Acer’s new Chromebook 11 is a tough student laptop that goes online almost anywhere

Acer has been busy over at the BETT show in London, revealing a pair of new Chromebooks aimed at students – with one targeting families in general, too – alongside a fresh Chromebox.

Acer’s Chromebook 11 C732 is aimed at the education market and thus made to take some knocks in the classroom. It’s IP41 certified and drop-tested to 1.22m, with a spill-resistant keyboard designed to survive the ravages of a knocked-over drink.

This notebook is also compliant with MIL-STD 810G testing and benefits from a reinforced case and hinge to make it a tougher customer all round. Speaking of the hinge, this opens to 180-degrees, allowing the portable to be laid flat on a desk which will be handy when students are collaborating together on a project.

Powered by an Intel Celeron processor – either a dual-core N3350 or a quad-core N3450 – it’s a fanless laptop, so nice and quiet, with optional 4G LTE connectivity if you want to benefit from mobile broadband when on the move. The device can cater for up to 8GB of system RAM, and up to 64GB of eMMC storage.

The Chromebook 11 can be configured with either an 11.6-inch IPS touchscreen, or a non-touch display of either the IPS or TN variety, both with a resolution of 1,366 x 768.

Acer is claiming a battery life of up to 12 hours, and in terms of physical connectors, there are two USB Type-C ports, along with a pair of USB 3.0, and a microSD card reader.

The Chromebook 11 C732 goes on sale in April with prices starting at €329 (around £290, $405, or AU$505).

Spinning around

Acer also unveiled a new Chromebook Spin 11 convertible, a fresh take on the 2-in-1 which uses a 360-degree hinge (with laptop, tent, stand and tablet modes) and offers an 11.6-inch HD resolution IPS touchscreen.

It runs with an Intel Pentium N4200 quad-core processor, or either of the aforementioned Celeron CPUs as used in the Chromebook 11 C732 above. Again, it can be configured with up to 8GB of system memory, and up to 64GB of eMMC storage.

The Spin 11 further benefits from a wide field-of-view webcam for video chatting, and an optional rear camera for snapping images when in tablet mode. There’s also an optional EMR (Electro-Magnetic Resonance) stylus for note-taking and drawing, and a claimed battery life of up to 10 hours.

Again, this Chromebook will go on sale in April, with the price starting at €379 (around £330, $465, or AU$580).

Finally, Acer also took the time to show off a new Chromebox CX13 with a neat and compact design (plus optional VESA mounting kit), with up to an 8th-gen Intel Core processor under the hood.

You’ll get plentiful connectivity with the box including a USB Type-C port, five USB Type-A connectors, an HDMI and Ethernet port, as well as a microSD card reader. 802.11ac Wi-Fi (2x2 MIMO) is also present on the wireless side of the equation, along with Bluetooth 4.2 LE.

The company didn’t mention a price or release date for the CX13, so we’re still in the dark there, at least for the moment. At any rate, expect Acer to double down on Chrome OS devices for school and work this year.

• Two Chromebooks make it onto our best laptops list