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Topic: Laptops

Acer C7 Chromebook available for $199

Summary: Google is continuing its push to build the Chromebook market with the latest model by Acer. The Acer C7 Chromebook is available for $199.

James Kendrick

By for Mobile News |

Acer C7 Chromebook

Google has been seriously pushing the Chrome OS with the recent partnership with Samsung to offer the new Samsung Chromebook. That device lowered the price of a Chromebook to just $249. Continuing that push is the new Acer C7 Chromebook just released for a mere $199. Like the Samsung model before, Google is also offering free goodies worth more than the price tag of the Acer C7 Chromebook.

The new C7 from Acer weighs in at 3.05 pounds and is only an inch thich. In that slim body is an Intel Celeron processor, 2 GB of memory, and surprising for a Chromebook -- a 320GB hard drive. The 11.6-inch display is capable of HD video, and has a quoted battery life of over 3.5 hours.

Acer C7 side views

The Acer C7 Chromebook is available on the Google Play store and at Best Buy in the US. Those in the UK wanting a Chromebook can also buy it in the Google Play store, as well as at Amazon UK, PC World and Currys. 

Google is offering two years of 100GB of free storage in the cloud for new purchasers of the Acer, along with 12 free Gogo Internet passes. Those two offers are together worth more than the price of the new Acer Chromebook, so you could say Google will pay you to get one.

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Topics: Laptops, Google

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60 comments
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  • Intel....

    must be almost giving away the CPU. This looks like war. Pity MS, which will have to price their OS close to the same level they priced XP for netbooks, if they want to play in this market.

    This is real competition.
    D.T.Long
    Reply 2 Votes

    • Ouch

      The only CPU reference I can find says Celeron 847, listed for $134 in tray quantities on Intel's site. In a $199 laptop?

      Double ouch
      D.T.Long
      Reply 1 Vote

      • Wrong pricing and bulk orders are a lot cheaper.

        Your prices are all wrong!

        http://www.pcworld.com/article/260185/intel_targets_lowprice_laptops_with_celeron_chip_refresh.html

        "The new Celeron 847 has a clock speed of 1.1GHz and is priced at $70 in quantities of 1,000"

        Acer will of course order in quantities a lot larger than 1000, and negotiate a much lower price than $70.

        Still, I think Acer is using ChromeOS to sell off Windows 7 budget laptops which aren't selling. There has recently been a price crash in the Windows netbook and budget laptops due to more people buying tablets.
        Mah
        Reply Vote

    • Real Competition

      "This is real competition."

      Really? Against what? MS has no interest in making a product like this. I know Kendrick, and some others love it, but come on dude. It's a browser on a laptop. Give me a break. Throw Android on there and then maybe you have something.
      NickA55
      Reply 2 Votes

      • For starters

        Intel vs ARM - dude

        Android and Linux may come later, first from hackers. Wait and see. A lot of people do not need more than Chrome OS, but as a techie, you may have trouble grasping that.
        D.T.Long
        Reply 2 Votes

    • For $200 I would try one

      and will complain that I couldn't install Windows 8 on it and how Google made it worse like SJVN does that all the time with hi no brainer Windows articles and how Microsoft made it tough for him to install Android/Linux/Chrome on Surface RT. Only difference, SJVN gets paid for his trash by Larry and I don't.
      Ram U
      Reply 3 Votes

      • Like its been prev stated

        Its ok for you to compare a tablet to a laptop/chromebook.

        But its not a right comparison if people compare Ipad sales to Windows 8 upgrade sales.

        Plus you can flip a developer switch in the chrome book and install windows 8 it don't have a uefi so you won't get secure boot.

        Drivers you have to consult with acer, but if they don't support windows 8 your out of luck.

        Like HP, if HP don't support windows 7 you can't blame microsoft you have to blame hp.
        Anthony E
        Reply Vote

    • You mean Acer is giving them away

      Looks like it's a no seller when Acer pays Intel $134 then turns around and sells them at a loss.

