Acer C7 Chromebook could get a slight refresh with 16 GB SSD
If you check out this page on the Best Buy website, you’ll see an Acer C7 Chromebook touting some specs that don’t quite match up with whats been released so far — namely, the 16 GB solid state drive. This development, first reported by Engadget, seems to suggest that Acer may be refreshing the C7, replacing its massive (and unnecessarily large) 320 GB hard drive with a 16 GB SSD.
I took issue with the C7 in the past, mainly because its specs didn’t really match up with the Chromebook mission. Sure, the machine is the cheapest available Chromebook there is at $199 (and this refreshed model appears to keep that price point), but the hard disk and poor battery life — 4 hours — hindered the experience. The presence of a solid state drive will help speed the machine up when booting up and working, but the battery still remains a concern.
It’s worth pointing out that, if you’re willing to plunk down $280, you can get a version of the Acer C7 that comes with a six-cell battery and 4 GB of RAM, instead of the standard 2 GB. It’s unknown at this time if that version of Acer’s Chromebook will be refreshed with the 16 GB SSD or if it will keep the 320 GB hard drive.
In the Chromebook race, Samsung seems to be the only company that has built a sought-after laptop. Its 11.6-inch model comes in at $250 and, while it uses Samsung’s underpowered Exynos processor, it reaches about 6.5 hours of battery life. It also comes standard with a 16 GB solid state drive.
It’s really a shame Acer hasn’t found a way to include that larger battery with its refreshed $199 C7, because doing so might have helped it steal that “Best Chromebook” title away from Samsung. At this point, the new model would be a good buy if you can afford to stay close to an outlet, but until Acer addresses the battery life, it’ll continue playing second fiddle to the Samsung model that costs $50 more.
At this point, the Best Buy site says this particular Acer C7 is “Coming soon.” We’ll let you know as soon as we hear more.