Acer Announces Ultra Low Cost Cloudbooks With Windows 10 Home
by Brett Howse on August 4, 2015 5:00 AM EST
Today Acer is launching a new line of low cost notebooks, which are branded as Acer Aspire One Cloudbooks. There will be an 11.6-inch model, and a 14-inch model, and Acer manages to get both models under $200. We have seen some surprisingly decent notebooks around this price range, such as the HP Stream 11, but Acer has managed to move the barrier to entry even farther down.
The 11.6-inch model starts at only $170, with a bump in storage boosting the price to $190, or for $199.99 you can step up to the 14-inch model. For this price you get a 1366x768 resolution display, which is likely going to be a TN panel. The fanless design is powered by the 14nm Intel Celeron N3050 processor, which is a dual-core model with a base frequency of 1.6 GHz and turbo frequency of 2.16 GHz. This is going to be Airmont cores, similar to the previous N series Celerons with Silvermont. Performance expectations should be in check, but with a 6 watt TDP it should be able to maintain its peak frequency fairly well. As a comparison, the Surface 3 has four Airmont cores at up to 2.4 GHz, but with just a 2 watt scenario design power. Graphics will also get a boost over the older Celerons, with the Airmont cores now paired with Gen 8 graphics and 12 execution units rather than just 4 Gen 7 units available on the older chips.
One of the ways Acer was able to hit these price points was due to the storage available. The 11.6-inch model starts with just 16 GB of storage, and even with the Windows 10 storage features which can save even more space than Windows 8.1’s WIMBoot, 16 GB is not a lot for a Windows install. For those interested in this device, the $20 boost to 32 GB would be a wise investment. The 14-inch model starts with 32 GB and will also offer a 64 GB model later on. There is a SD card slot, but Windows 10 has not yet implemented the same features as Windows Phone has for SD card use, so no Windows Store apps can be installed to it yet, although that is coming later.
| Acer Aspire One Cloudbook | ||||||
| Cloudbook 11 | Cloudbook 14 | |||||
| CPU | Intel Celeron N3050 Dual-core Airmont 1.6-2.16GHz Intel HD Graphics 12 EUs 320-600MHz |
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| Memory | 2GB DDR3L | |||||
| Storage | 16-32 GB eMMC | 32-64 GB eMMC | ||||
| Display | 11.6" 1366x768 | 14.0" 1366x768 | ||||
| Ports | USB 3.0 x 1 USB 2.0 x 1 HDMI SD Card Slot Headphone |
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| Networking | 802.11ac WiFi Bluetooth 4.0 |
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| Dimensions | H: 0.70" (17.8 mm) W: 11.5" (292.1 mm) D: 7.95" (201.93 mm) |
H: 0.70" (17.8 mm) W: 13.36" (339.3 mm) D: 9.25" (235.0 mm) |
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| Weight | 2.54 lbs (1.15 kg) | 3.5 lbs (1.59 kg) | ||||
| Battery Life | Up to 7 hours | Up to 6 hours | ||||
| Price | $169.99-$189.99 | $199.99+ | ||||
Both models will feature 802.11ac wireless, which is nice to see since that seems to be one of the first cuts on a budget notebook. Acer is positioning these devices as Cloudbooks, and they include one year of Office 365 Personal and the included 1 TB of OneDrive storage, and Acer is also promoting their cloud based abApps to help in keeping files in sync with smartphones and tablets.
While inexpensive, Acer has done well with the design. Both models are just 0.7-inches thick, and the smaller device comes in at just 2.54 lbs, and the larger 14-inch model tips the scales at 3.5 lbs. The textured pattern is finished in a mineral grey which looks quite sharp.
The Acer Cloudbooks will be available starting this month for the 11.6-inch model, with the 14-inch version coming in September.
Source: Acer
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lilmoe - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Battery life?icrf - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
For a device like this, that is pretty close to the most important question.nathanddrews - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
My 10" IPS Bay Trail tablet (Bingdows 8.1, 2GB RAM, 32GB) lasts about 6 hours of constant, heavy browsing/videos, but usually I go several days between charges. I only have about 12GB free. Stupid Windows 10 won't update, but I'm not sure I care enough to do it manually.damianrobertjones - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
I'd hardly call Windows 10 stupid when it was your choice to buy a machine which such low storage. You could try turning off/deleting your System restore backups, disabling Virtual memory and hibernation to get additional space then upgrade... .nathanddrews - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Thanks for the tech support, Matlock, but none of those are a problem. Windows Update was failing to update on its own even after automatically downloading the update every day for a week. To try and correct it, I forced the update via command prompt to bypass the reservation system and it downloaded the necessary W10 update again, but then refused to acknowledge that it had downloaded the update or initiate the upgrade - it simply shows as "failed" in the update history. So I downloaded the appropriate Home ISO from Microsoft to do it myself, but I just haven't gotten around to it.It's stupid because it didn't work automatically like they said it would. It's also stupid because even when forcing it to update, it still fails. I am judging its stupidity upon the basis of its promise to be smart and painless, but being exactly the opposite. Even with the Pro ISO on my other machines, it wasn't entirely smooth. So far, I give this launch 3/10.
menting - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
@nathanddrews: My Dell Venue Pro 8 won't update either (errors every time), either through the Windows Update, or through the downloader that Microsoft provided. How I got around that was to do a full factory reset, and it was able to update to Windows 10 right after. That's something you can try if you feel inclined to do so.nathanddrews - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Thanks @menting - if the Home ISO doesn't work, I'll try that, but I think I'm going to wait until after the October update.kaidenshi - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
It's not just newer laptops; my wife's Lenovo Ideapad from 2010, with Windows 7, is completely incompatible with Windows 10. It updates using the official update tool, but once it's in 10 nothing works except wifi. It won't even run "Modern" apps (including the new Settings) without force-closing about half of the Windows processes in the Task Manager. Only then was I able to load Settings long enough to revert to Windows 7. Windows 10 rocks on my Haswell based workstation, but it's definitely not ready for every machine out there.eriri-el - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
HP Stream 7 upgraded to Windows 10 via Windows Update fine on my end. Only managed to clear up 10Gb of space before the update started but it updated without issue. However, after the update, Windows 10 seems to be plagued with minor issues here and there, so I assume something did go wrong somewhere. Gonna install a fresh one when I find the time, but it is at least useable for nowBrett Howse - Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - link
Sorry it was late last night and somehow I missed that. Battery Wh isn't listed but I added the battery life and SD Card slot to the table.