Pros: The title of this review says almost everything. The biggest plus as of today:

de-chroming this computer has turned it into a truly fully-functional, ordinary Debian (Linux) laptop. Without it, this computer wouldn't be much more than a toy for me. Getting rid of ChromeOS and booting to Linux has made this my lightweight, *work*-ing laptop replacement.

Screen is small but has good resolution. You need sharp eyes.

Cons: - No Ethernet port has impeded some efforts, but the wireless is very well supported.
- For some reason, so far, I'm unable to mount SSD drives using a particular USB3 SATA adapter. Frustrating.
- Some struggle to set it up properly.
- The magnifying-glass/search key on the keyboard where CAPSLOCK goes was vexing to this touch typist.
- No native "Home,End,Page Up,Page Down" keys. These need programming also.

- Of special note: The touchpad requires greater finger pressure than I'm accustomed to. I will adapt but I fear my fingers will suffer with the slightly increased stress. This is the biggest negative.

- De-chroming involves removing a "read-only" screw inside the case, so it must be taken apart to make it fully functional. This is very easy though, with excellent on-line (community-provided) instruction.

Other Thoughts: I bought a netbook many years ago, an eee-machine, and it was my favorite computer ever. Weighing the same as a light textbook, I could take it anywhere, the battery seeming to last forever. For its weight, the screen was bright and clear with good resolution and the keyboard comfortable. It finally died a couple months ago. I used it with Linux, of course. Anything else would have become obsolete much sooner.

This Chromebook is its replacement, and as of today I finally got it working more or less the way I want it to. It has finally become my netbook's excellent upgrade. I'm very happy.

There was a couple weeks of frustration while I messed with developer-mode and with Ubuntu running in a chroot environment, in parallel with the Chromebook OS. This sounded promising because, for instance, I would be able to use Netflix (and similar IP-crippled services/software) but in reality the arrangement didn't allow for the flexibility I needed. I found myself fighting the machine all the time, trying to get it to do ordinary things (ordinary to me, an old Debian-loving hacker). It was mostly a frustrating time-sucker; an inadequate tool.

I finally found a page that gave a very easy path to "de-chroming" my Acer C720. I followed the directions and though I was a little confused in the middle of things, I found that it was even easier than I expected. Someone, some angel, has made that process very slick. Very easy.

Though it is possible to upgrade the M.2 SSD, I had decided that ChromeOS was not the one for me, so I threw caution to the wind and installed this new image directly to the factory selected 32Gb SSD. (Tiny by today's standards, but after installation including a default partitioning, and completing my setup, I still have 22Gb free. Very good if most of what I fill that space with is code and processed data, etc.. And, of course, I should be able to use external drives with reasonable ease. Honestly, I do foresee upgrading the SSD.) Works like a charm.

To re-purpose the keyboard's magnifying-glass key I created a file: ~/.Xmodmap containing:
!-------------------------------------
clear Lock
keycode 133 = Caps_Lock Caps_Lock Caps_Lock
!-------------------------------------

...turning it into the missing, and sorely missed, caps-lock key (for touch typists).

I'm really happy.