Acer C720 (Haswell), $249 - Intel Celeron 2955U, 4GB of RAM, 16GB SSD

[Ry]

Acer brings Haswell power to the new C720 Chromebook

Acer has unveiled the new C720 Chromebook, the Haswell-powered follow-up to last year's C7. At $249, it's slightly more expensive than the previous $199 notebook, but Acer appears to have addressed some of our issues with last year's model. One big problem was short battery life, which should be improved with the switch to Haswell, and the C7's lengthy bootup times could be helped with the switch from SATA to a solid state drive. The C720 is also slightly thinner and lighter than the original C7, although it appears to still be based on the the same general form factor.

The C720 appears poised to compete directly with the $279 HP Chromebook 11, which uses a Samsung Exynos 5250 with 2GB of RAM compared to the Intel Celeron 2955U processor and 4GB of RAM in the C720. Both notebooks have a 1366 x 768 display, although that gives the 11.6-inch C720 a slightly lower resolution than the 11-inch Chromebook 11. Both notebooks have 16GB of internal storage, which is fairly standard with the largely cloud-based Chrome OS.

 

[Jaredshoes]

I'm excited for the new Chromebooks that are being announced I'm looking for something I can use in bed when I don't want to sit at my desk, Either one of the new chromebooks or a cheap ultrabook

 

[Ry]

Supposedly the RAM and SSD aren't user-replaceable like the previous C710.

 

[jakalfa]

First thing I'm going to do is swap out the baby ssd for a 180 gb out of my current mac, and try out a few different linux distros on it. I'd be curious to know if the reason its maxed out at 4GB is specific to the chromeOS or if its the hardware. Also looking at the available benchmarks for the 2955U it should out perform an Intel Core2 Duo 2.0 Ghz Dual Core (which is what my mac has, late 2008 model) and that runs everything I need and then some, including virtual machines, windows 7/8 and most pentest tools. The only thing I'm concerned about is the RAM being soldered to the motherboard, Acer lists the hard drive being a SATA 300 connection so I'm confident that can be swapped out, now its just a matter of getting someone with the new 720 to open it up and confirm or deny that the RAM is soldered to the board.

 

[grooks]

Just ordered and Acer C720 and should arrive later this week. This will be my first foray into Chromebooks. I have a 3 year old ASUS laptop running Window 8 that is used mostly for internet so thought this would be a cheaper alternative when I don't feel like using my phone or 7" tablet.

 

[dpzbatman79]

Is this chrome book still available? I can't find it anywhere

 

[SlappyMcgee]

So doe anyone have a confirmed answer to why the 4GB model is no longer available. I have read that people say it has been discontinued and it hasn't even been out that long so what gives?

 

[MBCrunch]

I could not find the C720 anywhere in Canada until I looked on Acer's website and their online store has:
32GB and 2GB RAM (which I ordered)
and the fabled 16GB with 4GB RAM
don't know if the US store has the same

Acer North America Online Store - Chromebooks

 

[dkhmwilliams]

I could not find the C720 anywhere in Canada until I looked on Acer's website and their online store has:
32GB and 2GB RAM (which I ordered)
and the fabled 16GB with 4GB RAM
don't know if the US store has the same

Acer North America Online Store - Chromebooks

I don't really know what the specs are, but I can tell you this, my C720 runs fast. I really don't know why we would need 4 GB of RAM anyway. The only thing that you would be able to do is open browser tabs.