Slashdot Mirror
Acer C7 Chromebooks Expand Chrome OS Market
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google is following up last month's Samsung Chromebooks with a new, lower-priced one developed by Acer. Retailing for $199, the 11.6-inch Acer C7 Chromebook features an Intel Celeron 847 processor, 2GB of DDR3 memory, a 320GB hard drive, three USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI port for various cords and auxiliary devices. It's designed for portability, weighing 3.05 pounds and measuring an inch thick. Boot time is reportedly less than 18 seconds. If the new Chromebook has a weakness, it's the advertised 3.5 hours of battery life. That's less than the MacBook Air (which features anywhere from 5-7 hours' battery life, depending on specs) and many of the Windows-backed Ultrabooks, some of which claim up to 11 hours of battery life depending on usage. It's also far less than the posted battery life for tablets such as Apple's iPad and Google's Nexus 7, which are widely viewed as the most prominent competition to laptops in the extra-portable category."
If I could get vanila linux on this, it's a fair price.
I have always thought of chromebooks being pretty much dependant on a web connection to do anything useful, but the C7 has a pretty serious amount of local storage. does that mean it could be used to do most things offline? document editing? playing audio and video? photo editing?
Thinking I might buy one of these and wait for the inevitable Linux install. My eeepc is starting to show its age and no one is making a viable replacement since WinXP was shoved down everyone's throats.
If the new Chromebook has a weakness, it's the advertised 3.5 hours of battery life. That's less than the MacBook Air (which features anywhere from 5-7 hours' battery life, depending on specs) and many of the Windows-backed Ultrabooks, some of which claim up to 11 hours of battery life depending on usage.
You are comparing a $200 machine to one that starts at $1000. It's obviously not going to have the same spec. I'd rather have the $800 and slightly less battery life.
The processor does seem weak, but it is a $200 machine that's only going to be used for light tasks.
If these are the only real-world "weaknesses", it seems like great value, especially if you can put Linux on it.
According to popular report, ARM is zOMG cheaper! than Intel. However, this Acer unit is actually the cheap seats among the Chromebooks. The ARM-based Samsung is $50 more. With a mere 16GB of flash, even if it's the good stuff, not some off-brand SD card, it can't be the SSD that makes up the difference. Displays are the same size and resolution. Are Li-ion cells actually that pricey even in quantity, or did Acer really brutalize the build quality to get to this price?
Probably it don't mean to be a netbook or a tablet, but, still... looks short for a portable device mainly meant to be connected to internet anywhere you are.
I was already considering buying my wife the Samsung ChromeBook for Christmas; I'll need to see if I can play with one of these Acers to decide if the extra $50 is worth it.
She already has a laptop; this would be a second machine. Her MacBook is still very functional but is suffering some cosmetic damage and the battery life has declined a lot. I could buy her a new battery for less than the price of a ChromeBook... but there's also some value in having a "downstairs computer". The ChromeBook would probably live in the living room and kitchen, while the MacBook would stay in her bedroom.
I've also considered getting her a new computer... but I don't have a grand in the budget for a new Mac, and while I could probably deal with that I also have a moral objection to funding Apple's lawsuits -- and so does my wife, actually. I could buy her a regular laptop, but what OS would it run? I don't want to manage or mess with Windows, and she hasn't used Windows in many years so it'd be a learning curve for her... not so much the OS but the software she uses. I'd be happy to put Ubuntu on it, but the learning curve issue would be there, plus Netflix wouldn't work.
So, a ChromeBook is looking like a really excellent low-cost option. It would allow her to semi-retire the MacBook, keeping it around for the small amount of stuff she needs a "real" computer for, and not requiring her to learn new apps for photo editing, making greeting cards, videos, etc., but using the ChromeBook for e-mail, calendaring, docs, Facebook, TV, video chats, etc., which make up the bulk of her computing. Then I could spend the rest of her Christmas budget on other stuff.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Chrome needs to be dumped on its ass and the best bits folded into Android. These two operating systems have so much overlap that it makes no sense to keep them both going.
I'm thinking of buying one myself and installing a proper debian on it, but this is concerning:
http://ark.intel.com/compare/55764,56056
Does it mean that it has a PowerVR based GMA like the latest Atoms? That would be a deal breaker for me.
When your article points to yourself and contains about as much info as the summary whats the point. What would have really been nice is if the article actually compared battery weight to life.
Previously posted here.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The Acer suffers from a 320 GB HDD, 3.5 Hours Battery Life, and 18 second boot times.
The only current downside to the Samsung is that Netflix doesn't work yet.
Chrome OS is a crippled excuse for a desktop environment. But if the GUI can somehow be divorced from Google's obsession with the cloud, it would make the more popular Linux desktop GUIs appear like overdesigned junk art. The Aura window manager is simply beautiful or beautifully simple.
The Chrome browser is already available on Android [through Play Store]
The last time I checked, Chrome worked only on 4.x devices, not 2.x phones, 2.x tablets (such as Kindle Fire and older Archos products), or Honeycomb tablets.
Note however that large keyboard operated non-touchscreen devices, and small no-keyboard touchscreen devices are two different beasts, and getting something to work well on both is no easy task. At least not without compromises.
The same could be said of Microsoft's recent attempt to unify desktop and tablet operating systems.
so, yes, any Chromebook can do "most things offline" (provided that you mean things that make sense offline)
The trouble happens when a web developer's idea of what things "make sense offline" isn't broad enough. For example, e-mail and discussion forums were offline (SMTP/POP3 and NNTP respectively) before the web, yet webmail, web boards, and social networking sites have tended to under-support the paradigm of synchronizing new posts when one has a connection. I guess not enough web developers think it'd bring in enough additional ad revenue to optimize their sites for the use case of using a device on the public transit commute.
And still save a LOT compared to the Macbook Air (like, $600). Heck, buy FIVE.
... I highly highly doubt there are many people out there just struggling with the "Oh, I WANT to buy an Acer Chromebook, but that battery means I guess I have to buy a Macbook Air instead" thought process.
that's my tongue-in-cheek way of pointing out that they have different target audiences
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Then no problem.
I'll be interested when the Hackintosh community gets Mac OS X running on this. And they will.
https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_acer_c710
Although I prefer the $249 one because it has no moving parts .No Hard-disk (SSD only) and no fans (passive cooling). Its the only laptop which I can use on my laps without burning my family jewels
Yeah, and be happy if it still runs after a year. My experience with Acer is that they are a very bad brand. Maybe because the last one I bought was a "made for Mexico" model were consumer protection is weak (so say the least). Each time I see those Acers at the local supermarket -- Chedraui, well known for the utter crap they sell -- for about 3000 pesos I wonder how much of those are still running a year from now. Wouldn't surprise me if it was less than 50%.
Perl Programmer for hire
Are those 3.5 h with or without Flash?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Too bad its not an ARM chip, or i would be interested.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
wonder if I could get Win XP on it....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
jdyjkyfjhdfjghjfg