With the launch of the Chromebook Pixel, Chrome OS in general has gotten much more attention recently. Many people intrigued by the operating system, but scared of the high dollar price of the Pixel have been directed towards the lower-end Chromebooks made by Samsung and Acer. The former of those two has arguably more success than the other. Even though Samsung’s Chromebook comes in at $250, $50 more than Acer’s, it has received far better reviews and been extremely hard to find, as it has been sold out almost everywhere until recently. Acer’s laptop received criticism for its poor battery life and generally slow performance.
On Tuesday, however, Acer showed us that it was listening to the early criticizing reviews of its $200 Chromebook. The company has announced a new and improved laptop running Chrome OS. The C710-2055 features a larger, six cell battery that should give 6 hours of battery life. The RAM has also been doubled, going from 2GB to 4GB. Other specs include an Intel Celeron 847 processor clocked at 1.1GHz, an HD webcam, three USB 2.0 ports, and an HDMI port. How is the price affected by these improvements? Acer says that its latest Chromebook is available now from retailers around the United States for $279.99. To me personally, that seems like a rather big increase for the small improvements you get. Samsung’s Chromebook comes in at just $250 and offers 6.5 hours of battery life and an SSD. Though it doesn’t offer 4GB of RAM, the solid state storage should be light years better than the standard spinning drive found in Acer’s model. Of course, it still does come in at far less than the Chromebook Pixel, if you’re into making irrelevant comparisons.
Chrome OS has certainly seen a huge increase in adoption over the past few months. The Chromebook by Samsung has been the top-selling laptop on Amazon for months now, and both the Acer and Samsung Chromebooks were some of the most gifted items this past holiday season. While the Chromebook Pixel may not be the best option for most people, it definitely shows the potential of Google’s desktop operating system.
What do you think of Acer’s new Chromebook? Is it worth the extra money over Samsung’s model? Let us know down in the comments!