Acer Announces 21.5-Inch Chromebase All-in-One With Touch Display, NVIDIA Tegra K1 SoC
Chromebooks based on Google’s Chrome OS are making some inroads in the notebook market — especially in education — but the same can’t be said for two other form-factors of Chrome OS-based computers: the Chromebox and the Chromebase. Acer hopes to at least shift some momentum towards Chromebases (all-in-one Chrome OS desktops) with the introduction of the aptly named Acer Chromebase.
The focal point of the Acer Chromebase is of course its massive 21.5-inch display, which packs in Full HD resolution (1080p). Acer also says that this is the first Chromebase to come with a touch display (10-point multi-touch). Chrome OS wasn’t really designed with touch input in mind (it’s mainly been a mouse and keyboard affair), but with Google looking to bring Android apps to Chrome OS, things will change quickly.
Acer is being at bit stingy when it comes to other hardware details, but we do know that the all-in-one will sport a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, HD webcam HDMI out, dual 3W speakers, 802.11n, and Bluetooth 4.0. We reached out to Acer for further information and were told that up to 4GB of memory can be installed and that the machine will come standard with 16GB of eMMC storage.
LG launched its own Chromebase last year that features a 22-inch display and a 1.4GHz Intel Celeron processor. The device has an MSRP of $349, but Amazon currently lists it at $319 with free shipping. Acer is likely to play it smart and price its Chromebase similarly, so expect to see an MSRP anywhere from $349 to $399 when it launches in Q2.
