Acer Chromebook spin 513 is ready for prime time.
The first thing you’ll likely notice is the thin and light build of the Acer Chromebook spin 513 comings in at only $349 and only 15 millimeters thick.
Acer Chromebook spin 513 Specification
· Chrome OS™
· Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Octa-core 2.40 GHz
· Qualcomm Adreno 618 shared memory
· 13.3″ Full HD (1920 x 1080) 16:9 IPS Touchscreen
· 4 GB, LPDDR4X
· 64 GB Flash Memory
There is no denying the feeling of portability that comes with this Acer Chromebook spin 513 it’s hard to capture in photos and video but this thing just begs to be picked up and taken places it’s kind of tablet-like in that way.
And speaking of tablets this Acer Chromebook spin 513 is convertible and can be used in all the ways you expect at this point.
While I don’t find much use in a 13.3 inch 16 by nine tablet. I do like the presentation and tint modes for all sorts of activities and the Acer Chromebook spin 513 was as good as any it pulling off these use cases especially since the screen here is a very good one.
It’s IPS so the viewing angles are great and the colors pop the brightness hits a respectable 300 nits and I just don’t have any complaints here.
Just like about every other Chromebook at this point.
USI pin input is supported in the same vein.
The backlight keyboard and glass trackpad perform great as well making the typing and navigation on this Chromebook a good overall experience.
My only knock here is the fact that the entire bottom portion of this device is plastic.
And while it’s reasonably firm and passes the corner hole test quite well. The center of the keyboard has far more give than I’d like and it cheapens the experience of it.
It’s not a deal-breaker but the keyboard and trackpad do suffer a bit because of it. On the sides of that plastic chassis. We get dual USB type C ports, a single USB type port, a headphone microphone jack, a power button, and a volume rocker.
While not the most robust IO, it’s enough to get you connected to what you need to get connected to when you need it.
Now let’s talk about what’s inside this Chromebook.
Acer Chromebook spin 513 Storage
Our test model came equipped with the Snapdragon 7C 4Gb of RAM and 64 GB of EMC storage.
There’s an optional upgrade to 8GB that I’d recommend since Acer only charges 30 bucks more for that upgrade and more RAM is always worth it.
Acer Chromebook spin 513 Processor
The story here really is the Snapdragon 7C and while I’d love to report that performance was super smooth and fast.
That’s not really what I found to be true. Don’t get me wrong, this Chromebook doesn’t feel slow per se just isn’t fast.
From time to time, I’d see stutters and lag and animations and under my standard workload it just couldn’t always keep up extending to my 1440 p ultrawide.
The monitor wasn’t a great experience either, as this chip seems to be limited to a 1080P extended display output.
When pushing two monitors, things slowed down a lot and there was never a time that I was able to forget that I was running on a lesser SPECT processor.
Probably more disappointing is the Android app performance.
I fully expected Android apps to fly on this thing since Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are the standard in nearly all phones.
It was the opposite, however, and games that play surprisingly well on the duet were pretty awful on the Acer Chromebook spin 513 Call of Duty mobile wouldn’t let me move the graphics up past the lowest options, and pub g mobile was just as choppy and messy on this Chromebook as it is on Intel devices.
Somehow the underpowered Mt. 8183 in the duet is better at Android apps than the Snapdragon 7C and I honestly don’t know why this could change down the road.
Acer Chromebook spin 513 Battery
But for now, there’s no direct benefit to running Android apps on this Acer Chromebook spin 513 versus the current competition battery was about as good as advertised giving me roughly 10 hours of heavy use with the screen on at about 75% brightness, crank that down to 50% brightness and you’ll get closer to the advertised 13.5 hours of screen time.
Acer touts for this machine with no fans to worry about with the thin light chassis. I did appreciate the tablet-like battery in the Acer Chromebook spin 513.
So in the end, I’d have to say I’m a bit let down with this Chromebook to be few.
Hey editing room, Robbie here, and at the last second we’ve had a bit of a change in the way I’d like to wrap this video up. Initially, I had said that I liked the hardware but I was a bit let down by this Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Octa-core 2.40 GHz and I also said that I thought you should spend your money elsewhere.
For this Chromebook that Acer has listed on their website right now, while the disappointment in the processor still holds, the suggestion not to buy this device does not.
Alright, you can buy from Walmart listing for the model we tested and when it went live this morning, I was a bit shocked to see a price tag of $349.
That’s a massive difference, and one that makes this Chromebook sits so much better with me in every way.
No, the price drop doesn’t fix or change the fact that I hoped for more from the Snapdragon 7C, but it does make buying a great overall laptop with mediocre performance make a lot more sense in the $349 price range.
This is some of the nicest outer hardware you can get.
And with the performance that sits in line with small core Intel chips currently on the market, this device becomes a very, very solid deal.
I do think performance will get better over time as Google irons out the kinks with the Snapdragon 7C and Chromo S and I think Android apps will perform better as well.
But even if they don’t, this is a great Chromebook for the price and one that I think many users will be happy to pay $349.
If you liked this article, give me a suggestion in the comment box. Until next time.
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