Reviewing the Acer C720 Chromebook

I was pleasantly surprised at how well I liked the Acer Chromebook C720 after getting to use one over the weekend. It is snappy, responsive, and is instantly on when opening the lid. The chromebook recently became the new laptop for my mother who is 72 old and had previously clung onto an old Windows XP netbook for almost a decade, unwilling to upgrade for fear of change and having to learn something new.

 I had recommended she get a new laptop because Windows XP end of life was coming soon and there wouldn't be anymore security updates for her computer after that. The new computer she upgraded to was the Acer Chromebook C720. It offered some great features that made it stand out from other laptops. Here are some photos and some of the features I liked about this little chromebook.

The Pros

• It looks great. The slim design makes it very sleek and lets it blend in anywhere, whether its sitting on the kitchen table, office desk, or on a coffee table.
• The weight and balance when holding it makes it feel very lightweight, very possibly the lightest laptop I have ever carried before.
• If you are used to having your cell phone or tablet turn on instantly for you then you will appreciate when you open the lid on this chromebook and it is instantly on and ready to go.
• The battery life on this chromebook is just a bit less than found in an iPad tablet, about 8 hours. While not much less than an iPad battery, for a laptop to be used by your mother, or grandmother, it certainly is good enough battery life for them to enjoy.

The Cons

• The confusing minimize and maximize buttons are difficult to figure out and are not located how a typical Windows user expects.
• The difference between Chrome Store and Google Play Store app tripped me up at first as I tried to install a Google Play store app on the chromebook.
• The 100GB Google Drive free offer was not readily available.  To redeem it I had to use the following link to get it.
• Lack of notifications that the computer needs a restart to complete a software update should of been more apparent.

Conclusion

The Acer Chromebook C720 laptop has style and is very good at what it does. It doesn't do everything that some other laptops might do, but sometimes just doing a few things really well is all that you want out of a computer. It is a computer that you can recommend to your mother, or grandmother, and they will absolutely love it.

I would even recommend it as the perfect online banking computer that an individual or small business might use for doing nothing other than online banking. This would help protect your bank account by limiting exposure from use of a compromised computer what can get infected through opening emails, visiting malicous websites, or running infected applications.

Amazon currently has the Acer C720 Chromebook (11.6-Inch, 2GB) available for sale here.