Cast your minds back to April and you may recall that a Core i3-powered Acer Chromebook was on the way.
Fast forward back to June and listings for the 11.6-inch notebook have started to appear online.
Acer C720-3
The Acer C720-3 sports a dual-core Intel Core i3-4005U processor at 1.7GHz, a healthy 4GB RAM and a 32GB SSD. Intel HD 4400 graphics mean it should make light work of the usual multimedia demands, and a collection of ports, including HDMI out, makes expansion a breeze.
As the seventh distinct entrant in the C720 series it doesn’t deviate too much from its siblings (though some reports say it is fanless). It continues to feature the same 11.6″ TFT LCD display at the same 720p resolution as the rest, and is said to offer a respectable 8.5 hours of battery life.
Pricing
As a complete package the Acer C720-3 is light, fairly stylish and, with i3 on board, one of the fastest Chromebooks available.
In an increasingly competitive Chromebook market pricing is everything. With such a notable bump in specs comes a notable bump in price — $349.99 (though currently retailing for more at advance retailers).
While this sounds expensive it compares favourably to the rest of the Celeron based models in the C720 series. The touchscreen C720P sells at $299 (though can often be picked up for around $249) while the base 16GB model that started it all can be had on Amazon US for as little as $199.
Listings for the device are live on a handful of sites, including Provantage and PCNation, though no site yet as the notebook listed as ‘in stock’.