Those hunting for a cheap notebook are always wise to keep an eye on Chromebooks, and another budget-friendly option has just emerged in the form of the Acer Chromebook 15 (model number: CB3-532).
This latest cloudy laptop arrives with an impressively light-on-the-wallet $199 (around £165, AU$260) price tag, but as you can imagine, you don’t get a particularly heavyweight spec for this kind of outlay.
The new Chromebook 15 has a nice large 15.6-inch display, although the resolution on that screen isn’t so great, being 1366 x 768 pixels. The good news is that it’s an anti-glare display, or a ‘ComfyView’ one as Acer calls it, meaning reflections are minimized, and so therefore is the risk of eyestrain.
The processor is a cheaper Intel model, unsurprisingly, specifically the Celeron N3060 dual-core CPU which runs at 1.6GHz with Turbo to 2.48GHz (and a very frugal TDP of 6W).
Connectivity corner
Backing that you get 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage (eMMC) along with a 720p webcam (that supports HDR). Connectivity includes an HDMI port and a pair of USB 3.0 ports as well as an audio jack. You get an SD card reader, too, and wireless connectivity in the form of Bluetooth 4.2 and 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi (MIMO 2x2).
There’s also a 3,950 mAh, 3-cell battery on board, and that gives you a claimed up to 12 hours battery life, which is pretty impressive, although as ever your mileage will vary depending on what you’re doing with the notebook while on the go.
Acer has also included a pair of full-sized upward facing speakers to ensure decent audio quality. There are definite benefits to a larger Chromebook which has the space to fit these sort of components.
This laptop is on sale now over in the US at Walmart, for the asking price of $199 (around £165, AU$260) as we already mentioned. Fingers crossed that we might soon see it in the UK, as well.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that just last week, Acer’s Swift 7 became available to buy, an interesting laptop if only because it’s the thinnest the world has ever seen.
Image and Via: Liliputing
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