Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 14

The 14-inch Acer Aspire One Cloudbook is a team with many virtues. A lightweight laptop ( 1.6 kilos ) designed to take it on trips and trips, or as a reinforcement at school or university. Its 14-inch screen makes it an excellent tool for movies and videos. And with a battery of up to 12 hours of use, having it away from an outlet will not be a problem. The Acer Aspire One Cloudbook has been designed with a similar idea to chromebooks, but through the Windows 10 Home platform . That is, a limited internal memory (64 GB) and several alternatives to complete its use through the network, such as the Acer BYOC platform or the addition of1 TB of online storage on OneDrive. All this with a moderate price of 350 euros that brings it closer to all pockets. We tell you all the details about the Aspire One Cloudbook 14 in an in-depth analysis.

Design and display

The Taiwanese company brings us a classic design with the use of plastic in its casing and dark gray color . Of course, a grainy pattern has been incorporated that gives it an elegant touch that gives it a plus over designs from previous years. Beyond appearance, the main attraction of this model is its weight of 1.6 kilos. This is a really groundbreaking figure for a laptop of this size, especially when we consider that it is an input device . Thanks to this, it is easy to carry this equipment on trips, trips or in the backpack with the rest of the tools to go to class. It should also be noted its fineness of 1.79 centimeters, a value that places it on the same level as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2015 , a benchmark within 14-inch ultrabooks. Another point that has been highlighted from Acer is the use of a full-size, good quality keyboard , with the keys high and well separated so that the typing experience is very comfortable. Along with this keyboard we find a precision touchpad that should offer an excellent response to movements and actions.

The Acer Aspire One Cloudbook uses a 14-inch LED panel with HD resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels. This resolution is typical for multimedia equipment of this format. This is a sufficient level of detail for normal use of the laptop with applications, videos and different multimedia content, although if your goal is to use the laptop for games or high-quality movies, you should go to more powerful models of the brand such as The Acer Aspire V Nitro . This mix between lightweight design and larger screen size make the Cloudbook a very interesting laptop for environments like school and for users who want more screen space without losing versatility.

Memory and power

Acer's notebook uses an Intel Celeron N3050 dual-core processor clocked at 1.6 GHz per core. Thanks to Intel Burst technology , this power can be brought up to 2.16 GHz at times when a higher dose of power is required. The chip is paired with a 2GB RAM to smoothly run the Windows 10 Home operating system . Of course, we must take into account the limitations when having several applications open at the same time or when using numerous tabs in the browser.

As for its internal storage, we must remember that we are facing a "Cloudbook" . That is, a laptop that brings the concept of chromebooks to the Windows 10 environment . That means having a more limited internal memory and betting on alternatives that give us game through the network. In the case of the Cloudbook 14 , we have a flash memory with a capacity of 64 GB . That leaves us with approximately 40GB of space to store our internal files and applications. As we said, several alternatives are open to us to improve the available space. On the one hand, with the purchase of the laptop 1 TB of online space is includedin the OneDrive tool (from Microsoft) for two years. We also have the option of using either one of the USB ports to insert USB sticks or external hard drives or its MicroSD memory card slot.

Operating system and applications

The Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 14 is based on the Windows 10 Home operating system . The latest version of Microsoft's platform is a return to the start menu. All the activity revolves around the desktop , although some elements of Windows 8 have been brought in, such as the use of the brick-shaped icons (which now happen to be in the same start menu). Another of the great novelties of Windows 10 is the inclusion of the voice assistant Cortana . This smart tool is used to interact with the PC in a new way and carry out actions such as opening apps or searching the Internet without having to use the mouse. It also highlights the option to createmultiple virtual desktops with their own open applications.

In the field of applications, a free one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) is included with the purchase of Cloudbook 14 . A nod to productivity with the option to create documents, spreadsheets, or presentations within a clear, easy-to-use interface. Also included is two years with 1 TB of OneDrive storage . This promotion will give us a lot of play and this online platform has been highly integrated into the operating system. On the other hand, we must also highlight Acer's own applications. For example, we have Acer BYOC, a platform designed to create our own personal cloud through our devices at home and access all our music, photos or documents from the dedicated apps.

Connections and multimedia

We enter one of the strengths of the Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 14. Since it is a device designed to be used connected, Acer has wanted to take care of this point with its compatibility with WiFi AC. This protocol requires a compatible router (there are more and more on the market). If we meet this requirement, the Cloudbook will be able to connect simultaneously to both the 2.4 GHz bandwidth and the 5 GHz bandwidth . The 2.4 GHz bandwidth is used by the vast majority of devices today. The problem is that it is also used by household appliances at home (such as the microwave), which can lead to interference and a more unstable network experience. Meanwhile, the 5 GHz bandwidth is less congested and allows us to enjoy a more stable and faster network.

Within the physical connections, it also includes a high-speed USB 3.0 port with transfer rates ten times faster than traditional USB and a USB 2.0 port (for devices that do not need more speed such as USB memory sticks or mice). In addition, to view the contents of the laptop in high resolution on a monitor or TV, an HDMI port is used .

In the multimedia field, Acer wanted to ensure a more complete experience with the use of dual digital microphones and a simple 640 x 480 pixel webcam. This set is designed to squeeze all the juice from applications such as the assistant Cortana or Skype .

Autonomy, price and opinions

Another of the first level surprises that the Cloudbook leaves us is its autonomy. Its up to 12 hours of continuous use make it an excellent device for lovers of travel or to take the computer to university or work. This figure is placed above the majority of alternatives of this type that we find today in the market. All this with a very competitive price of 350 euros and with the latest version of Windows . In short, a laptop for users who spend most of their time connected to the network. Its excellent balance between specifications and price, its great autonomy and its light and thin design make it an excellent option for this Christmas.