Acer Intros First Chromebook With Touchscreen

Last week Acer updated its just-launched C720 Chromebook line with the industry's very first $299 touchscreen Chromebook, the Acer C720P. The device should be available now (early December) at Amazon.com, Best Buy and the Acer Store for the mentioned price, making it a great deal this holiday season.

"Our new touchscreen C720P gives customers an intuitive way to browse sites online, enjoy apps, and do more with the Chromebook," said Arif Maskatia, CTO for Acer. "The Acer C720 Chromebook line has been praised for its performance and battery life, and this new touchscreen model allows us to address the needs of an even wider range of customers with exciting new capabilities. We're certain many holiday shoppers will jump at the chance to get a touchscreen Chromebook for just $299.99."

According to a general list of specs, this new Chromebook features an 11.6 inch ComfyView HD LED-lit display with a 1366 x 768 resolution, backed by an Intel Celeron 2955U "Haswell" processor clocked at 1.4 GHz, 2 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 3-cell 3950 mAh Li-ion battery promising up to 7.5 hours on a single charge. Also included is a 32 GB SSD with a fast boot time of less than 7 seconds.

Although Acer's website was down at the time of this writing, additional general specs revealed that the Chromebook provides an integrated webcam, a dual speaker design that delivers "crisp and clear" stereo, Bluetooth 4.0 and Acer's dual-band InviLink Nplify Wireless N connectivity. Also thrown into the mix is a USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, HDMI output, a full-size keyboard and a gesture touchpad.

"Multiple layers of security features including data encryption and verified boot defend the Acer C720P Chromebook against online threats, malware and viruses," reads the company press release. "The Acer C720P Chromebook keeps data safe when the device is used by multiple users, such as for collaboration in the classroom and for projects for home, school or work. Users can have separate accounts to ensure their project, Gmail and other information is kept safe if the Chromebook is lost, stolen, or lent to a friend."

For more information about Acer's C770 series of Chromebooks, head here. As previously stated, the Acer C720P will be available in several configurations in early December at Amazon.com, Best Buy and the Acer Store for $299.99 in the United States.

  • vaughn2k
    Good looking device... I do only hope it will last for more than couple of years without any problem though...
    Reply
  • metalfist54
    This looks awesome. Chromebooks are great for people that have desktops at home. I carry mine to all my classes and when I travel and its great because its super light and has really long battery life. Makes me regret not waiting though!


    Reply
  • Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer
    "ComfyView"? What?

    So, not IPS then, I guess...
    Reply
  • metalfist54
    This looks awesome. Chromebooks are great for people that have desktops at home. I carry mine to all my classes and when I travel and its great because its super light and has really long battery life. Makes me regret not waiting though!


    Reply
  • xaephod
    Love my Chromebook. Use it when I travel, its so light and fast, its all I need.
    Reply
  • JD88
    I'm still not sold on touch screens on notebooks but this is an incredible value for those who are.
    Reply
  • knowom
    It's probably not bad once you ditch the the OS for Linux or Windows.
    Reply
  • JD88
    12086673 said:
    It's probably not bad once you ditch the the OS for Linux or Windows.

    Have you used one? Putting Windows on there would be a travesty.
    Reply
  • assasin32
    Not a fan of the whole touchscreen thing, but thats personal preference. Spec/Price wise it looks good, I am really liking how the chromebook market is heating up.

    Now I just wished people quit touching my Samsung Chromebook screen, it's not a touchscreen and quit complaining that I bought a $250 laptop that's not a touchscreen when you don't use it!
    Reply
  • Wisecracker
    I got an HP TouchSmart 11 notebook with Win8 and a 8w Temash APU for $260 over the weekend.

    As soon as UPS gets here, I'm going to find out if I can clone the original 5400-rpm HDD to a Samsung SSD (before activation).

    OEMs are getting really ass-y about hardware mods these days (Acer being one of them). Hey, Geniuses? 98% of us aren't pirates. Stop screwing us over for trying to mod nice stuff.

    Reply