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Wasn’t CES the other day?

Acer’s new Chromebooks start at $279

One has a 360-degree hinge, one is for schools, and one’s a headless Chromebox.

Ron Amadeo – | 69
Acer doesn't mention the material, so we're guessing it's plastic.
Acer doesn't mention the material, so we're guessing it's plastic.
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Acer has announced a slew of new Chrome OS products in the wake of CES. The company’s entry-level Chrome OS laptops are big hits with mainstream consumers, regularly ranking high on Amazon’s laptop sales charts and moving units in educational sales. We have two new laptops and a Chromebox to cover.

Acer Chromebook Spin 11

The Acer Spin 11.
The Acer Spin 11.
Yep that’s Chrome OS.
Yep that’s Chrome OS.
The keyboard is pretty standard, but check out that camera location!
The keyboard is pretty standard, but check out that camera location!
Acer doesn’t mention the material, so we’re guessing it’s plastic.
There’s an optional stylus for the touchscreen.
The 360 hinge allows for a tent mode…
Or a tablet mode.

As the name implies, the Spin 11’s party trick is the 360-degree hinge, allowing the laptop to fold all the way around and turn into a tablet. It supports an optional Wacom EMR (Electromagnetic Resonance) stylus for pen input and supports Google Play, so it runs Android apps.

The Spin 11 starts at $349, and all configurations have an 11.6-inch 1366×768 IPS Touchscreen, two USB-C (3.1 gen 1) ports, two USB 3.0 type A ports, a headphone jack, a micro SD card reader, a 5MP camera, and a weight of 2.75 pounds. Configuration options include a quad-core Intel Pentium N4200, a Celeron N3450, or a dual-core Celeron N3350; 4GB or 8GB of DDR4 RAM; 32GB or 64GB of onboard eMMC storage; and a second 1MP webcam. Acer’s press release has no mention of battery size, only offering up the meaningless descriptor of “all-day battery life.”

The webcam situation is definitely different. The 5MP camera that comes with every configuration is located on the bottom half of the device, above the keyboard, pointing up at the sky in laptop mode. The idea is that when you fold the screen around into tablet mode, you now have a “rear” camera to take pictures with. If you want a normal webcam for video calls, that’s the optional 1MP secondary camera.

The Spin 11 launches in North America in March. In Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the Spin 11 launches in April, and prices start at €379.

Acer Chromebook 11 C732

The Acer Chromebook 11 C732.
The Acer Chromebook 11 C732.
That light gray color around the outside must be the rubber bumper.
That light gray color around the outside must be the rubber bumper.
The fanless design allows for a case with almost no holes for foreign objects.
The fanless design allows for a case with almost no holes for foreign objects.
Again, no body material is mentioned, which usually means it’s plastic.
The top.

Acer’s Chromebook 11 CB331 was previously announced at CES, but this C732 version is aimed at the educational market. This mostly means the laptop is a bit beefier to stand up to the horrors of public school use. It’s built to survive a 48-inch drop thanks to durable corner construction and a rubber bumper that surrounds the keyboard. The press release says a “unique internal honeycomb structure” allows the body to handle 132 pounds of downward pressure. Recessed keys are designed to “prevent tampering and reduce the likelihood that the key caps will be removed by students.”

The “IP41” rating means it’s not dust or water-resistant, but it will survive a “vertical water drip,” and the fanless design will block objects larger than 1mm (fingers, pencils, paperclips) from entering the laptop.

The C732 starts at $279, with a bump to $299 for a touch-enabled unit. The 11.6-inch display has a 1388×768 resolution, available in a touch or non-touch IPS panel, or a bottom-of-the-barrel, non-touch TN display. (Remember TN displays?) For computing horsepower, there’s a quad-core Intel Celeron N3450 or a dual-core Celeron N3350. You get an unknown amount of RAM, two USB-C gen 1 ports, two USB 3.0 type A ports, a headphone jack, and a MicroSD reader. This battery must be worse than the Spin 11 since it only gets “12 hours” of battery life. It also has optional built-in LTE, which is a rarity for Chromebooks, and of course supports Google Play.

Chromebox CX13

The new Acer Chromebox.
The new Acer Chromebox.
Grab a mouse and keyboard and you’re good to go.
Grab a mouse and keyboard and you’re good to go.
The front has power, USB, a card reader, and a headphone jack.
The front has power, USB, a card reader, and a headphone jack.
While the back has a ton of extra ports.
This rounded design is a lot nicer than the current version.
One last picture.

Acer is giving the popular CXI2 Chomebox a redesign with the CXI3. This is a rounder, gentler design with more ports and better specs. There’s no pricing or availability information, and there are a few holes in the spec sheet. We do know it will have an 8th-Gen Intel Core Processor, a USB 3.1 Type-C Port, five USB Type-A Ports, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, and a MicroSD Card Slot.

You can store it in an included vertical stand, toss it on a desk, or get the optional Vesa mounting kit, allowing it to mount to the back of a monitor.

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Ron Amadeo Reviews Editor
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. He loves to tinker and always seems to be working on a new project.
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