Acer – Chromebook Spin 713 Laptop – 13.5″ 2K – Gorilla Glass– Intel Evo Core i5 – 8GB RAM – 256GB SSD – Thunderbolt™ 4

Acer new Chromebook Spin 713 is an affordable slim powerful Chromebook with no compromise on build quality or performance. Compared to its last year model this Chromebook has the new Intel Core I5 11th gen processor with Intel Iris Xe Graphics. Also, has 2 new USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports with 5v charging.
What is in the box: Acer Chromebook Spin 713, 45 W USB C power adapter, Manual/warranty sheets.
Measurement & Weight: It measures 11.8 x 9.25 x 0.67 inches and weighs 3.01 pounds (1.35kg).
Color: Silver; Memory: 8GB; Storage: 256GB PCie NVMe SSD

Design: This 13.5-inch 2256 x 504 IPS Vertiview display with ACER logo on the front. Display is one of the best standout features for the price point. Colors are vibrant and crisp and is very bright. This Chromebook display features 3:2 aspect ratio compared to the standard 16:9 on most of todays laptop. This means more screen size vertically which gives more real estate space that minimizes less zooming or scrolling of webpages and more room for browser.
Spin 713 is very well built with military-grade durable aluminum chassis unlike other brands that are plasticky. Has Corning Gorilla touchscreen and the hinge is built well and supports 360 degree swiveling and is easy to flip around.
ChromeOS was preinstalled but if this is the first-time using Chromebook then you will need to connect the power adapter first before hitting the power button. Once booted, follow the onscreen instructions to complete the setup. You can download more apps from the google play store app and even has Microsoft word, excel and PowerPoint.
Charger/Ports: On the left side of the Chromebook, you have the 2 USB Type-C Thunderbolt4 ports. You can use any of the USB C (3.2) ports to charge the laptop battery using a 45W power adapter and supports 5v charging. Also, the USB-C ports support DisplayPort functionality to hook up to external monitor with ease. This is the first Chromebook that has 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports for an affordable price. It has a HDMI port and 3.5mm audio jack. On the right side, it has power button one USB Type A port, MicroSD card reader, volume rocker. Compared to previous gen, this Chromebook uses USB- C easy charge for quick charge.
No Fingerprint reader on this review model but there is an option to get one with that configuration.
Battery: With 56Wh Li-on battery, during our testing it lasted close to 8 hours with screen brightness of 48%, running few apps, watching YouTube videos and working on office documentation which is okay for a Chromebook but there is a room for improvement. You will get lesser time if the brightness is high and gaming but the good part is it charges really fast. With 30 minutes of charging, you get up to 3.5 to 4 hours which is impressive.
Keyboard and Trackpad: Full function keyboard with right amount of key travel during typing. Keyboard is comfortable and backlit. Got a large Touchpad and is surprisingly accurate and has a tactile click when pressed.

Speaker and Mic: Speakers delivers okay audio experience with loud sound and minimal distortion at maximum volume compared to earlier models and supports DTS Audio and the built-in Smart Amplifier but don’t expect great audio quality and will be great for the video calls or for audio on the go.
Camera/Face Login: Features a front facing camera great for all video calls and online meetings.
Performance: This Spin 713 has 8GB of RAM, 256 GB PCie NVMe SSD of storage. There is also an intel I7 processor and would recommend that if you need this as your daily driver. Performance is good and there is no lag when working on video calls, watching videos, opening multiple taps on chrome, multiple apps and even some level of gaming. Great for college kids or for someone who use it for browsing and not into heavy programming or video editing. It does support most of the android apps from google play store. With the latest and greatest Bluetooth 5 and Wi-Fi 6 AX201 this latest Spin 713 doesn’t lack any new technologies.
Pros:
+ Portable 3:2 screen
+ 2 USB-C Thunderbolt4
+ Touchscreen 360 degree swiveling
+Military grade durability,
+Great Battery life (approx. 8 – 8.5 hours);
+ Wi-Fi 6 for smooth video chats and large file transfer
+ Large Track Pad
+ DTS Audio
Cons:
– No Fingerprint Sensor
Bottomline: Acer Spin 713 Chromebook is a portable notepad with all the ports required for anyone to achieve excellent performance. High quality built, large display, 3:2 screen. If you are in the market for a premium Chromebook that delivers better performance and need for everyday use, then you will not be disappointed at the price point it offers.
Highly recommend for its performance, price and size over other brands in the market.

