Acer AC700 Chromebook

The Acer AC700 Chromebook launched this summer for $350, but now you can pick one up from Amazon for $299.99. That’s about the same price as a typical 10 inch netbook… but the Acer AC700 isn’t your typical netbook.

It’s one of the first Chromebooks, which means it ships with Google Chrome OS instead of Windows or another operating system. It’s designed to run web apps including Gmail and Google Docs, and features just 16GB of storage. The idea is that most of your data is stored online, although you can cache documents for offline access, or load music, movies, or other pictures onto the laptop and access them even when you don’t have an internet connection.

The Acer AC700 has an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 dual core processor, a 16GB solid state disk, and 2GB of DDR3 memory.

While the laptop has a larger screen and keyboard than most netbooks, you can certainly make a case that it does less than a typical netbook since it runs web apps instead of native applications (and pretty much any Windows, Mac, or Linux machine with a web browser can run the same web apps).

But up until recently Chromebooks were selling for significantly more money than netbooks. The Samsung Series 5 Chromebook still sells for $430 and up.

There are some advantages to Chromebooks. Since your data is stored in the cloud, if your computer is lost or damaged you can quickly recover all of your information simply by logging into another Chromebook with your Google ID. You also don’t have to worry about keeping your software up to date, since Google pushes OS updates to the Chromebook automatically, and any changes to web apps are available as soon as the web sites are updated.

There have been reports, though, that Acer and Samsung have been having a hard time moving early Chromebooks, which could explain the price drop.

Update: Samsung has also introduced a cheaper Series 5 Chromebook. You can now pick up a black model for $349.

via Digital Inspiration

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8 replies on “Acer Chromebook price falls to $300”

  1. Bruce, CyberGusa, Kofi Amihere:

    The Chromebook will NOT run  any installed applications, only Google apps; nor will it print to a printer.

    To the rest of you, you’re certainly on the right track: I have, in the past two months, bought two 15.6″ NOTEbooks with LED backlighting, DVD R/W drive, etc. (Acer, and Compaq); left the one with Win7 Home Premium alone for my son; the other I immediately turned into a Linux MINT 11 machine for me. I paid $298 and $278, respectively.

    So will someone please explain to me why someone would even consider TAKING a Chromebook if offered to them free?

    1. Jon Colt, you might want to do some research on “Developer’s Mode Switch” before stating what can and can’t be done with a Chromebook. 

      The switch location varies per model and it’s not quite as simple as just hitting the switch but it is possible to install and/or boot another OS on a Chromebook.

      Though it does make more sense to just get a regular netbook if you’re looking to install your own OS.

  2. Why buy a chromebook for 300 dollars when a $200 dollar netbook can use google chrome  and accomplish far more?

  3. This is the first news I’ve seen on this site about Chromebooks in, I dunno, some months.  Has the buzz been and gone?  Any other companies look likely to enter the market?  Just curious; I’m not interested in buying one.  In loosely-related news (netbooks and netbook-ish laptops without Windows), I note with regret that the Teo Pro 10″ Ubuntu netbook has disappeared from the ZaReason website; the Starling was discontinued by System76 a couple of months back.  I _was_ interested in buying one of those, possibly, but I guess I waited too long to vote with my dollars.  ZaReason still offers an ultrabook-ish 13″ model (Core i3, 3.5 lb, $799); the System76 “Lemur Ultra” has gotten a bit too bulky for the category, moving from 13″ to 14″ screen and packing on the pounds (okay, the pound-and-a-half) until it’s heavier than a 13″ MacBook Pro.  Sic transit…

    1. I suspect we’ll start to see some new Cedar Trail netbooks hit the market in the coming months, but I have no news on whether System76 or ZaReason will be offering new Linux models.

      As netbook prices have fallen to the $200 – $300 range, it’s got to be tough for custom system builders like these to keep up, and there probably aren’t that many customers interested in paying a hefty premium for a model that doesn’t come with Windows when they can instead just buy a Windows model and install Ubuntu or another Linux distro themselves. 

    1. It’s pretty standard netbook hardware.  So Linux should run fine on it, if you really want to put it on.

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