Further its mission to build a laptop that "everyone" can buy, Google today announced an addition to its Chromebook line of ultra-portable and ultra-affordable laptops: the Acer C7 Chromebook.
And it's only $199.
Similar to the Samsung Chromebook released last month, the Acer C7 will, when it goes on sale tomorrow (Nov. 13), run Google's Chrome operating system and rely solely on cloud-based apps. It's small and light, like the Samsung, too, weighing in at 3 lbs and sporting an 11.6-inch display. Customers who buy one will also get 100 GB of Google Data Drive Cloud Storage free for two years.
If it looks thicker than the Samsung model, that's because it is—0.3" thicker. That extra space is occupied by extra ports (three USB 2.0 vs. the Chromebook's one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0), and a few that are considered to be legacy in the ultra-portable market: a built-in Ethernet port and, most surprisingly, a VGA out connection for when you want to connect it to something that doesn't have HDMI input. There's also more on-board storage space thanks to the 320 GB hard drive.
Despite the added heft, Google says battery life has been cut in half to just 3.5 hours. That may have to do with it running an Intel Core processor instead of a chip built specifically for mobile devices like the Exynos 5 Dual Processor found in the Samsung Chromebook.
At this rate, Google will be giving these out for free next year.
[via LA Times]
