Acer Chromebook Spin 311 Review

Our Verdict

The Acer Chromebook Spin 311's solid battery life and smashing keyboard aid it stand out in a marketplace overflowing with small, budget-friendly Chromebooks.

For

Solid bombardment life
Exceptional keyboard
Tough Gorilla Glass screen

Against

Dim, low-resolution screen
No USB iii.0 Type-A port

Tom'southward Guide Verdict

The Acer Chromebook Spin 311's solid battery life and smashing keyboard help it stand out in a market overflowing with small, upkeep-friendly Chromebooks.

Pros

+
Solid battery life
+
Exceptional keyboard
+
Tough Gorilla Glass screen

Cons

-
Dim, low-resolution screen
-
No USB 3.0 Type-A port
-

Acer'due south Spin 311 is exactly what many people expect of a Chromebook: Small, inexpensive, and capable plenty to handle work and low-cal play every mean solar day. For students, children, or anyone looking for an extremely portable automobile that gets the essentials correct, the Spin 311 is one of the all-time Chromebooks for kids that can besides compete with some of the all-time Chromebooks of comparable toll. It besides won a recommendation for best upkeep laptop in our Tom's Guide Awards 2021.

It'southward a highly functional unit with one of the best laptop keyboards I've seen notwithstanding. That said, I ran into some issues (and some strange pattern choices) while conducting this Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review. Although it'southward a capable Chromebook around $300, it'due south far from the only one.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 specs

CPU: 2.0GHz octa-core MediaTek MT8183
Graphics: ARM Mali-G72 MP3
Display: 11.half-dozen inches, 1366 x 768
Retentiveness: 4GB
Storage: 32GB eMMC, 64GB eMMC
Size: 11.7 x eight.1 x 0.74 inches
Weight: 2.65 pounds
Ports: USB-C, USB-A
Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11ac

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Price and availability

The Acer Chromebook Spin 311 released in July 2020 at a starting price of $259, though you tin expect the cost to rise into the $279 range if yous choose a model with improved storage. Yous can purchase it directly from Acer.com or seek information technology out at your retailer of pick.

For an 11.6-inch 2-in-i Chromebook, a roughly $300 price tag is par for the class. Lenovo's C330 is the same toll, while the Asus C204 is slightly more expensive (if you can notice ane in stock). There are other 2-in-1 Chromebooks that opt for a tablet pattern over the clamshell blueprint of the Spin 311 that are cheaper, namely the Lenovo Duet.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Design

The Spin 311 looks like the platonic platonic of a Chromebook: Thick bezels around the screen, an all-aluminum silverish chassis, and a build that'south meant to be both durable and portable.

And the Spin 311 is successful on those last two. There's no flex around any point of the body, including the keyboard and the hinges. The screen is protected with Gorilla Glass, too, so it should be able to withstand a few falls.

For portability, the Spin 311 has an advertised weight of 2.65 pounds, but we measured only 2.3 pounds on our test unit of measurement. The divergence betwixt the ii is splitting hairs; at this size and weight, the Spin 311 isn't likely to strain your back.

Speaking of size, the Spin 311 is tiny, with a footprint smaller than a standard A4 sail of paper. It's just a hair thicker than the Samsung Chromebook 4 -- 0.74 inches compared to 0.66 inches.

The Spin 311 is tiny, and that's as much of a pro equally it is a con. It doesn't really matter what you're doing on the machine, it feels cramped. For carrying around or casually using at home, the Spin 311's size isn't besides much of an issue. For heavy users, though, the express space is at least annoying, and at most a deal-breaker.

That's a criticism of a Chromebook this size, not of the Spin 311 itself. The build quality is splendid, and although the aesthetics are uninspired, it however manages to look sleek and attractive.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Ports

The Spin 311 is light on ports, merely Acer still went out of its way to include a USB Type-A connection. On the right side of the chassis, there's the sole USB-A port side by side to a Kensington Lock and the volume rocker, and on the left, a USB-C connection next to a headphone/microphone combo jack and the power button. The USB-C port supports DisplayPort over USB-C, allowing you to apply an external display. It's also the charging port.