This little thing is an interesting cross between a slim laptop and a large tablet with what feels like a crossbreed between Windows and Android. I’ve had one other Chromebook before that felt more tablet-like than laptop-like, but this one feels more laptop-like and the tablet feature is just a neat addition.
The great thing about a Chromebook is that if you already have an Android device you already have some familiarity with the possible applications. With the Play Store you pretty much have everything you can ever need from typical big name applications down to the simplest of games. You can choose to use them like you would with a normal computer with the touchpad or a connected Bluetooth or USB mouse, or touch screen. The touchscreen feels as sturdy as my cell phone or tablet with the Gorilla Glass but does have some flex with it being so thin and large.
You have two USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB 3 Type-A port, HDMI, headphones and micro-SD slot for all the connectivity you could use. If it doesn’t have the connection type you need, you can easily find an adapter for that. The keyboard is backlit, which some larger laptops don’t even include.
The resolution of the screen is capable of 2256×1504, but wow, talk about making everything super tiny. The default 1410×940 that it is set for feels a bit more usable, regardless the screen is bright, colorful and detailed. Flipping the screen past 180 degrees turns it into tablet mode. This disables the touchpad and keyboard but does feel strange still having all that underneath. You can leave it at just about any angle and it holds itself up. The built in camera is decent enough for video conferencing, but not the best looking selfie camera. The speakers are on the underside of the keyboard and kind of weak and hollow, but there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth and USB for better sound options.
Battery life is always dependent on what you are doing. With a full charge and some sporadic usage here and there, this thing lasted for days without charging and was instant on when opened. A full charge claims over 11 hours and the included charger gets that back up in a fraction of that. But, brightness, volume level, intensity of the application all takes more power and can burn through that charge time quicker than originally calculated.
A side note, in case you may encounter this issue. When I first received this, I could not get connected to my WiFi router, an Asus RT-AX88U. It would show as “Out of Range” regardless of being in direct sight of my router. After changing some settings on my router it was discovered that the “Optimized for Xbox” option in the wireless settings, picture attached, was preventing this laptop from connecting to my AX enabled networks. Acer is now aware of this issue and may be resolved eventually, but just in case you have that issue, that could be your fix.
Overall, this has been a fun and useful laptop as it still gives the functionality that you need in a laptop as well as the ability to play your favorite Android games.

