Dell Chromebook 13 3380 6TXJ4 Review

With so many Chromebooks out in the market, not many out of them are truly up to the mark. With that in mind, Dell decided to release there Chromebook 13 series- an array of premium quality ultralight netbooks. Today we’re gonna check out Dell Chromebook 13 3380 6TXJ4, a non-touch model from this series. Let’s see if it was able to live up to its name.

 
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Specs:

 

  • CPU – Intel Celeron 3855U Dual-Core, 1.6 GHz
  • GPU – Intel HD Graphics 510
  • Memory – 4 GB DDR3
  • Screen – 13.3-inch HD IPS (1,366 x 768)
  • Storage – 16 GB SSD
  • OS – Windows 10 Home edition

 

Benefits:

 

  • Performance – It’s adequately equipped for a netbook. A medium powered Intel Celeron processor, 4 gigs of RAM and a slightly small 16 GB storage. Dell Chromebook was able to handle efficiently even the most gruesome tasks like opening 10s of tabs in the browser (some of them were streaming videos) and there was only a slight bit of lag while jumping from one tab to another. But this much lag is acceptable considering the load of the task and the size of the computer. The small internal storage might cause some problems though. It’s covered later. And for those casual gamers, it can run some of the very low demanding titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dirt in the low settings. But again you should not really expect much from this tiny machine anyway.
  • Display – The incredible display is one of the major selling points of this Chromebook. The display is adequately bright for an ultralight netbook at 270 nits. Although not the brightest out there (trails slightly behind the 280 nits of category average actually) it’s certainly bright enough for your everyday chores. The colour reproduction capabilities are excellent as well with a sRGB coverage of 95%. Many competing laptops fell behind Dell Chromebook 13 including Acer Chromebook 13 (220 nits) and HP Pavilion x360 13t (260 nits) only to be trailing behind the superior Toshiba Chromebook 2 CB35 (375 nits). The colour accuracy of the panel is pretty good as well for a netbook at 1.4. In short, it’s one of better displays that you could find in a Chromebook.
  • Battery – Well, when they said it can endure a full day’s usage they weren’t kidding. It clearly comes with a much bigger 4-cell 56 Wh battery pack than what you’d see in a tiny Chromebook. When it was used for streaming online videos using the Wi-Fi in low brightness it stayed awake for an astonishing 13 hours (holy cow!!). But you can stay assured that even when you’re gonna use it for relatively demanding jobs and the brightness is set to mid to high it would give you a good long 7 to 8 hours of working period. This incredible battery backup is almost invincible in its class and surpassed almost every other Chromebooks only falling behind the almighty Apple MacBook Pro (11:20). And another great thing about this Chromebook is that it charges pretty quickly- fully charged from a dead brick in just one and a half hour.

 

Downsides:

 

  • Price – Now it’s no wonder that the price seemed a bit high for me; I mean Dell put the quality of the netbook before the price. This unit came with approximately a 290 USD price tag which is much higher than the 13 inch Chromebook average of 200 to 220 bucks. While that might not sound staggeringly steep that’s almost a 25% hike in the cost. But again, this netbook is not for those who are on a very tight budget. And like they say good things aren’t cheap.
  • Storage – You’re just asking for trouble when they decided to include a meagre 16 GB internal storage. While it’s not the Windows (which has a godly power of eating out your storage in an instant) it still needs some space to store the Chrome OS (almost 4.5 GB). As a result, you’re left with only 10-11 GB of storage for your regular usage. So it would be best if you use some external storage solution for bulk storage needs like an external HDD or even a Micro SD card.

 

Verdict:

 

It’s one of those netbooks where Dell decided to put all their efforts in the quality of the product (unlike the most of the other Chromebooks where the quantity is the main focus). Putting the performance aside it comes with an excellent display and a stunning battery life. But as a result, it gets a bit pricey. So if you want just not another good netbook but a great Chromebook then this one should surely be at the top of your list.

 
Check out the latest price for the HP Pavilion Power 15-cb077nr