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The first look you get of the Chromebook 13 7310 is, of course, of the lid. It has a rubberised, matte black finish – though it is patterned, meaning it is not entirely plain.
The base of the Chromebook is made from a magnesium alloy with a carbon fibre finish – according to Dell. It certainly looks good, and feels both classy yet sturdy.
Opening the lid, you can see a continuation of this magnesium alloy – it is used for the entirety of the bottom section.
The chiclet keyboard has a white backlight which does not turn off. It is not visible in daylight, but provides the required underglow to let you use the device in low-light conditions. On the whole I think the keyboard is a decent unit. Key travel is minimal – as it would have to be for a laptop measuring only 19.9mm thick. The keys are very well spaced out, though, and I found this helps the adjustment period – as coming from a desktop keyboard to a much smaller laptop keyboard can sometimes be tricky. However, with the well spaced-out keyboard on the Chromebook 13 7310, it is certainly a much smoother adaptation process.
The touchpad is not split into two, either – it has just a single, integrated button. In my experience the touchpad is truly excellent – sliding your finger over it is very smooth and I encountered zero resistance from it. This helps tracking to stay accurate, and just gives a lovely feel to the touchpad. Having integrated buttons also looks better, as there is not the extra clutter of two further buttons below the trackpad.
In the lower right-hand corner are two stickers – both blend it well with the dark metal base.
Above we get a look at the ports on the outer edges of the Chromebook. The left side sports the power input, 1x HDMI 2.0 output, 1x USB 3.0, 1x headphone jack and a microSD reader. The right side has just a USB 2.0 and a Noble lock.
Here you also get a good indication of just how slim the Chromebook is – coming in less than 2cm thick.
Above, the image on the left shows the furthest the Chromebook can tilt backwards. It is certainly enough for any scenario I can think of.
Finally we get a good look at the insides of the Chromebook. The battery takes up over half of the space – while very little is serviceable. Theoretically you could change out the 32GB LITEON M.2 SSD, but whether a new one would be recognised by the Chromebook is another matter entirely. 8GB of RAM, too, must surely be enough for even the most demanding of Chromebook owners.
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