Australia’s first touch-friendly Chromebook: Acer’s C720P reviewed

But the touch experience isn’t quite as impressive as you might find on an iPad, or even an Android tablet.

This could be due to Chrome not really being developed with touch in mind — and how many web browsers are? — and it could also be because there just aren’t enough Chrome-based apps to take advantage of the touchscreen.

While we could scroll using our fingers flicking up and down the page easily enough, and even load applications (webpage applications) simply by touching, other times we’d have to press a tab more than once to get the screen to recognise what we were doing.

Ultimately, Chrome OS itself doesn’t feel designed for touch, not like how either iOS, Android, or even Windows 8 have been built with touch in mind, and so while you can press and click things using the touchscreen, it isn’t used for much more than replacing your mouse with your finger.

But while touch is one part of the screen, the performance of the screen is another, and Acer hasn’t really moved on much from the weak panel we saw in the original C720.

It’s not the same screen, that’s for sure, but it’s not much better, providing some colour inversion and obvious wash out at different angles, practically telling us that it’s a low-grade panel at work here, and not one of the In-Plane Switching (IPS) displays we’re so used to seeing on tablets, even those made by Acer.

As such, expect to have to position yourself to better see the screen, otherwise you’ll find colours and even the black of your text to wash out.

Acer has helped a little bit here, providing some more range for the screen hinge, which is useful in all but the smallest of spaces, meaning you could still have viewing issues if you’re on a bus or train and are cramped. Ultimately, the better fix would have been a better screen with solid viewing angles, as opposed to a hinge with more room to move.

The screen is also very reflective, something we didn’t have on the totally matte C720 before. It’s so reflective, in fact, you might get easily distracted staring at the reflections instead of what you should be doing, or get the odd headache.

Unfortunately, for all the brightness of the display, it’s just not enough to drown out sunlight, trees, and anything else behind you.

Do what we did, though: position the screen away from windows, which is probably ironic, but useful given all that hinge range you have.

One other issue is the price, and with a recommended retail price of $499, Australians are effectively being charged an extra hundred dollars for a touchscreen, even though it’s not bringing a whole lot more to the table.

In actuality, we’d take the extra memory as one of the more positive additions here, as it makes it possible for more tabs and websites to run here, which helps.

Beyond this, an extra $100 is a lot to ask for when you consider the touchscreen isn’t adding a whole lot to the experience, and isn’t quite up to the quality of Acer’s other touchscreens.

Conclusion

We’re still not sure if there’s a point behind touch in a Chromebook, but if you expect a touchscreen in every computer regardless of the use, Acer’s C720P makes it possible in a locally available Chrome-based laptop.