The Spin 311's port selection is in line with what I'd expect at this price, given that competing Chromebooks similar Lenovo's C330 come with the same range of ports.

Nonetheless, the C330, the Samsung Chromebook iv, and several other competing Chromebooks from HP and Asus all come with a USB 3.0 (or better) connectedness. The Spin 311's USB-A port is merely rated for USB 2.0. Even because the price bracket, there's really no excuse for an older USB standard when other devices and peripherals have already caught upward.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Display

The Spin 311 sports an 11.6-inch IPS display with a resolution just in a higher place 720p (1366 x 768). It'southward a screen of compromises. On 1 hand, the brandish is covered in antimicrobial Gorilla Glass, providing protection from almost falls. On the other, the meridian brightness is low, every bit is the resolution, and the bezels are thick.

I watched through Gone Daughter and Good Time to see how the screen would concord up. In Gone Girl, the Spin 311's screen didn't handle the diverse shades of gray in that movie's colour palette well, oftentimes washing the darker areas out with whatsoever nearby colors. Good Time had a similar trouble, implying the right colors without always striking them.

Between both movies, yet, the resolution stood out nearly. Even at 11.six inches, the resolution was too depression. It was like watching a video file that had been compressed one too many times, with fast-paced scenes falling apart in a smear of pixels.

Our benchmarks support much of what I experienced using the Spin 311. Nosotros measured a peak brightness of simply 204.2 nits, dropping below the 200 marking in some corners. The Spin 311'south brandish also merely produced 70.4% of the sRGB color spectrum, which is disappointing when y'all consider that a similarly-priced competitor similar the Acer Chromebook R 11 is able to evangelize a 73.2% sRGB spectrum rating.

In short, it'due south not a great screen for watching movies or TV shows. That said, I fired upwardly Destiny ii on Stadia and didn't take any problems. Even in a fast-paced FPS, the screen handled movement well, and in the context of a game, the lowered resolution is easy to forgive.

As a touchscreen the display works well, but information technology'south not perfect. A few hiccups like accidentally clicking a link while scrolling go on the tablet feel from being perfect. At this price, though, a few minor annoyances are easy to contend with.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Keyboard and touchpad

The Spin 311's keyboard is undoubtedly its strongest feature. Fifty-fifty as a cocky-proclaimed mechanical keyboard snob, I was able to fly while typing on the Spin 311. It even rivaled the typing experience of my Dell XPS 15, which is seriously impressive considering how inexpensive the Spin 311 is.

It's not an accident that the typing experience is great, either. The Spin 311's keys have a travel distance of 1.6mm, adding a nice amount of snap and responsiveness to each keystroke.

This is a feature Acer displays prominently, fifty-fifty on the Chromebook'due south pre-practical manufactory sticker. Information technology seemed similar zip more a marketing gimmick, but after using the Spin 311, I'g a laic.

The touchpad is similarly responsive, despite existence on the pocket-sized side (it measures 2.4 ten 4.1 inches). Information technology's broad but short, and so while I was able to swipe from side to side without bug, my finger would occasionally fall off when moving up or down. That's not a criticism, merely still something to notation.

Gestures are a fair point of criticism, however. Google hasn't quite nailed the experience of Windows Precision drivers nevertheless, just it's close. Two fingers scrolls, and iii fingers brings up an overview of your open windows. Scrolling worked most of the fourth dimension, but using 3 fingers to bring upwards the overview usually required a few tries.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Audio

The bottom-firing stereo speakers on the Spin 311 work surprisingly well, even if they're not all that impressive. The speakers are small, and the sound has a heavy upper midrange bias. That's great for movies and TV shows, accentuating the dialogue.

For music, it makes certain instruments stick out more than others. In a riffing piano tune similar Anomalie's Valours, for example, the upper midrange of the piano would jolt out of the music. In such a melodically dense slice, the sudden jump in volume can be jarring.

