Acer introduced a new addition to its C270-Chromebook lineup and surprisingly dropped the price of its newest member below $200, making it the only Chromebook with such a low price in the market.
Acer has yet again broken the low-cost barrier in the Chromebooks market. The newest member to its C720 Chromebook lineup has the lowest starting price in a fiercely competitive laptop market. Acer announced Friday that its latest Chromebook model C720-2848 will sell at $199.
The new Chrombook model succeeds the previous C720 model, which was announced a month ago. The C720 was Acer's first Chromebook with Intel's Haswell micro-architecture and priced at a reasonable $249.99. The C720-2848 has not fallen far from its predecessor. It sports a similar 11.6-inch 1366x768, anti-glare display and 1.4GHz Intel Celron processor. The new one is equipped with a 2GB RAM compared to C720's 4GB.
"Since the Acer C720 debuted last month, it's been acclaimed for delivering industry-leading performance and long battery life to mobile savvy computer users," Arif Maskatia, CTO for Acer, said in a press release. "Our new $199.99 model delivers an incredible value proposition for this level of performance at a time of year when so many people are shopping for gifts for loved ones."
The new Chromebook model promises better battery performance, up to 8.5 run-time hours. The latest model is targeted at the budget-conscious customers who are looking for a decent laptop to mainly work on the internet. Chromebook runs on Google's cloud-centric Chrome OS, which keeps it fast and light.
In addition to its low-priced Chromebook, Acer is also giving an option to its buyers to throw in some extra RAM, up to 4GB, for an extra $50. The other specifications remain the same as C270-2848.
Both Chromebooks pack USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, with Webcam and Wi-Fi support.
The laptops are available in the U.S. starting Friday, through leading retailers including Amazon and Best Buy. Global availability of the new models is yet not known.
