My shortlist of “Chromebook of the year” for 2020 includes the $629 Acer Chromebook Spin 713 and you can get a certified refurbished one right now for $559.99. Acer is selling these through its eBay store but don’t let that put you off.
Shipping is free and Acer is providing a full 2-year warranty on what I think is one of the best high-end Chromebooks you can buy right now.
Here’s how I concluded my full review:
Simply put, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 is improved in nearly every way from its predecessor, rivaling more expensive, other Project Athena devices from Asus, HP, and Samsung. How Acer does this for $629, I don’t know, but unless you’re a heavy duty developer, you can’t go wrong with this convertible Chromebook.
Unless you have to have an integrated fingerprint sensor, widescreen aspect ratio or a 4K OLED display, I see very few reasons to spend $799 to $999 for the other Project Athena Chromebooks launched this year from Asus, HP or Samsung.
You’re getting nearly all of the same internal components as those devices for several hundred dollars less with the Acer Chromebook Spin 713.
In case you need a refresher on the specs of this 2-in-1 convertible:
| CPU | Intel Core i5-10210U Processor |
| GPU | Intel UHD 620 Graphics |
| Display | 13.5-inch 3:2 2256 x 1504 touchscreen, USI stylus support |
| Memory | 8 GB DDR4 |
| Storage | 128GB PCIe NVMe SSD, microSD card for expansion |
| Connectivity | Dual-band WiFi6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Input | Backlit keyboard, multitouch trackpad, dual microphones, 720p webcam |
| Ports | 2 USB Type-C (3.2), 1 USB Type-A, combination microphone / headphone jack, HDMI out |
| Battery | 48 WHr, claimed run-time of 10 hours |
| Weight | 3.02 pounds |
| Software | Chrome OS automatic update expiration date: June 2028 |
The Acer Chromebook Spin 713 easily handled all of my daily tasks during the review period, ranging from heavy-duty web work, a few Android apps, and coding in Linux for my computer science classes.
During my downtime, I also used it for game streaming via Nvidia’s GeForce Now service (which you can get free for three months) and watching plenty of online video content from Netflix and YouTube TV.
There’s not much to not like with this Chromebook and getting a certified refurbished one with a 2-year factory warranty just sweetens the deal.
4 Comments
Also supports the new digital USI pens.
As soon as I touched the screen with my USI pen, chrome os enabled some stuff to recognize the pen. Works great. It recognizes the worst scrawl I could throw at it.
Also the display is very sharp. Viewable at many angles. Touch sensitivity is great.
Plenty of input ports. Keyboard is fine for me and I put in over seven years in a great thinkpad keyboard.
I agree with Kevin, not much reason to spend more money than this.
So, yes, 4K OLED offers almost no tangible benefit and is a battery killer. But side-by-side windowing is just way more comfortable to use with a widescreen aspect ratio. And a fingerprint scanner gets used far more often than most other non-alphanumeric keys on the keyboard.
Hello. I cant find the warranty statement on that acer store page. Can you give the link where it is stated? I really want this chromebook. Also, do you think there is a change of a black friday deal on this chromebook as the one it got a few months ago? Thanks
I just purchased, via Amazon, a supposedly NEW Acer 713 Chromebook. I was delivered, via Amazon Prime, in a box that consisted of pieces of cardboard splice together – Cardboard from WALMART. How can I check to see if this a truly a NEW computer or one that is not new (e.g., refurbished)?