When we tested the Dell Chromebook 11 last year, we were impressed with its durable chassis, affordability, and long battery life. The latest Dell Chromebook 11 Non-Touch ($269 as tested) delivers more of the same offering 10 hours of battery life and a MIL-SPEC-rated case to help withstand the rigors of everyday classroom use. At just under $270, it is also reasonably priced. However, unlike the recently reviewed Dell Chromebook 11 Touch, its 11.6-inch display doesn't support touch input and, like its predecessor, it offers narrow viewing angles.

Design and Features
As with the Lenovo ThinkPad 11e Chromebook, the Chromebook 11 Non-Touch forgoes style for durability. The dark-gray chassis meets MIL-SPEC standards for resistance to dust, spills, accidental drops, pressure, temperature, and humidity, and has a band of protective rubber trim around the base and the lid.

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The laptop measures 0.83 by 11.7 by 8.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.7 pounds, making it slightly thinner and lighter than the 0.87-inch, 3.1-pound Lenovo 11e Chromebook. It has a spill-resistant, chiclet-style keyboard with keys optimized for Chrome OS. It is a bit more cramped than the Lenovo Chromebook's keyboard, but just as responsive. The touchpad exhibits none of the quirkiness that we saw with the Dell Chromebook 11 Touch; scrolling and gesturing is smooth and easy, and cursor control is uniform across the entire pad.

The 11.6-inch display has a 1,366-by-768 resolution and anti-glare coating. It produces vibrant colors and has sharp image quality, but its viewing angle is middling. There's only minor color shifting when viewed from a side angle but the screen becomes very dark when viewed from the bottom and washed out when viewed from the top. We noticed this with the earlier iterations as well. If you want wide horizontal and vertical viewing angles, look for a chromebook with an In-Plane Switching (IPS) screen, such as the HP Chromebook 11 or the Asus Chromebook Flip (C100PA-DB02). The Chromebook 11 Non-Touch's speakers lack deep bass, but are reasonably loud and more than adequate for most multimedia applications.

The 16GB of embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC) flash memory is common among chromebooks. I/O ports are also typical. On the left are a power jack, an HDMI output, a USB 3.0 port with PowerShare charging, a headphone jack, and a media card reader. The right side has a USB 2.0 port and a security-lock slot. There's a webcam and microphone array embedded in the display's upper bezel, and wireless connectivity comes via dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 LE. Dell covers the laptop with a one-year warranty.

Performance
The Chromebook 11 has 4GB of RAM and a 2.16GHz Celeron N2840 dual-core processor. Its cold-boot start-up time of 8 seconds is on par with most other chromebooks, but twice as long as the Dell Chromebook 11 (Core i3) that we reviewed earlier this year. That said, this newer Chromebook 11 had no trouble handling YouTube video and Pandora audio streams simultaneously in testing, despite having eight Web browser tabs open.

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The 3-cell sealed battery lasted 10 hours 37 minutes on our rundown test, outlasting the ThinkPad 11e Chromebook (7:35) by around 3 hours and the CTL Chromebook J2 (8:55) by around 1.5 hours. The $999 Google Chromebook Pixel remains our leader with 12 hours of battery life, while the Asus Chromebook Flip (11:15) wears the crown for affordable chromebooks.

Conclusion
With its durable build, spill-resistant keyboard, and impressive battery life, the Dell Chromebook 11 Non-Touch is ideal for any grade-school classroom or for use as an affordable, everyday laptop. It has more than enough chops for multitasking and its 10-plus hours of battery life will get you through an entire day with power to spare. The display is bright and colorful, but loses some luster when viewed from an angle, and it lacks touch-screen capability. The Asus Chromebook Flip (C100PA-DB02), on the other hand, does have a touch screen that can be flipped for use as a tablet, and it's a solid performer with 11 hours of battery life, which is why it remains our Editors' Choice chromebook.