Updated on December 10, 2021
It’s been a bit over two weeks since I’ve bought the Acer C720 Chromebook. So far, I’m enjoying owning the Chromebook, and have put it through its paces to see if my initial ideas about Chrome OS paid off. My thoughts on it so far:
- Typing is OK, though it’s taken getting used to not having physical buttons on the trackpad, unlike the ones on my old HP laptop. Fortunately, one can plug in an external mouse (corded or wireless) to use the Chromebook that way, if desired.
- Loading pages and other functionality works reasonably fast. It’s no high-end MacBook, of course, but the Intel Celeron processor’s probably a good thing on Chromebooks. Of course, they’ve recently released a newer version of my C720 with an i3 processor, though at $380, it’s almost twice what my Celeron-powered C720 cost.
- As I’ve noted before, music works just fine with the Chromebook; I can access my music collection and playlists from Google Play Music. YouTube and Netflix also work just fine. A few of my own videos I uploaded to Google Drive also work via the built-in video player.
- Opening my KeePass password database is fairly slow using the Chrome plugin for it (BrowsePass), but at least it works.
- The battery life is quite impressive.
- Once more, I greatly appreciate how lightweight the Chromebook is to carry.
- I get 100GB of free Google Drive space for two years on top of the 15GB default Drive space, or 115GB total. Not remotely filled up (only 6% full), though I suppose I could use it to back up/load copies of some files from my desktop computer.
- It’d be nice if I could stick a few files, etc. on the “desktop” area, but at least I can add custom wallpaper.
Some features will probably have to wait for the holidays to try, particularly using it on an extended multiday trip away from home. That includes the free dozen airplane wifi vouchers included with the Chromebook’s purchase.
