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It’s been nearly a week since Acer dropped the news that they, along with HP, would be debuting one of the industry’s first AMD-powered Chromebooks.
We have an article with all the necessary info about the device Acer brought to CES 2019, but here’s the lowdown: AMD’s A4 and A6 processors are going to give a speed boost over what we’ve seen in previous Apollo Lake devices, but only by a little bit.
Battery life will be great and pricing even better. At a starting price of $279 with the 4GB RAM/32GB storage option (and the inferior 1366×768 display panel), we see one of the distinct advantages of going with AMD over Intel: dollars and cents.
Sure, with the better FHD panel, we could see prices closer to $300 when the device launches in late January, but for that money you’d be getting a great device overall. Acer will have to keep pricing competitive, here, as their already-good Chromebook 15 is an all-aluminum version of this exact Chromebook. With it routinely in the $300-$350 range, it would be a hard sell to ask consumers to pay a similar price for an all-plastic build.
However, if this one comes to market a bit above $300 for the better screen version and then sees regular sales for $250-$280, I think Acer is getting to a price-point that could entice a lot of consumers looking for a solid, cheap device.
Take a look at our hands-on below and we’ll be sure to follow up with a review down the road.
Shop Acer Chromebooks on Amazon