Still, the speakers piece of work. They tin can get loud without distorting -- something even premium Windows machines struggle with -- and they were always clear, even when the Spin 311 was sitting on my lap.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Performance

The Spin 311 is powered by MediaTek'south MT8183 eight-core processor. Four of those cores are built on ARM's Cortex-A73 architecture, while the other iv use the Cortex-A53 architecture. The consequence is an eight core processor with four dominant cores, plus an additional iv for aiding or treatment other tasks.

Acer pairs the MediaTek fleck with 4GB of memory, and either 32GB or 64GB of eMMC storage.

The processing power is great for a machine of this size. Jumping from window to window feels snappy, fifty-fifty when you take a couple of lightweight applications open. For some difficult numbers, we measured a multi-core score of 5,507 and a single-cadre score of 1,361 in Geekbench iv.

The more telling benchmark is CrXPRT, which is built specifically to examination Chromebook functioning. In the latest version, the Spin 311 received an boilerplate score of 41. The Lenovo Duet received the same score, while Acer's pricier Spin 715 earned a college score (65).

In add-on to our lab testing, I put the Spin 311 through a Chrome torture test, opening every bit many tabs as possible before the notebook started to slow down. At eight tabs, Chrome became noticeably sluggish, but information technology didn't intermission. You'll notice slower performance if y'all're switching betwixt a lot of tabs (around 10) at once, but below that, information technology holds up.

For most use cases, that'southward acceptable. The Spin 311 isn't powerful, only it's surprisingly efficient given the hardware inside.

It's not perfect, though. I also downloaded Cobblestone 9 and Fallout Shelter to test a few games. Asphalt 9 crashed a scattering of times before finally working, and although the game ran, it had framerate bug. Fallout Shelter was swell, even so, loading and running without whatsoever bug.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Battery life

The Spin 311 has a large enough battery to last through a full workday, but information technology still falls short of the advertised 15 hours of bombardment life. In our web surfing battery test, the Spin 311 lasted for eleven hours and 41 minutes, which is skilful, just still more than three hours shy of fifteen hours.

Given the display'south resolution, I hoped for more than. The Lenovo Duet was able to concluding an hour longer in the aforementioned test, despite sporting a college-resolution screen.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Webcam

You have to cut a few corners to go a usable motorcar nether $300, and a popular place to do that cut is in the webcam. The Spin 311's 720p webcam isn't very skilful. Even nether decent lighting conditions, the webcam displays a layer of noise beyond the entire prototype, which is only exaggerated as things get darker.

The colors aren't smashing, either. My lips, for example, would appear either stake or blue under nearly lighting conditions (a mirror confirms this is, indeed, a webcam upshot and not malnourishment).

I never expected much out of the webcam, and you shouldn't either. Information technology does the job for video calls and the similar, merely y'all won't be carrying around the Spin 311 to take pictures.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: ChromeOS

ChromeOS is like Android for a full-sized machine, at least for the most part. Although you can still scan the Google Play store and download well-nigh apps to the Spin 311, in that location are notwithstanding quite a few that aren't supported. And they aren't no-proper name apps, either. GeForce Now, for example, isn't supported.

Google Play is just 1 part of what makes ChromeOS a compelling option, even so. Google has seamlessly integrated its ecosystem of apps in the operating system, not only because they're pre-installed, but also considering your search queries pull up documents yous have stored in Google Drive aslope local files and applications.

In that location are small, quality-of-life features, too. Casting a YouTube video, for example, takes no more a couple of presses.

ChromeOS isn't near equally feature-rich as Windows, but it notwithstanding gets the basics right. Managing your apps is a breeze, and although multitasking features like split screen aren't perfect, they're at least present.

Acer Chromebook Spin 311 review: Verdict

The Acer Chromebook Spin 311 is another sub-$300 silver Chromebook in a market swimming with them. That makes it difficult to justify, especially compared to something like the Lenovo Duet, which does what the Spin 311 does better in many areas, and is even cheaper.

The saving grace is the Spin 311's keyboard, which is truly excellent. Information technology'south not every bit good every bit the best laptop keyboards, just the fact that an xi.half dozen-inch Chromebook is even in the discussion should speak volumes. The battery life is solid, too, and although performance isn't great, information technology's enough to handle light, solar day-to-day tasks.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/acer-chromebook-spin-311-review

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