Acer's aluminum Chromebook 14 edges closer to all-day battery life

Chromebook 14

Acer has revealed its latest Chromebook with a larger 14-inch screen. It brings with it an optional Full HD display, an aluminium chassis and battery life that aims to outrun the competition.

Indeed, the company is claiming industry-leading battery life for its new Chromebook 14, with an apparent longevity of up to 14 hours on the go, although that's assuming you go for the model with a 1366 x 768 resolution screen.

The other option is Full HD (1920 x 1080) and unsurprisingly that display saps a little more juice, although you still get an impressive enough 12 hours of battery life here. Whichever resolution you choose, you'll benefit from an IPS screen with wide viewing angles of up to 170 degrees.

Acer's ComfyView is also on board to reduce eye strain with anti-glare and low reflection technology incorporated.

As for the spec, the Chromebook 14 is driven by an Intel Celeron quad-core or dual-core N3060 CPU backed up with either 4GB or 2GB of RAM. You also get a 720p webcam, and in the connectivity stakes there are twin USB 3.1 ports along with an HDMI port.

Plus on the wireless front, there's Bluetooth 4.2 and dual-band 2x2 MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

Light and lovely

The notebook's construction is entirely aluminium, which makes it look and feel good, and also means it weighs less – this laptop tips the scales at 1.55kg and is 17mm thick.

As well as the choice of either 2GB or 4GB of system memory, the Acer Chromebook 14 will offer options on either 16GB or 32GB of eMMC storage (there's also 100GB of storage on Google Drive thrown in, of course).

Pricing and availability haven't been confirmed for the UK yet, but we do know that the laptop will launch in Europe next month starting at €249 (around £195, or $280). It's available to pre-order now in the US, where it will launch in April.

Acer will certainly be hoping that the larger screen and aluminium chassis will help make this an attractive and tempting device, and it won't hurt that competition in the Chromebook arena has diminished slightly with the confirmation of Toshiba's exit from consumer laptops.

TOPICS

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

Latest in Chromebooks
Google AI
A powerful new AI tool is coming to Chromebooks to vastly increase productivity
Acer Chromebook Plus line
Chromebooks aren't dead! Acer has just launched 7 new ChromeOS laptops aimed at students and professionals
HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch on table with pink wall and plant in background
I spent several days with the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch, and it surprised me with just how well it performs
Asus Chromebook CM14 open on desk
I used the Asus Chromebook CM14 for everything from productivity to gaming and found its performance as light as its weight
Two women using a Samsung Chromebook
Shopping last minute for a Chromebook? Here are 5 things to avoid
Two Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook laptops on a blue background with the text 'techradar cyber monday deals'
Black Friday might be over, but you can still pick up a super-cheap laptop thanks to these Cyber Monday Chromebook deals
Latest in News
cheap Nintendo Switch game deals sales
Nintendo didn't anticipate that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was 'going to be the juggernaut' for the Nintendo Switch when it was ported to the console, according to former employees
Three angles of the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M4 laptop above a desk
Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review roundup – should you buy Apple's new lightweight laptop?
Witchbrook
Witchbrook, the life-sim I've been waiting years for, finally has a release window and it's sooner than you think
Amazon Echo Smart Speaker
Amazon is experimenting with renaming Echo speakers to Alexa speakers, and it's about time
Shigeru Miyamoto presents Nintendo Today app
Nintendo Today smartphone app is out now on iOS and Android devices – and here's what it does
iPhone 13 mini
The iPhone mini won't be returning, according to rumors – and you think that's a mistake