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.

Comments

Crappy screens

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep me from upgrading my current ancient netbook.
Get with the program guys!

Re:Crappy screens

[TechyImmigrant]

Yup. I lost interest at 1366 followed by 768.

Units

[Anonymous Coward]

0.75 inches = 19 mm
2.76 punds = 1.25 kg

Re:Units

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So it takes approximately 300 bMpc of volume in my backpack? Sounds good.

want more pixels, ffs!

[SMOKEING]

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.

Warning: Ad pop-ups on mouse-over

[Misagon]

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?

Pretty darn useful little machines

[Yold]

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.

Chromebook is a waste

[onyxruby]

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.

Re:Chromebook is a waste

[Misagon]

I see Chromebooks as:
1) For those who want to serf the web casually but prefer mouse and keyboard over touchscreen interfaces.
2) A proper netbook, as it was supposed to be. The first netbooks were quite similar to the Chromebook concept, a legacy-free system with a small (often Linux-based) OS that wasn't too taxing on the machine. Then Windows hijacked the "netbook" concept and made them into underpowered Windows PCs instead.

That said, I really don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to also run touch-oriented Android apps on the ChromeOS desktop.
Google, go show Microsoft how it should be done!

Re:Chromebook is a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother making Chromebooks, the market doesn't much seem to care for them

Chromebooks are actually doing pretty well.

I'm a huge Android fan, but there are some issues with apps on Android that don't translate too well to the laptop experience (yet):

• * While multitasking apps works great, there's no support for multiple on-screen app windows. (though some people have tried to add them.)
• * though there is mouse support, there's still a heavy reliance on the touch-based interface compared with laptop point-and-click.

That said, Android is open source. You're free to do a port yourself. Some have done so already.

Re:Chromebook is a waste

[lordofthechia]

I see Chromebooks as:
1) For those who want to serf the web

Your page is ready m'lord.

Re:Chromebook is a waste

[onyxruby]

Is 500,000 in sales considered pretty good? To put this in comparison the Surface has been considered a disaster by many here (myself included) and that sold 1.7 million.

I won't argue your other points on mouse and multiple on-screen app windows as they are quite valid. My point is that I think Google could be much more successful in pushing Android on laptops than Chrome. Certainly there is work that would be needed, but that is absolutely paltry compared to the amount of work that it would take to bring Chrome up to par in terms of apps, developer familiarity and market acceptance.

Re:Mfg using Chrome to offload their stockpile

[jandrese]

You know what's ridiculous? Literally 90% of the 15" laptops on Newegg use that crap resolution. And people wonder why Laptop sales have been flagging.

Questions

[aaaaaaargh!]

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.

Re:Questions

[Yold]

It runs OK (google Chrubuntu), but the WiFi and trackpad drivers were so finicky that it was a deal breaker. ChromeOS actually is a stripped down version of Linux, which means that you can actually run a full-blown linux desktop along side it via Crouton (using a chroot). If that sounds tedious, it is actually fool-proof to install.
Since the trackpad and WiFi drivers are still handled by ChromeOS (again, a linux kernel), it works great! If you are looking for a good linux laptop, I'd highly recommend it, especially if price and battery are your two main considerations.

 

12V charging is better than USB...

[evilviper]

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.

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.