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Acer Officially Announces C720 Chromebook
adeelarshad82 writes "Acer officially announced its new Chromebook, C720. The C720 is 30% thinner (at 0.75 inches thick) and lighter (at 2.76 pounds) than Acer's previous Chromebook, C7. The C720 Chromebook has an 11.6-inch anti-glare widescreen, with a 1,366-by-768 resolution. Acer claims seven second boot times and up to 8.5 hours of battery life. The C720 comes with 4GB of DDR3L memory and uses an Intel Celeron 2955U processor based on Haswell technology. The system also has 16GB of local SSD storage along with 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi to get to Google's cloud-based storage. Like previous Chromebooks, the C720 Chromebook is constantly updated with the latest version of the Chrome OS and built around the Chrome browser." One thing this machine lacks is the most intriguing feature of the new ARM-based (and lower-power) Chromebook 11 from HP: charging via Micro-USB.
Keep me from upgrading my current ancient netbook.
Get with the program guys!
0.75 inches = 19 mm
2.76 punds = 1.25 kg
It has been told many times already. 768 dots may be OK for a phone. For a laptop, anything less than a 1000 is just sad news.
The page linked to has annoying ad pop-ups that show when you hover the mouse pointer over keywords. The summary above is practically all the info in the article, so there is no reason to go there.
And by the way... How did this article get up-voted enough to get to the first page? There is nothing particularly interesting about yet another Chromebook with incremental updates over its predecessor ... or is there?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Will it run Linux?
I recently replaced my MacBook Air with a Acer Chromebook refurb I picked up for $150 on ebay. It is an awesome portable dev machine. Good battery life, and Crouton is incredible. You can run Linux and ChromeOS simultaneously (via a chroot); it makes switching between the a matter of two keystrokes. I never thought I'd actually like ChromeOS, but it's actually pretty slick.
Why bother making Chromebooks, the market doesn't much seem to care for them. Instead they should be putting Android onto laptops since the market is already very familiar with Android and the marketplace is already well stocked with apps.
The transition from a phone or tablet that runs Android to a laptop that runs Android would be quite minimal. You would be able to continue using very cheap hardware and people wouldn't have to worry about adopting an entire additional OS in their lives. Office applications exist for Android as well as many common applications for any number of purposes.
Google's support for Chrome is puzzling when Android is incredibly entrenched in the market and public conscious. It would also allow Google to concentrate the resource on one Operating System instead of two. When you consider that people are already being forced to learn a new interface with Microsoft's Metro stunt, now is the time to step up to the plate and make Android that interface.
An usable screen size for anyone over 40, a keyboard usable by anyone but a small handed former female Foxxcon employee (slave?), storage of any real kind, because *YOU* use the *Cloud* and the cloud is the continuation of turning the computer into a fixed media device... or for the slow minded out there, a TV.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"Celeron"
Every Celeron based machine I've ever used has SUCKED. Nothing worth while here, time to move on.
Mfg using Chrome to offload their stockpile of outdated early 2000 parts like 1366x768 netbook screens. These are $150 netbooks being repackaged as new Chromebooks. It's working, a lot of Google fans are buying these cheap internet terminals. They're also holding back high quality screens from being mass produced.
Android does not have a proper multi-window management yet. The window manager on Google Linux distribution is better suited for laptops and netbooks.
I'm a power user and while I use google products, I certainly don't trust them. That said, I understand planned obsolescence, but I really just want to see some ARM systems put out that are comparable to modern x86 machines in terms of specs.
If anything this should have an HD display, 4-8 core processor, and 8GB ram for me to even care about it.
Likewise, on the non-mobile front, I wish Cubie and these other manufacturers would produce something that'd fit in a standard case, accept standard RAM modules up to 32 or 64gb, not have limitations on the gigabit ethernet controller, and have more than one SATA port. I want a real computer, only with the ARM architecture and power savings.
