14 DAY TRIAL // Acer’s Chromebooks have been fairly successful and the company is one of the few to offer a touch-enabled model that arrives at an inexpensive price.
But sometimes companies don’t want to make a big fuss over their product announcements, so they quietly push out updated models of their existing machines without issuing a press-release and such.
That appears to be happening now, as Acer has subtly rolled out a new Chromebook C720 model which comes equipped with an Intel Core i3 Haswell processor.
You can’t pick the model up yet, but the device should make it in stock in a few weeks (probably by the end of July). Notebook Italia reports the Acer Chromebook was spotted during the company’s New York event back in April, but back then it came unnamed and without the full specifications.
Anyway, thanks to the retail listing we can tell you that the new C720 (C720-3605) is the first to arrive on the market with an Intel Haswell processor and Intel HD Graphics 4400. A similar model coming from Dell should also make it out into the world, shortly.
The new C720 arrives with an 11.6-inch display offering 1366 x 768 pixel resolution and with a dual-core Intel Core i3-4005U fitted with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of SSD storage.
Like the current Acer C720, the new model offers two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0.
Compared to the earlier version that took advantage of an Intel Celeron 2955U, the Intel Core i3 version should deliver better performance and will allow Acer to stand out from the expanding crowd of Chromebook devices available on the market.
While pricing is concerned, the retail listing is showing the new Chromebook should retail for around $360 / €264 give or take.
Anyway, Acer seems to be hoping to make a real statement while Chromebooks are concerned. This weekend we told you that an announced model was spotted with a Swedish retailer.
Interestingly enough, the CB5 Chromebook appears to be a laptop powered by NVIDIA’s latest Tegra K1 processor, a platform that is currently powering the Xiaomi MiPad tablet.
There aren’t a lot of ARM-based Chromebooks out there, but we’re not exactly sure about what the benefits of this happening might be.
Chromebooks using the Intel Bay Trail or Haswell platform can deliver a competent battery life and quite sturdy performance, but would an NVIDIA-powered Chromebook measure up?
As we are waiting for fresh details related to the two new Acer Chromebook models, we conclude by asking you whether a Chrome-OS laptop with a more advanced processor will be something you’d like to own.