Chromebooks continue to be a growing category for value-priced systems, thanks to their low prices, and as laptops for education, since they require less IT management and integrate well with Google's teacher and administration tools. Now, the Dell Chromebook 11 Touch ($329) adds some extra rugged design and touch capability to the mix, making an affordable Chrome-OS-based laptop that's sure to be a good fit in many classrooms.

Design

Dell's new 11-inch Chromebook looks a bit different than the company's Chromebook 11 (2014) and the Dell Chromebook 11 (Intel Core i3) we reviewed last year. The design is chunkier, with a large hinge on the back, and a thick, black, rubber bumper running around the outside edge of the chassis. The plastic construction is sturdy, with no significant flexing when lifting the laptop by a corner, or when applying torsion to the lid. The system is a little thick, measuring 0.83 by 11.69 by 8.54 inches (HWD), but it's not overly heavy at 2.91 pounds. It also has a new 180-degree hinge that lets you open the lid to lay flat, which is useful for sharing the touch screen while working together with a classmate. It may not have the full 360-degree range seen on the multimode Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e Chromebook, but it's not a bad addition to the standard laptop design.

The display has only a basic 1,366-by-768 resolution, with fairly narrow viewing angles, but the color quality is good. The best feature of the display is touch capability, supporting basic interactions, such as tap to click, pinch to zoom, and touch scrolling. If you're coming from Windows 8.1 or a mobile OS like Android, you may find the depth of interactions lacking, but touch is more of an afterthought for Chrome OS. Touch-screen sensitivity and operations are as good as that seen on the Acer Chromebook C720P-2600. Just below the display, built into the hinge are two built-in speakers. The front-facing configuration means there's no muffling of the sound when used on lap or a blanket, and the sound quality is decent, if light on bass.

But it's not just the touch screen and

180-degree hinge that make this design notable. It's also ruggedized, built to withstand the less-than-gentle environs of a K-12 classroom. The touch screen is covered with a layer of scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass. The laptop chassis and lid feature hefty bumpers to protect against drops and bumps. A spill-resistant keyboard and touchpad should handle splashes of water or juice with no trouble. With no internal cooling fans and solid-state storage, there are no moving parts inside the system, so it will also hold up well to vibration, shock, and changes in temperature.

The keyboard has chiclet-style keys, with a layout optimized for Chrome. It's a little small—understandable on an 11-inch system—but otherwise is pretty comfortable, with good spacing between keys, and firm typing response. The function keys are all tied to specific Chrome functions, indicated by icons; the Caps Lock key is replaced with a dedicated search button, and there is no Windows key or Chrome equivalent. The touchpad supports Chrome gesture controls, like two-finger right-click and two-finger scrolling, but it was a little squirrely, and fine cursor control wasn't always smooth. The touchpad has a tendency to register clicks when you want to scroll, and the touchpad sensitivity is inconsistent between the center and edges of the sensor. Thankfully there's a touchscreen right there, because trying to use the mouse was sometimes pretty frustrating.

Features

Port selection on the Chromebook 11 Touch is adequate. On the left, you'll find a USB 3.0 port (with Dell's PowerShare technology for charging devices), an HDMI-out port, a headset jack, and an SD card slot. As we've seen on other Chromebooks and laptops, the SD slot is only half depth, leaving half of the card sticking out. On the right side are a security-lock slot and a USB 2.0 port. For wireless connectivity, the system boasts 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.





Switching to Chrome OS from a Windows or Mac background might be a bit confusing. Chrome OS is designed for online use, with the entire operating system built around Google's Chrome Web browser. Instead of locally installed software, Chrome relies on browser extensions and apps, which usually require some sort of online connectivity during setup and when accessing files stored in the cloud. If you frequently use your laptop where there's little or no Wi-Fi available, you may want to pass on the Chromebook category. That said, several Chrome apps, including productivity tools like Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Presentations all have optional offline modes that can be enabled once you have your Chromebook signed into your Google account. There are also all sorts of apps available in the Chrome Web Store—thousands, many of them for free—which provide the same functionality as the software you may be used to using on a Windows or Mac system.

Because so much of the Chrome experience is online—including 15GB free cloud storage via Google Drive—there's significantly less need for local processing power or local storage capacity. As such, the Chromebook 11 Touch has an Intel Atom N2840 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 16GB eMMC drive for storage. For additional storage, you'll want to use something like a USB flash drive, an SD card, or an external hard drive.

Dell covers the Chromebook 11 Touch with a one-year warranty, which includes mail-in repair service.

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Performance

With an Intel Atom processor, the laptop is well-equipped for the basic uses that Chromebooks are best suited to—browsing the Web, checking Facebook and email, and basic productivity tasks like writing up papers. While that's right in line with what most Chromebook users are expecting, there are a few other alternatives on the market, namely the Dell Chromebook 11 (Intel Core i3), that use more powerful processors. While these systems will offer a slightly better general experience—things load faster, videos run a bit more smoothly, multi-tasking is a bit more robust—the real draw for Core i3-equipped Chromebooks is video chat, which is significantly improved by a more powerful processor.

The big difference between processors is speed. The Atom-equipped Chromebook 11 Touch boots up in under 8 seconds, which isn't bad for most Chromebooks, but the Core i3 model boots in 4 seconds. That said, the Chromebook 11 Touch benefits from a double dose of RAM, boasting 4GB instead of the usual 2GB. This lends the system a bit of smoothness and better multitasking without a significant increase in expense.

In our battery rundown test, the Chromebook 11 Touch lasted 9 hours 15 minutes. While that's not the most impressive we've seen from a Chrome OS Laptop—the significantly more expensive Google Chromebook Pixel (2015) leads the category with 12 hours—but it's better than most competitors. It pulls ahead of the Editors' Choice HP Chromebook 11 (Verizon LTE) (5:27), the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e Chromebook (6:14), and the Acer Chromebook C720P-2600 (7:20) by two hours or more, while it is within minutes of past Dell offerings, like the Dell Chromebook 11 (9:08) and the Dell Chromebook 11 (Intel Core i3) (9:00). It's certainly capable of lasting an entire school day unplugged, and then some.

Conclusion

The Dell Chromebook 11 Touch is a decent Chrome OS laptop for education, with a rugged design that should survive whatever stresses are inflicted upon it in the classroom. The addition of a touch screen makes it a bit more compelling than the average Chromebook, but an otherwise mediocre display and a finicky touchpad hold it back. It's usable as a Chromebook, to be sure, but the overall experience is hampered by the touchpad, a significant issue when using the system to browse or use apps. For a better touch-equipped alternative, there's always the Acer Chromebook C720P-2600, while the Editors' Choice HP Chromebook 11 (Verizon LTE) leads the category with a reasonable price, a much better display, and the freedom of optional 4G LTE.

Dell Chromebook 11 Touch 3.5 See It $163.00 at Amazon MSRP $329.00 Pros Rugged, kid-proof chassis.

Spill-resistant keyboard.

180-degree hinge.

Touch screen.

Fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi. View More Cons Low-resolution display with narrow viewing angles.

Accuracy issues with touchpad in testing. The Bottom Line The affordable Dell Chromebook 11 Touch has a touch screen and a beefy, rugged design making it a good choice for classrooms.

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