This is by any means a premium machine with state of the art specs, that happens to run Chrome OS:
• The screen is a high-resolution: 2256 x 1504 pixels, giving it a 3:2 aspect ratio, with a 2K resolution. This is the same as newer Surface laptops and others that are moving away from 16:9 (1080p) form-factor, which is much better for editing documents, and while watching movies, I appreciate the controls remain outside the viewing area.
• Tablet mode: The ‘Spin’ in the name indicates this is a convertible laptop, so when folded with the screen on top, the keyboard becomes disabled, and one uses it via touchscreen. The screen has a gorilla glass (like phones), and the OS detects this mode by maximizing every window and showing the touch keyboard when necessary.
• The keys are island style, backlit, with the ChromeOS distribution: No command/windows key, and the caps-lock becomes the search key. It’s very comfortable to type with.
• Trackpad is large and responsive, with a smooth glass surface. Very nice to work with.
• Ports: On the left, there are two thunderbolt 4, one HDMI and audio jack. On the right, the power, USB-A 3, Micro-SD slot and volume keys (To use mostly in tablet mode)
• The sound (With DTS label) comes from two speakers on the underside – front. It took me a while to get used to hear the sound coming from the bottom but it works.
• Charging is via one of the thunderbolt/USB-C ports. It comes with a large, typical laptop-size charger that has an USB-C port, and also worked by charging from an USB-C dock.
• Wi-Fi: Supports WiFi 6. I was able to get around 300 Mb up and down on a gigabit internet, using SpeedTest from the Play Store.
• Storage is via an M2 type SSD: 240 GB.
• RAM is 8 GB.
• Bluetooth 5.0.
• The CPU is an 11th gen Intel Core i5, and is ‘Evo’ compliant: Evo is an approval mark by Intel for systems that support current state of the art specs like higher-end Intel embedded graphics, Thunderbolt 4 and WiFi 6, with over 9 hours battery life.
Because the ports are Thunderbolt, I was able to use two 1080p monitors connected to a single thunderbolt dock (which uses USB-C Alt mode, like Macs) and also, separately, used a portable generic USB-C dock to drive an external display, keyboard and mouse.
The laptop also has a web camera. I didn’t find it to be too impressive, but works. I used it with Zoom (Chrome app) and it works well as long as there is adequate lightning.
ChromeOS:
Although initially it was basically a way to run the chrome web browser, within the last few years it can also run Android apps. Many android apps work well within a laptop screen, and with Intel 64-bit CPUs.
And now in beta, it also runs Debian Linux within a Virtual Machine, which also supports complex GUI applications like Microsoft Visual Studio Code. This works by either using apt-get from the Linux console or by downloading a .deb package.
So within Chrome apps, Android and Linux there isn’t much it cannot do.
ChromeOS is generally very secure, and is fairly straightforward to restore the laptop to like it came from the factory. Much of the system is ‘read-only’, and that makes it more resilient.
Keep in mind that ChromeOS, for much of its functionality requires internet connectivity, although there’s plenty that can also be done offline as well.
Also keep in mind that Google collects plenty of data from Chrome. In return, a lot of what’s done on the device is backed up and synced into Google’s cloud, so working on different devices or replacing a Chromebook is also a lot simpler.
Overall, I’m very impressed with this laptop and how capable ChromeOS is while being very secure.
The multiple-personality of the system running Chrome and web applications, Android and Linux is great but there are occasionally some rough areas in how these coexist, although it’s been very good overall and it keeps improving.
So in this way I’d prefer ChromeOS to an Android tablet.
The hardware in this laptop is top of the line. Consider this if looking for a premium Chromebook or a high-end Android tablet.

In summary: wow. This laptop is a powerhouse. I’ve been a user of Chrome OS since its inception, and I’ve used a lot of different Chromebooks – this one is the best. Bar none.
There are a lot of things to love about this laptop, but number 1 has to be the performance. I’ve attached a screenshot of the Octane benchmark to this review…if you’re not familiar with Octane, a score of over 59,000 is INSANE. I’ve never seen a number higher than 35,000 before. I’ve had 30 Chrome tabs open and nothing has lagged. I’ve run Linux applications (Inkscape, LibreOffice, and Steam) with nary a hiccup. Streaming games via Stadia has been smooth as butter.
The performance on its own would be enough to entice me to buy this again, but there’s more things that make this laptop a cut above other Chromebooks right now. Among those things is the 3:2 aspect ratio of the screen. It’s hard to explain just how much of a difference this aspect ratio makes; there’s more vertical space for Google Docs & Sheets and more space for websites (which means less scrolling). I don’t know that I can go back to a standard 16:9 screen without complaining – it makes that much of a difference.
Battery life has also been great. I’ve spent a full work day without needing to plug in the charger for 5 days now – it’s generally around 30-40% when I get back home. I’ve also noticed that it charges very quickly when plugged in, so this thing will probably even get you through a 12-hour day with a quick charge around hour 8 or 9.
The build quality is ok – the laptop feels really solid when open. The hinge doesn’t wobble, the keyboard deck doesn’t flex, the keyboard feels great to type with, and the trackpad is smooth. There are a few things that are just average though – when closed, there’s quite a bit of flex on center of the lid. I definitely wouldn’t slide this into a bag without a case for fear or something happening. The trackpad is also a little on the small side – not the biggest deal for me since I normally use a bluetooth mouse, but it’s something to be aware of. The speakers are also what I’d consider mediocre; but again, I normally use bluetooth headphones so it’s not the biggest deal.
Overall, this laptop is worth every penny. Sure, it’s not “perfect”, but the performance is so outstanding that I can overlook a few minor average points. If you’re looking for a Chromebook to work from and you can afford this unit, you won’t be disappointed.