      Either that or Google is desparate to get ANYBODY to buy one and is subsidizing Acer.
      William Farrel
      Reply 2 Votes

      • Huh?

        Clearly Intel is NOT getting $134 for these; more like $25. They are probably selling them well below cost right now.

        This is deadly serious for Intel. ARM is aiming for desktops/notebooks servers and Windows is porting to ARM.

        Maybe you live in a reality distortion field.
        D.T.Long
        Reply 1 Vote

        • I doubt that. I think it's acer selling below cost

          If the tray quantity price is 134 (how many in the tray?) then sure, it's less, but still I doubt that Intel needs to sell their processors at a loss to Samsung for the ChromeBook, seeing that Intel has eyes too, and can see this as a very low selling niche market, something Intel probably wouldn't miss sales wise too badly had it not existed.

          Sure, Windows is porting to ARM, but reading the posts from you and others here, WindowsRT won't sell alot, so in that repect Intel has little to lose to Windows on ARM, with people opting for Windows 8 X86 versions, instead.

          Google and Samsung have more to lose here then Intel does.
          William Farrel
          Reply 2 Votes

          • Samsung uses arm in there latest chromebooks.

            So on there newer model they don't get the chips from intel.
            Anthony E
            Reply Vote

          • I meant to say

            Google and Acer have more to lose here then Intel does.

            Don't know why I switched companies mid posts :(
            William Farrel
            Reply 1 Vote

      • Google is probably bankrolling it

        This appears like android, spyware distributed below market, subsidized by google so they can make money off of info collected about you.
        The nature of chrome books appear like cached virtual machines that synch EVERYTHING back to google regularly.
        If you couldn't care less about that, it's a great value though.
        ossoup
        Reply Vote

    • You mean Google and Acer are desperate to get people to try these things.

      And are willing to pick up the bulk of the costs so people can buy a web browser.

      This sounds like another of your use the worst tool for the job because it is from Google mindset.
      Bruizer
      Reply 2 Votes

      • And use them

        If you don't use them no substantial info goes back to their servers.
        Google wants it to be useful and it likely will.
        With google's quasi ownership of the meta info of everything you do with it, and the data you load to it, I can see this being banned from sensitive business use. Think regularly scanned gmail but the whole notebook. Google is good at making its services useful and cheap (free or subsidized) for this trade off and I have no doubt of the dollar value of such a device, assuming you are ok co-owning your activity and data put on it.
        ossoup
        Reply Vote

      • Acer errr

        Acer will do anything for a fast buck.
        Gisabun
        Reply Vote

    • Don't think I'd spend the money on one

      I am not a tech person. I have thought about purchasing a Macbook Air older, yet still brand new MAcbook Air from Micro Center ($749). I saw a Chromebook at Best Buy, and frankly, it seems cheap and plastic-like in comparison to the MacBook Air. I understand that kids and adults bang around on the display models, but the same is true of Mac Air. When you placed your finger on the trackpad, it seemed to losen itself from the front cover and there was space between the trackpad and the cover on both models. The keyboard seemed cheap and flimsy, and the top-display screen seemed to be loose and a bit wobbly. I'm no techno nerd, but my money would seem much better spent on the Mac Air or any other model, for that matter.
      FARTDOG
      Reply 2 Votes

      • I have to agree. I saw two very lonley Google salesman at

        BestBuy one very busy rainy day, and Apple was busy they were just standing talking ot each other. I looked at them and yeah - they look and feel cheap and the OS does the same. And you ahve to add in the wireless and offline storage. Infrastructure is just not their yet.
        ScanBack
        Reply Vote

  • No crudware

    Please note these also don't come with the festering crust of trial ware, nag ware, vendor vanity ware that make new Windows devices such a joy to use.
    symbolset
    Reply 1 Vote

    • Don't need it

      You don't need crapware when you are giving your information directly to Google.
      Loverock Davidson-
      Reply 6 Votes
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