I nag the manufacturers and they just brush it off.
> The C720 Chromebook has an 11.6-inch anti-glare
> widescreen, with a 1,366-by-768 resolution.
So it's like the 1024x768 Compaq laptop I had 15 years ago, but with 342 more pixels of width? Progress!
Dear laptop makers: moar pixels, please. Even my original 13" MacBook from 2006 ago had more vertical pixels. (1280x800)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
What a wise idea!
It's nice to see a bump up in the CPU, but is it really that hard to cram in a gigabit ethernet port and bluetooth radio? The wife would rather choose a Macbook Air, but it's getting difficult to compete with this pricepoint for something that is so soldered down that storage & ram are permanent....
I had a Chromebook for about 3 days. Most of that time it was back in the box waiting for my next run to town to return it. I'd bought the Acer with a 320 gig hard drive expecting to either use it as a media player or torrent machine depending on which it did better. Neither. It can't access local network resources. And it couldn't handle any of my media files even tho they're h.264 and it's supposed to be able to play that format. So no media player. What about torrent clients? Nope. All I could find were remote control plugins to control clients running on other machines. When I complained about this on the official Chromebook forums I was told that it would be a lot of work to add local network support. Um...oooooookay. Oh, and, if I want to watch my local content, there are remote desktop solutions. I can just use those. Then W[hy]TF do I need the Chromebook?
I'm pretty Googleized with apps and drive and my android portables but the Chromebook was a real case of, "What the fuck is this shit???" I spent another $55 on a 'doze laptop and installed Chrome. Gives me all the Google integration I need without limiting what I can do with the platform.
How does Ubuntu run on it? Or any other decent linux distro? How is battery life under GNU/Linux? Does it also run Wine? (Need to run some windows apps on it)
I'm interested in getting one as a replacement for my EEE, especially since it has a non-glare screen, but this "Chrome OS" would be useless for me.
To hell with your freaky mutually-incompatible and non-standard ways to get 3amps over USB! Give me a 12V DC, positive-center barrel plug any day... Vastly more durable than MicroUSB junk, and far cheaper.
Car adapters cost $3, since they're just a cord... Wall adapters are also dirt-cheap, and I can use any of the dozen I have lying around... Everything from my Netbook, to my GbE switch, to my computer speakers, to my NiMH battery charger, to my portable fan, to my UPSes, to my old video game consoles, ALL run on 12V DC. They can all swap adapters, because there's no crazy non-standard resistor levels on other pins that make half of them incompatible with the other half... And unlike MicroUSB jacks with the tiny reed in the center, barrel plugs are practically bullet-proof, can be inserted easily in any orientation, etc.
I tolerate MicroUSB as a middle-of-the-road standard, that is better than a complete mis-mash of incompatible charging connectors, and varying voltages (3? 7.5? 9? WTF?), but only for small devices. Tablets should NEVER have started using it, and larger phones that can't fully charge with 5V should be jumping to 12V DC barrel-plugs ASAP, and getting everyone on a compatible, higher-power standard.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Yay, yet another notebook with a resolution lower than a... *blink* EFFING GALAXY S4 CELLPHONE! My first PC was a 386 back in 1991. It had a Viewsonic graphics card and 14" CRT with 1024x768. 22 years ago. Same vertical rez. Dammit, guys.
sig: sauer
Everything, and I mean everything, I ever brought from acer stopped working within 3 years. They make the lowest cost laptops because they use the cheapest parts. Saving $50 by buying acer is false economy.
Not just greater cost on the screen, but a requirement for a higher capacity / more expensive battery.
So... if it charges via micro USB and has a USB port then all I need a microUSB cable for INFINITE battery life? I'm sold.
I bought an Acer A500 a few yrs ago. It is still a good tablet, but hasn't gotten any OS patches in about a year. Don't tell me that Android 4.02 is bug free.
