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This Dell Chromebook measures 30x20.4x1.5cm and weighs 1290grams. The viewable screen is 25.5x14.5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 11.6inches. The screen opens to 180 degrees.
The base has four enlarged rubber bumps to keep the unit off your desk and allow the speakers to function, these are placed either side at the front of the base and give better sound – and more of it – than a lot of other notebooks.
The left side has DC input, micro SD card slot, HDMI out and two USB ports. The right side has a headphone socket. The front is clear as is the back.
The keyboard is 73 keys and as with all Chromebooks the characters are lower case but the main thing not available is the ‘Delete’ key but the backspace works fine.
Space behind the keyboard is 2.5cm while there is 1.5cm on either side and 7.5cm in front of it. The 10x5.5cm trackpad is mounted centrally.
While Dell recommend 1366x768 as the screen resolution but 1536x864 is available which for me anyway is better when viewing web pages. You can also change the font size and page zoom to suit.
While it is possible to use a Chromebook – to a limited extent – without a Google account as Chrome and Google are linked having one is the easiest way to log in and use it.
Once logged in there are five icons in the left of the tray a ‘o’ that takes you to all the Apps you have, the Chrome web access, Gmail for email, Google Docs and finally YouTube. The right of the tray has notifications, digital clock, Wi-Fi strength, battery state and country setting. Click on any of these to get more Setting choices. As an example Bluetooth is available on this Chromebook.
Streaming live TV full screen got just over seven hours before the mains lead had to be connected and the battery was then fully charged again in two hours while still in use. Of course you get far more – up to double that – in less demanding circumstances.
While the Chrome Store has an increasing range of Apps do not expect it to match the range available in the Windows Store.
The very early Chromebooks had almost no storage as everything was saved online by default which can still be done but if you do not have Wi-Fi that meant you had a door stop, now they come with more memory and storage and as you have both USB ports and micro SD storage as well not having Wi-Fi need not stop you writing as Google Docs still functions locally.
There are two versions of Chromebook 11 3180 and rather than go through the differences here the link at the end give the full specifications. The lower specified model is £159 and the higher specked is £189.
http://pilot.search.dell.com/dell%20chromebook%2011
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