So I bought an Acer Aspire R3 131T (R11) 2 in 1 notebook and it took a week but I think I like it.

So I bought an Acer R3 131T (R11) 2 in 1 notebook and it took a week but I think I like it.

It comes with:

Color: Blue
Processor: Intel Celeron N3050 1.6GHZ w/ Burst Frequency 2.16 GHz Dual Core
Installed Memory: 2GB
Max Memory: 2GB
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics
ScreenSize: 11.6
Display: HD widescreen LED-backlit touchscreen
Touchscreen (Y/N): Y
Webcam (Y/N): Yes
Hard Drive: 32GB Solid State Drive eMMC SATA
Optical Drive: None
WiFi (Y/N): Intel 3165ngwg 802.11 a/b/g/n/AC 1x1 + BT4.0
Ethernet Type: Gigabit 10/100/1000
Media Card Reader: Multi-In-One
USB Ports (2.0): 1
USB Ports (3.0): 1
HDMI (Y/N): 1
Other Ports: LAN, Headphone/Microphone combo jack, SD Card Reader
Keyboard Type: Built in US English Keyboard
Bluetooth (Y/N): Y
Dimensions: 11.7"x8.3"x0.8"
Operating System: Windows 8.1



Yes windows 8.1............... Upgrading to windows 10 is a pain but after hours of trying to make room on the 32gb drive which came with 9gb usable I finally realized at a point Windows will ask for a flash drive to be plugged in, I used a 64gb one I had and finally windows installed.


So Why did I buy this? Inexpensive, light long battery-life and to take to work leaving my full featured laptop at home and safe.

Battery Life is good at 9 hours so far

Storage is adequate after adding a 64gb Flash SD card

After getting rid of windows old folder I had over 11gb open on internal SSD but then I added office and others it came to about 9gb open.


Current config running fine with the 2gb ram
Chrome
Firefox
Office 2007
Paint.Net
PDFXchange
Plus some other small programs

The Celeron is not an Atom ( A plus) and has proven to be responsive ( slower than my i3 of course) reasonably

On Chrome I have 3 to 4 open windows at anytime and sometimes the PDF open and even firefox and it slows a little but still responsive. I had an atom 2 in 1 with 1gb ram and 32bit windows 10 and it was not as responsive.


The screen in a word "Sucks" for viewing, you have to angle it to get the viewing angle that things do not wash out, but the touch is very responsive.


The case is rugged great for porting to work heavy at 3.5 lbs


The tent mode is useful and the full tablet mode works well ( there is no windows button like others but I never knew why its essential anyway)


if you can live with the SD as expansion memory ( I did research and flash memory can last 2 to 5 years of service) then this can prove to be a great portable cheap system.

For me I'm all in at
$129 refurb
$25 for Samsung Evo+ 64gb MicroSD card


so about $155 and some change I think its a great buy to port to work and bang it around saving my other laptop from abuse.

Notes: The SSD is 32gb eMMC soldered to the Mother board, the ram can be upgraded to up to 8gb. Also I would not have this as my only laptop or home computer, if you want to do back ups of phones and pictures and other graphic work you will need another more powerful laptop/Computer. Cheers

 

Thanks for the write up. Plan to get a 128GB MicroSD card in the future?

 

Probably, the 64gb card still has over 45gb open and its a samsung Micro sd I bought for 25 bucks.

An update

I have tried to keep about 8gb open on the 32gb internal SLOW eMMC and its a chore, I have to use disk cleanup to get rid of the Windows 10 updates........... Its really stupid that the manufacture could not give us at least 64gb eMMC, what would it cost? $1 more? for that fact a SATA connector for the empty HD spot inside, whats that 0.50 cents more?

Other than that if you can get one for under $150 and replace the 2gb ram with 4 and then use the SD slot for a flash storage you can have a decent "Beater" laptop to carry around to StarBucks or McDonalds or even School and leave the more expensive laptop at home. That is why I bought it.

The Keyboard is decent and the track pad is ok, the touch is responsive the screen was better with colors once I tweaked it, but the viewing angles suck. Since its a 360 hinged laptop that is easily corrected with moving it till you like it.

The Celeron processor is the least powerful but the battery life is amazing, 8 to 9 hours and this laptop "Works" for surfing, email, Presentations, Video, Music. In fact the speakers are decent, better than expected. and its built well, it feels solid even though its plastic.

 

update, This model's ram can be updated from 2gb to 4gb and that has increased the speed a bit. its really snappy on win 10 now and I really like the 8hr+ battery life. The MicroSD is working fine and I know this is not the fastest machine but how can you beat 129 plus 25 plus 10 = 165 usd for a 2 in 1 pc with long battery life and acceptable performance to take to work and other for surfing, email, office and few other tasks? my more expensive laptop is saved from wear and tear and only goes out when needed now.

 

@DRFP I find TN screen extremely disappointing. Short research show configurations with N3150/N3700 and 2.5" SATA bay are also available. Still, seems a good deal. X220 tablet I use for the same stuff - cafes, bars, outdoors - requires second battery in some form to achieve 11h Wi-Fi surfing runtime your device should be capable of, adding to 3.88lbs of the tablet itself; dimensions are much larger too, mostly thanks to protruding battery.

OK, I found out Chromebook version of R11 has IPS display. Can SSD be replaced there, or is it soldered? Can I install Windows 10 on it, and what problems will I face?

 

More than likely the SSD is soldered like my model, yes the TN display sucks for angles but I can live with it at this low price point and portability................ the limitations is the speed and longevity of both the SSD on board ( slow compared to other ssds) and using the SD slot as storage since that too is slow, whats worse I read that the on board SSD is probably cheap in a way that it will fail sooner than normal SSDs, bummer, this is a throw-away laptop in a few years it seems.

 

@DRFP it seems to me that Chromebook IPS display assembly can be used with Windows version, they should share the same connection since there seems to exist single revision of this board for both Win and ChromeOS R11, and eDP is the only option there.

Please tell, how does it handle YouTube videos and multiple Firefox tabs? I may grab one, upgrade RAM to 8gb and gift it.

 

I Would think it would take up to 16gb ram, I just did 4 because I did not want to put too much money into it.
as I type this I have 7 tabs open on chrome, I have had up to 10 open and surfing was fine, usual is 4 to 5 with word running. Videos on youtube are good without choppiness, the sound out of this thing is really good. if you get one with 8.1 put ten on it upgrade style with flash drive inserted. then delete old windows install once you are happy ( frees about 4 to 8gb on main drive) response sd storage is slower than having on internal ssd but not too bad really.
One other thing I noticed is rotation is locked until you put the screen past half way back, I guess this is good, it rotates then

 

@DRFP thank you for clarifying. It won't take more than 8GB, since there's a single slot and Braswell doesn't work with 16GB modules. Slow 32GB eMMC seems bearable, especially if you accompany it with 128GB SD card for less than $20.

 

Yeah I'm using it now and its fine for surfing and some emails and working on docs at work but sometimes I bring in the HP instead. For the cost its really not bad its what I wanted
BTW it has an intel AC 3165 and blue tooth card its pretty good, Just had to update the drivers from intel