Acer Gives Chromebooks Their First Number Pad

Acer today announced the expansion of its enterprise-focused laptops with two new Chromebooks and a fresh TravelMate laptop for professionals on the go.

Specs

Acer Chromebook 715 and 714

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Acer Chromebook 714 (Credit: Tom's Hardware) 

The Chromebook 715 and 714 are Acer’s first Chromebooks for the enterprise market. They’re also the first Chromebooks to offer a number pad on the keyboard, which should please professionals responsible for a lot of calculations or spreadsheets. 

Other professional-friendly features include a fingerprint reader on the deck and certification for Citrix’s line of enterprise offerings, which includes virtualization, networking and cloud solutions.

The new machines are also surprisingly good-looking for Chromebooks. Chromebooks target light workloads with Chrome OS and are often recommended for children. But the Chromebook 715 and 714 certainly look adult with all-aluminum chassis and certified military-grade strength (U.S. MIL-STD 810G). That means the laptop can withstand a 48-inch fall or 132 pounds of pressure, Acer claimed. Unlike other Chromebooks, which tend to have a plastic and even playful-looking appearance, Acer’s new Chromebooks are a dark grey and just feel more mature. In fact, the Chromebooks were hard to spot in a sea of professional and general use laptops.

When I tried out the Chromebook 714, the touchpad stood out to me for a few reasons. First, it’s outlined in silver, and it’s comically tall with a more square shape than rectangular. I feared my wrist would accidentally bump it while typing, but this was not the case when I took the 10fastfingers.com typing test. If the touchpad was comically wide, it may have been a different story.

That gliding sensation I enjoyed on the touchpad is thanks to its being made of Corning Gorilla Glass NBT, with NBT representing the company’s line for touch-enabled laptops. As such, it handled gestures well. And Acer claimed it will be more scratch-resistant and easier to clean than touchpads made of mylar, a type of polyester film.

The Chromebook 715 and 714 will hit U.S. shelves in July for $599 and $499, respectively and EMEA stores in June for £599 and £549, respectively.

Acer TravelMate P6 Laptop

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Credit: Tom's Hardware

Acer also unveiled a new addition to its TravelMate line, a series of thin and light portable laptops for business users who do a lot of traveling. The TravelMate P6 meets the MIL-STD 810G2, 810F standard, meaning it survived 26 28-inch falls, with various parts of the PC landing on a 2-inch piece of plywood sitting on top of concrete. Acer also claimed it can withstand extreme humidity and temperatures, but it didn't get specific.

Acer said the TravelMate P6 will deliver up to 20 hours of battery life, but we won’t know how long it’d last in real-life use, like with Wi-Fi browsing, video streaming and more, unless we run it through our own battery test.

Continuing the dignified enterprise look, the TravelMate P6 has a magnesium alloy build that’s just 16.6-millimeters thin.  

Like the Chromebooks, the TravelMate P6 also has special features targeting workers, like a built-in webcam cover, TPM 2.0 chip, fingerprint reader and Windows Hello. It’s also Skype for Business-certified and comes with the Acer ProShield security and management software suite and Acer Office Management for IT professionals.

Acer’s TravelMate P6 will be available in North America and EMEA in June starting at $1,149.99 / £1,249.