Chromebooks have, historically, been the reserve of schools and agile workplaces. If Acer has anything to do with it, however, they’ll be making serious inroads in the home: its new range of Chromebooks, launched at the company’s annual Global Press Conference, includes a model with a gigantic 17in display — a laptop the company is calling a “desktop replacement”.
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Acer says the new Acer Chromebook 317 (CB317-1H) is the first of its kind on the market and, with prices starting at a very reasonable £349 it should prove popular with households looking for a responsive laptop at a reasonable price.
Despite the low price, the laptop itself feels nicely made. It’s quite slim and relatively low weight and it has a spacious keyboard and touchpad.
The screen is Full HD in resolution, which means it looks a little pixelated at this size, but that’s not too big a sacrifice to make given the sheer size of it and that low price.
You might, however, not want to opt for the very cheapest models with 64GB since they have slow eMMC storage and Intel Celeron processors. The good news is that even the pricier models come in at only £399 and they have Pentium CPUs chips and SSD storage.
Alongside the 17in model, Acer is also updating its premium 2-in-1 Chromebook, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713, with 11th-gen Intel Core i7 CPUs, gaining Intel EVO certification in the process.
The Chromebook Spin 713 (CP713-3W) comes with a 13.5in “VertiView” display, which has a 16:10 aspect ratio, and an aluminium chassis that’s tested to the MIL-STD 810H standard so it should be able to shrug off the rough and tumble of your travels (when those eventually start up again).
It also comes with two Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C sockets and has a fingerprint reader embedded in the touchpad. Acer is claiming ten-hour battery life with fast-charge capability that will deliver four hours of use after 30 minutes plugged into a power supply.
Due to the Intel CPU, prices for the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (CP713-3W) are at the more expensive end of the Chromebook spectrum, starting at £699 and rising to £799.
Both new Chromebooks will be available from June. They launch alongside the new 14in Chromebook Spin 514 (CB514-1W, £399 to £499) and the 13in Acer Chromebook 314 (CB314-2H, from £329) models, which will be available from August.
