Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 14 AO1-431-C6QM Notebook Review

Design, material, and color of the Cloudbook 14 are identical to its 11.6-inch sibling's. Apart from the black display frame, Acer uses a slim, gray plastic case. The lid and the underside are textured. The top side of the base unit is roughened. The build quality is flawless. However, the stability should be improved - the base unit twists too easily. Thus, the front left foot of the laptop lifts up when pressure is applied right beside the keyboard.

Moreover, the Cloudbook 14 and the Cloudbook 11 share the same connectivity. One of two USB ports supports the USB 3.0 standard. The ports sit on both sides towards the rear. As a result, the space beside the palm rests remains free of cables. The memory-card reader works slowly. It transfers 250 JPG image files (about 5 MB each) at only 18.6 MB/s. We always test memory-card readers with our reference card (Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II).

The DeltaE 2000 shift is about 9.1 out-of-the-box - which is normal in the low-price segment. A value smaller than 3 is desired. Moreover, the display is bluish. Calibration significantly improves the display. The color shift falls to 3.55, which is only slightly higher than the target range. In addition, the blue tint disappears.

With the Cloudbook 14, Acer offers a 14-inch notebook for simple office and Internet applications. In addition, it can play videos. Our test model costs about 280 Euros (~$310). We have not found other variants.

With Intel's Celeron N3050 (Braswell) dual-core processor, a weak CPU works inside the Acer computer. Its performance is sufficient for simple office and Internet applications. Those who want to run more demanding applications should buy a different computer. The Celeron works at up to 2.16 GHz in mains operation as well as on battery.

The system runs smoothly and we did not observe problems in our test. The results of the PCMark benchmarks correspond to the performance of the used SoC. Alike all Braswell notebooks, the Cloudbook 14 also performs better than comparable Bay Trail devices (Braswell predecessor). This is thanks to the significantly faster Braswell GPUs, while the CPU performance of Bay Trail and Braswell are almost the same. It is not possible to improve the system performance of the Cloudbook.

The Cloudbook comes with an eMMC storage module with a capacity of 32 GB. Just under 15 GB of the total capacity is free out-of-the-box. The transfer rates are on a normal level for this kind of memory. It is not handy to expand the storage capacity with an SD card. SD cards stick out of the card reader by about 5 mm and are not locked in the card reader. Nevertheless, users will have enough storage space available: The buyer of the computer gets 1 TB storage space from Microsoft's Cloud service OneDrive (free of charge for one year).

Graphics are done by Intel's HD Graphics (Braswell) GPU. It supports DirectX 12 and works at up to 600 MHz. The Braswell graphics core is significantly faster than its Bay Trail predecessor. As a result, it performs significantly better in the 3DMark benchmarks - albeit on a low level.

Even though the Cloudbook only brings a weak processor, it can be used for video playback. This is thanks to the decoder integrated into the GPU, which takes load from the processor when playing videos. It supports all usual formats including H.265 (successor of the H.264 format, which is wide-spread today), which allows smaller files at the same image quality. The CPU load was below 20% when we played our test video (4k, H.265, 60 fps).

Games suitable for the Cloudbook can be found in the casual games section in the Windows Store. The hardware is much too weak for modern games like Hitman. Even games like FIFA 16 with only moderate hardware requirements, do not achieve smooth frame rates. In addition, the Cloudbook does not offer enough storage capacity for most games.

The Cloudbook comes with a weak SoC. As a result, the power consumption is quite low - regardless of the load. When running idle, we measure a maximum of 7.3 Watt. During the stress test, the power consumption increases to 15.9 Watt - albeit, only in the first minute. Afterwards, the CPU and GPU throttle and the energy demand is about 11.5 Watt. The power adapter is rated at 45 Watt.

In our real-world Wi-Fi test, we simulate web surfing. The profile "balanced" is active and the display brightness is set at about 150 cd/m². The Cloudbook achieves a very good battery life of 10:31 h. The battery with big capacity (55 Wh) pays off here.