Don't get me started on the 16inch long power adapter that was broke when it arrived or the replacement that broke 5 months later due to the really strange cable design. It broke mid-cable, not at the ends.
Acer lost me as a customer. HP, Compaq, SONY, and a few others have all lost me for similar reasons over the years. Compaq's desktop equipment was a joke - never should have been shipped. It crashed constantly and their support people had me downloading different drivers for every part every week. Before I knew it, the warranty was up and I couldn't return it.
HP wanted to charge for drivers for a digital camera that was complete crap. 4 AA batteries would be drained overnight without taking a single photo. Is $120 for drivers too much?
Acer has joined those groups. Vendors can't treat a networked computer like they treat a simple toaster.
the chromebook is the net appliance done right.
What's sad is that my netbook originally came with a 1024x600 screen. I got an aftermarket screen for it, but the best I could upgrade to was 1366x768... I don't understand why laptops/netbooks have such low res and dpi
There was no market for a high-end netbook, that's why (well, other than the small MB Air). That's a market that Microsoft wanted to create/crack for years - from their original "tablet PC" to "UMPC" to the more Intel-driven "Ultrabooks", the entire market has been a failure (some say, by design to preserve profit margins for the WinTel brothers).
Then the iPad came out and was the death knell (cheap Android tablets being the nails in the coffin to keep the analogy going). Why would a manufacturer create a $500 uber-netbook when they could sell a $500 tablet and not pay Microsoft $50-$200 for an OS (which, because Microsoft really never took it seriously, sucked at touch inputs for all of the 00 decade)?
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Why bother making Chromebooks, the market doesn't much seem to care for them.
The Chromebook is a dual-attack against Google's biggest competitors/threats - Microsoft and Apple.
By sucking all the profit margin out of the low end, Microsoft can't levy it's Windows tax on each machine sold. Neither does a Chromebook carry MS Office. Both wins if you're hoping Microsoft's top line sinks... the fact that Apple rules the roost at the top end puts Microsoft in the same vice-grip that effectively killed Nokia and Blackberry in the smartphone space.
By simplifying ChromeOS so not even updates are manually handled, they make them simpler than Macbooks (it does less, but with more and more stuff being done on the web/cloud, it might be a moot point in a few years for mainstream users). And the Pixel was defintely a shot against the bow against Apple, targeting the high-end Retina MB Pros.
The Chromebook is a disruptive product, designed to torpedo both Apple and Google, first. And while doing so, support Google's services second.
While all of this is enjoyable and worthy of a bowl of popcorn as a bystander, the fact remains that Google has decided that Chrome needs to be an OS and not a browser first, and I see it in Chrome's recent bloat. It's a pity.
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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421744,00.asp
I think the market says they want them. Chromebook now owns 25% of sub $300 market.
I spent 90% of my time on a laptop browsing the internet. A chromebook is my next upgrade.
No where does it quantify this with actual numbers. Kind of like when Amazon says the Kindle is the top selling product on Amazon. Without actual unit numbers it's hard to find out what the $300 market even means.
I laugh every time I hear Amazon decide to trot out their "Kindle rulz!" comments without numbers. If you aren't willing to show how much you've sold you can't say your product is popular at all. SalesRank is not a quantity.
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I am using it way more than my windows notebook, my android tablet, my kindle, or my ipod touch.
- fast boot
- small and lightweight
- long battery life
- enough power to load websites in a reasonable time
- real keyboard
- no worries about malware
- screen, and keyboard, big enough to be useful
- screen is high enough resolution for everything I use it for - and I am well over 40 years old.
It is not perfect for everything. But for the $145 I paid, I'm very happy. I'd buy it again.
Lack of function and delete keys makes those laptops a no-go for me. I rather spend some more money for my laptops/netbooks/ultrabooks to get the even remotely standard keyboard than spend time messing with weird layout on each of them. If one spends 8h a day in front of desktop keyboard, the devices at home better have the same layout.