Acer C720 Chromebook lineup expands with lower price of entry

Acer rolled out the C720 Chromebook lineup back in October. At the time that meant the C720-2800 which had a price tag of $249.99. Well, flashing forward a little more than a month and there is now a second model in the lineup. This latest is the C720-2848 and it brings a similar set of specs with a lower price point.

The Acer C720-2848 Chromebook is priced at $199.99. This one sports and 11.6-inch ComfyView HD display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 and similar to the earlier model, it is powered by an Intel Celeron processor based on the Haswell architecture. In other words, this one should still hold the same mix of performance and battery life. Acer suggests the C720-2848 will be able to provide up to 8.5 hours of run time.

Other specs for the C720-2848 include 16GB of SSD storage, 2GB of RAM, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, HDMI and a dual speaker setup. There will also be one each of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. The model will weigh in at 2.76 pounds and measure in at 0.75-inches thick. Similar to other Chromebook models, both from Acer and other manufacturers, the C720-2848 will come with some extra perks.

These extras include 100GB of Google Drive storage (free for two-years), Google Play Music All Access and 12 free Gogo Inflight passes. That all having been said, the Acer C720-2848 Chromebook is available beginning today and can be found with retailers to include Best Buy and Amazon.

Looking forward, this model will also be available direct with Acer, however the notebook is not expected to arrive in the Acer Store until December. There wasn’t specific mention of Play Store availability, but based on previous Acer Chromebooks, we expect this one will be sold direct with Google.

Google reportedly working on an entry into the smart watch market

Making a "smart watch" type of device seems to be the new hot thing, and Google is reportedly eyeing its own entry into the quickly expanding market. According to a source of Financial Times, the watch is coming not from Google's famous X Labs that produced Project Glass, but rather from the Android division directly. Long-rumored upcoming smart watches from the likes of Apple and Samsung, along with actual devices like the Pebble watch are creating a market that could be ripe for a killer entry from Google. 

There's no indication as to when (or even if) the Android-powered watch would be coming to market, again according to FT's sources. We have to think that Google would want to get Glass out into the market first before trying to reinvent mobile computing once again. but Google is certainly capable of running multiple projects at once.

Would you be interested in a smart watch from Google running Android? Or would it depend on the functionality and form factor? Sound off in the comments and let us know.

Source: Financial Times; Via: The Verge