305 points. This score is good but it is less than the 5035 points earned by the Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook.  

All things considered, I will rate the Acer R11 Chromebook a six out of ten in this GPU review section.

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Acer R11 Chromebook: Battery Life and Performance

When it comes to the battery, the Acer R11 Chromebook is powered by a 3-cell 3490 mAh battery. Based on Acer’s claim, this laptop should last up to 10 hours.

However, I am smart enough not to trust manufacturers’ claims about their laptops’ battery lives. Therefore, to verify Acer’s claim, I will now share the result of the Acer R11 Chromebook on a battery rundown test.

This battery rundown test includes continuously browsing the web when the laptop’s screen brightness is at 50% till the laptop dies. Interestingly, the Acer R11 Chromebook delivered 7 hours of battery life at the end of this battery rundown test.

This battery life maybe 3 hours below Acer’s actual claim, but it is really impressive. Besides, there are a few Chromebooks that are unable to match or beat the Acer R11 Chromebook’s battery life.

For example, on the same battery rundown test, the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 lasted only 5 hours and 2 minutes.

After thorough consideration, I will rate the Acer R11 Chromebook an eight out of ten in this battery review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The Acer R11 Chromebook is an affordable convertible Chromebook that comes with quite a number of decent features. Specifically, this laptop offers a colorful touchscreen display and an amazing battery life.

Also, the laptop is incredibly light, making it easier to carry around. However, due to its compact size, this laptop features a poor number of ports.

Additionally, the keyboard of this laptop is somewhat disappointing due to its shallow key travel. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for an affordable laptop for basic computing tasks, the Acer R11 Chromebook is worth considering.

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