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Acer unexpectedly dropped a new Chromebook at Computex in Taipei this week and it has been the subject of much confusion about what exactly we’re looking at here. Thanks to our friend @SuzukiAkifumi of office-kabu.jp, we now have more detailed information about this very unique, upcoming device.
The biggest question about this device was the processor. The placement card at the Acer booth clearly stated 7th generation Core i3/i5 which conflicts with the firmware on the device. ‘Lars’ was listed on the About Chrome OS screen of the Acer 11 and we know that this is the baseboard for the Acer Chromebook 14 for Work; clearly a Skylake device.
Suzuki revisited the booth yesterday and gained some clarity from the representatives from Acer. They have apologized for the confusion and confirmed what we suspected. This is, in fact, the 6th generation Intel chipset a.k.a., Skylake. Interestingly, the Acer will be produced with the Core i3 not the Core m3 like we’ve seen in recent devices like the ASUS Chromebook C302 and Samsung Chromebook Pro.
We have also learned that the new Acer is a 180° Chromebook (as seen in the image above) and has an optional touch display with a resolution of 1366×768. That may not sound very impressive but, as we have noted many times, on an 11.6″ device that’s plenty in the resolution department.
Acer reps have shared that the new, rugged Chromebook will be available some time in September of this year but price has not been announced. The processor line up will be the Intel Core i3, Core i5 (as shown in the floor model) and the Celeron 3955U. Storage will come in the form of eMMC with 16GB or 32GB options. RAM, and this is the part I’m excited for, will be offered in 4GB or 8GB options.
We will be anxious to hear more about this peculiar Chromebook and look forward to getting our hands on it. Personally, I think the internals combined with the rugged exterior make this a very attractive daily driver that isn’t a pain to take on the go.
Many special thanks to Suzuki for sharing.
