Taiwanese tech company Acer has announced the launch of a new Chromebook with high-end hardware and an Aluminum build at just $299.99 in the US and $399.99 in Canada. The device, named the Acer Chromebook 14 (CB3-431), is already available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be available at Best Buy from April this year. The notebook comes in multiple different versions ranging from 2 GB to 4 GB RAM and 16 GB to 32 GB eMMC storage. What’s more, while the top-end model comes with a full HD 1080p screen, users will also get the option of choosing a more inexpensive model with a WXGA (1366 x 768) resolution. All the models, however will feature 14-inch IPS displays irrespective.
Announcing the launch of the new device, the president of Acer’s Notebook Business Group, Mr. Jerry Kao, said in a prepared statement that, “The Chromebook 14 is an excellent choice for customers who want a stylish, large-screen Chromebook with long battery life at an attractive price”. It is worth a mention that the new models are Acer’s fist ever 14-inch Chromebooks, and even though the company is the largest vendor of such devices worldwide, the screen real estate on its current-generation models, like the Acer Chromebook R11, had been restricted to around the 11-inch mark for the most part. Anyways, Acer claims a 12-hour battery life for the 1080p models and a whopping 14-hour battery life for the ones with a slightly lower WXGA resolution. However, seeing as the devices have just been announced, the claims are yet to be independently verified.
Finally, coming to the tech specs of the Chromebook 14, the devices are powered by Intel Celeron processors from the Braswell family (socket BGA 1170). While some have the quad-core N3160 chip running under the hood, others come with the dual-core N3060. Both chips run at 1.6 GHz, with turbo frequencies going up to over 2.00 GHz in each case. Apart from carrying either 2 GB or 4 GB or dual-channel LPDDR3 SDRAM, the devices feature support for dual-band 2×2 MIMO 802.11ac/a/b/g/n Wi-Fi along with Bluetooth 4.2. There are also a couple of USB 3.1 ports and an HDMI port on all models of the Chromebook 14. Acer also claims that the Chromebook 14 devices are ultra-light and ultra-thin, with a weight of only 3.42 pounds (1.55kg) and a thickness of just 0.67 inches (17mm).
