Acer unveiled its latest Chrome OS mini-desktop computer at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but the company didn’t provide any details about the price, release date, or even what kind of processor the new Acer Chromebox CXI3 would have.
Now we have answers. According to product listings at internet retailers including CDW, TigerDirect, and Provantage, it looks like the Acer Chromebox CXI3 should be available later this month for around $280 and up.
Update: Acer says the Chromebox will actually ship in late June.
The entry-level model has a Celeron 3865U dual-core processor based on 7th-gen Intel Core “Kaby Lake” architecture, while higher-priced versions have 8th-gen “Kaby Lake Refresh” chips (with twice as many processors cores).
Here are some of the key specs for each mode:
CXI3-4GKM
- Intel Celeron 3865U dual-core Kaby Lake processor
- 4GB RAM
- 32GB SSD
- $280 – $300
Acer CXI3-I38GKM
- Intel Core i3-7130U dual-core Kaby Lake processor
- 8GB RAM
- 64GB SSD
- $440 – $470
Acer CXI3-I58GKM
- Intel Core i5-8250U quad-core Kaby Lake Refresh processor
- 8GB RAM
- 64GB SSD
- $495 – $510
Acer CXI3-I716GKM
- Intel Core i7-8550U quad-core Kaby Lake Refresh processor
- 16GB RAM
- 64GB SSD
- $730 – $745
All four models have m.2 solid state drives and 2 DDR4 SODIMM slots for up to a total of 16GB of RAM.
The computers have HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, and headset jacks as well as a USB 3.1 Type-C port, three USB 3.1 Type-A port,s and two USB 2.0 Type-A ports and a microSD card reader.
Prices range from under $300 for an entry-level model to nearly $750 for a top-of-the-line version.
via Chrome Unboxed
I had an Acer Chromebox (model# CXI2-4GKM). It had the Intel 3205U processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and 16GB flash disk (HDD). I wanted to use it for surfing the web and entertainment on my big screen TV. I discovered
that several of the major entertainment web sites such as VUDU, Crackle, and MyTV don’t support Chrome OS (and thus those web sites are a no-go with a chromebox). My chromebox died twice within 17 months of purchase (and was out of warranty the second time it died). Thus I have since purchased the Nvidia Shield android TV box two months ago for $179.99. There is a built-in app for VUDU and many other apps that work better on a TV then a web browser. I’ve used Chrome, Firefox, and Opera browsers and they all work pretty good on the Nvidia Shield android TV with a wireless keyboard. So it costs about $100 less than this new Acer Chromebox and the entertainment options for a TV seem to be better. Plus the web browsers on the Shield TV are almost as good as on Chrome OS. I can’t speak to the reliability of the Shield TV because I’ve only had mine for two months – on the other hand I was not pleased with the reliability of my Acer chromebox.
Seems a little expensive. Doesn’t the base model have about the same specs as a $300 Chromebook? If so just getting a Chromebook is a better value, you aren’t glued to one spot and you can still hook one up to a monitor.
That’s the same argument I had about Intel nuc and gigabyte brix. You can easily find a laptop with the same specs including the ram, ssd and a genuine windows license for the price of the barebone of one of those two.
The only justification I can think of is if it came with an amazing keyboard.
Passmark on the 3865u is only 30% better than 2955u, and they are now charging twice as much? I am still using my Asus chromebox (running ubuntu and eagle PCB at work).
There is still a lot of x86 only apps on Ubuntu (Steam, eagle…)… I wish there were ARM64 binaries for those apps.
Indeed, it’s near identical to the C771, but you get DDR4 over LPDDR3. Maybe the small size and gigabit Ethernet is worth the price to someone?