Acer Chromebook Spin 15 review

Whereas it’s a bit of a hit or miss in its design, the Acer Chromebook Spin 15 shines in its performance, showing off its premium Chromebook side with its impressive multi-tasking abilities.

Don’t get us wrong; if you’re playing something like PUBG Mobile on this with medium settings on, expect lots of latency. You can play it just fine, but it won’t be the smoothest experience in the world. And, you might find the game crashing on you once in a while.

That’s hardly surprising considering the specs and the lightweight Chrome OS. However, that quad-core Intel Pentium N4200, coupled with the 4GB LDDR4 that’s faster and more power efficient, is just the ticket for multitasking on this operating system.

By multi-tasking, we mean having 14 or more tabs open at a time on the Chrome browser, one of which is playing Parks and Rec on Netflix, and the other playing The X-Files on Hulu. All while The Sims Mobile game is playing in the background. 

There may have been a tiny bit of lag somewhere while all of these were happening all at once. But the dreaded spinner never showed its ugly head, and the computer itself kept largely cool.

Potential users like high school and college kids, as well as non-computer savvy folks, will enjoy long hours on this the Acer Chromebook Spin 15 browsing the Internet, shopping, watching the latest release on Netflix and playing the hottest game from the Google Play Store, all at the same time. That is, after they’re done ticking off all their productivity tasks for work.

If this Chromebook were lighter and smaller, we’d readily take it with us on our travels as well.

Battery life

And, while we’re on the subject, definitely expect long hours: up to 13 hours, to be more specific to what Acer is promising. In practice, the Acer Chromebook Spin 15 really lives up to the hype, which is a rarity. Usually, laptops prove to have a shorter battery life during our test than promised, but this one boasts enough battery life in a single charge that you’ll either give up or pass out before it even starts to die on you.

We say that because we put its longevity to the TechRadar battery test, during which we loop a locally stored 1080p movie at 50% brightness and volume with the keyboard backlight and Bluetooth disabled, and it lasted a whopping 13 hours and 45 minutes. 

This battery beast will give you a full work day, some browsing and social networking after work – perhaps with your favorite show playing in the background, and still outlast you. Needless to say, you’ll be ready for bed, and the Chromebook Spin 15 will still keep going.

Final verdict

It’s understandable for traditional laptop users to dismiss Chromebooks as laptop alternatives, or even not take them seriously as practical devices that can handle every day workloads, and after-work browsing and entertainment. They are, after all, fairly new in the computing scene, and not a lot of people appreciate or even know of their potential.

The Acer Chromebook Spin 15 is, to put it simply, one such Chromebook that will put any and all lingering doubts to rest. This Chromebook is an excellent combination of affordability and premium functionality, resulting in a device that offers great value to users who don’t utilize a computer enough to justify paying $1,000 or more for it. It’s got all the bells and whistles as well – the 2-in-1 design, dedicated media keys and all the ports you would need in a day’s work, to name a few.

Best of all, you can load this up with multitasking demands, and it will handle all of them like the beast that it is. At only $449 (£499, AU$653), the Acer Chromebook Spin 15 is well worth your consideration.