Acer C7 Chromebooks Expand Chrome OS Market

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @03:08AM from the ssd-would-have-been-nice-though dept.

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."

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Comparing like for like? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-13 03:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.