Acer Chromebook 315 (2026) Review

Introduction

The Acer Chromebook 315 (2026) updates the brand’s big-screen and surprisingly affordable Chromebook for this year with some intriguing changes.

For instance, it’s the first Chromebook in this size that the brand is offering with a new MediaTek Kompanio 540 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of eMMC storage, while the keyboard layout and port selection have also been changed compared to this laptop’s predecessors.

Nonetheless, we’ve got a 15.6-inch Full HD IPS screen, excellent battery life and more to like for a reasonable £399.99 price tag that puts this against the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 as perhaps its closest rival at this price, or you can also opt for a slightly older model like the Lenovo IdeaPad 5i Chromebook.

To see if this Chromebook 315 (2026) can make it onto our list of the best Chromebooks we’ve tested, I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last couple of weeks.

Design and Keyboard

• Solid plastic frame
• Reasonable port selection
• Snappy keyboard and slick trackpad

The Chromebook 315 (2026) isn’t a laptop that necessarily has to look as stylish as the best ultrabooks out there; it’s more about function than form. Nonetheless, for a cheaper laptop in 2026, it still feels reasonably solid, though you can tell it’s mostly plastic. That being said, there isn’t much flex in the chassis, as you might expect with laptops lower down the price ladder.

It tips the scales at about 1.6kg, putting it on the heavier side for a larger laptop, though it’s still somewhat portable for classes, lectures, or just out and about.

Port-wise, we’ve got a decent selection: the left side has USB-C and USB-A, with a further USB-C and USB-A on the right side, alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack. This is fine for most use cases, although older variants of this laptop supplemented this with a microSD card reader for a little added versatility.

Open the lid, and you’ll see this is where things have changed the most compared to older versions of this laptop. Acer has taken a leaf out of Apple’s book with the keyboard layout on the Chromebook 315 (2026), ditching the full-size layout it used to come with and replacing it with a smaller form factor that eschews the number pad and some navigation keys in favour of speaker grilles on either side.

The keyboard isn’t backlit by the looks of things, but feels surprisingly snappy under the finger. It’s a softer keypress, but nonetheless has decent travel, and it was very easy to get up to speed with it.

As for the trackpad, it is a little on the small side given the size of the keyboard deck, but it feels glossy and smooth under the finger and has a pleasant mechanical click.

Display and Sound

• Full HD resolution is just about okay on this larger screen
• Reasonable brightness and colours
• Okay speakers

As for its display, the Chromebook 315 (2026) doesn’t move the needle from its predecessors, opting for a larger 15.6-inch Full HD IPS screen with a more modest 60Hz refresh rate.

It’s fine for the productivity workloads this is designed for, with okay detail across a larger screen, although I think a 15.6-inch screen size is pushing things a tad for the 1080p resolution on offer. It’s not to the point you can see individual details, but a slightly higher-res screen would have been nice.

There isn’t a quoted brightness figure for the Chromebook 315 (2026)’s display, but to my eye it feels a little dimmer than our usual 300-nit target when set to full blast. You’ll want to stay indoors with this laptop, though, as it isn’t the punchiest of panels. Colours look reasonable to my eye, but owing to the lower brightness, there is an element of the panel that feels a smidgen washed out.

The dual speakers are mostly mids, as you’d expect from a cheaper laptop. They’re okay for casual viewing, but little beyond that. For more extended listening, utilise the headphone jack on the right-hand side.

Performance

• Okay performance for casual tasks
• Zippy enough for some multi-tasking
• eMMC storage is a shame

The Chromebook 315 (2026) continues the trend of Acer’s more affordable Chromebooks shipping with the MediaTek Kompanio 540 processor. This is one of MediaTek’s latest low-power mobile chips that features eight cores, including two Arm Cortex-A78 ‘big cores’ and six Arm Cortex-A55 cores, plus a dual-core GPU.

It’s not a chip necessarily designed for outright grunt; it is more for zippy performance on basic tasks where it’s needed. Think of it as a competitor to Intel’s N-series of chips – quiet, but efficient, and enough power for the basic tasks these devices are designed for.

The scores that the Chromebook 315 (2026) achieved in the customary Geekbench 6 test were similar to those of an Intel N100 in the same test on the larger, convertible Chromebook Spin 312 I’ve tested in the past. The multi-core result is a bit lower than I expected, owing to the number of cores on this MediaTek chip compared to the N100.

With this in mind, outright speed and performance aren’t the name of the game for the Chromebook 311 (2026). Its purpose is to be a portable and efficient laptop for light productivity loads, which it performs decently well. I didn’t experience too much of a slowdown while using multiple Chrome tabs for Google Docs, Spotify and more while using it for work as my main laptop.

My particular configuration comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage, providing solid RAM headroom for multitasking and reasonable storage capacity, given that most of your work is likely to be in the cloud rather than stored locally. It would have been nice to see solid-state storage in 2026 on a more affordable device, though, and eMMC storage isn’t the quickest. 

Software

• Lightweight and clean ChromeOS install
• No Chromebook Plus features

The first thing to note about the Chromebook 315 (2026) is that it runs ChromeOS, meaning it’s got a clean, lightweight UI with no real bloatware pre-installed, which makes it easy to get around and jump into apps such as Google’s G Suite of productivity apps.

This specific Chromebook 315 (2026) model also doesn’t meet the Chromebook Plus minimum spec requirements. This means we aren’t getting new features such as Help Me Read or Magic Eraser, for instance.

There is one benefit to this being a newer model: it comes with Google’s new Quick Insert key, where the Caps Lock key is, which opens a Spotlight Search-style menu that can be used for everything from inserting a link to looking up files.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 15 hours 12 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting for between one and two working days

The Chromebook 315 (2026) packs in a more modest 45Whr cell into its larger chassis, and Acer doesn’t make any specific claims about this laptop’s endurance. With this in mind, the MediaTek Kompanio 540 processor’s efficiency is improved over its predecessors, leading to solid results on other laptops with the same chip that I’ve tested.

A 1080p video loop test at 50% brightness yielded a result of 15 hours and 12 minutes, meaning you should be able to get one to two working days out of this Chromebook. With some hypermiling and a lower brightness figure, two working days with juice to spare becomes more of a possibility, which is great for a more affordable laptop.

The Chromebook 315 (2026) comes with a smaller 65W USB-C brick, which is okay at putting charge back into the laptop. It took 36 minutes to get back to 50%, while a full charge took 83 minutes.

Should you buy it?

FAQs