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The Acer Chromebook 314 is a 14 inch laptop with Google’s ChromeOS software and, typically, a reasonably low starting price. Last year’s Acer Chromebook CB314-3H model feature an Intel Jasper Lake processor and list prices starting at $350 (although it’s now available for even less).
This year’s model brings a significant spec bump… but it may also come with a significant price hike.
As spotted by About Chromebooks, the company introduced the new Acer Chromebook 314 CB314-4H/4HT in the Middle East earlier this month, and now the company has posted a product page for the laptop on its website, giving us a better look at the specs, design, and price… at least for a top-of-the-line model.
According to the original press release, specs and pricing will vary by region, but so far the only model listed on the Acer US website is a high-end version with an Intel Core i3-N305 octa-core processor based on 12th-gen Intel Alder Lake-N architecture. This model also has a 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS LCD touchscreen display, 128GB of PCIe NVMe solid state storage, and an unspecified amount of LPDDR5 memory.
And it has a list price of $650, making it nearly twice as expensive as last year’s entry-level model. If this were a Windows laptop, that price would put it in budget to mid-range territory, but by Chromebook standards, this is very much the kind of price we’d expect from a premium or semi-premium model.
That said, it’s worth keeping in mind that the Core i3-N305 processor is Intel’s best Alder Lake-N chip. If Acer decides to offer versions of this laptop with Intel N100 or N200 chips, they’ll likely have lower price tags. And I’d be surprised if Acer didn’t offer a cheaper model without a touchscreen.
Other features include two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a microSD card reader, stereo upward-facing speakers, a 3.5mm audio jack, a webcam with a privacy shutter, and support for WiFi 6. The keyboard is not backlit.
The new Chromebook 314 measures 12.9″ x 8.9″ x 0.8″ and weighs less than 3.2 pounds. It supports 65W charging and Acer says the notebook should get up to 11.5 hours of battery life. While I usually take battery life estimates from PC makers with a grain of salt, the company doesn’t actually provide any other details about the battery capacity, so that’s all we have to go on so far.
Looking forward to seeing this model on discount at Walmart in 1 year.