We spoke with Acer about its slick new Chromebook, based on AMD’s new Chromebook-specific Ryzen chips, and also touched on the company’s Enterprise Chrome OS version of the machine.
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[Music] Hi i’m matthew buzzy from pc mag and We’re here with eric atkinson from acer Uh we’re here to talk about They revealed many things at ces this Year but uh we’re here to focus first on The Acer chromebook spin 514 which is An all amd uh chromebook build which is A bit rare it’s a first for eight uh for Acer with The new ryzen 3000 series so eric why Don’t you tell us a little bit about Uh what’s appealing about this Chromebook why it’s why it’s different And why uh Consumers should take notice absolutely So uh as you rightly mentioned this Is our first amd based chromebook we are Really excited about that Uh it broadens the portfolio for us and Offers different performance and price Points So that in and of itself is is really Neat um It is a convertible as you also Mentioned the chromebook spin 514. uh I have a device right here that will Kind of walk through as we go through This conversation Uh first and foremost the the naming 514 The last two digits indicate the screen Size so this is a nice
14 inch display it is full hd And ips with our convertibles Uh we’ve been doing this for a while now We’re including something called The dual torque hinge i’ll give you a Little look at one hinge there And one hinge there what does that mean Well when you go from a closed position And you want to move it into a useful Standard laptop position there’s just a Little bit of resistance Allowing it to go to that spot then it Kind of locks up provides more Resistance so that you can interface Let me try to rotate here with the touch Screen And the screen won’t wobble or fall away From the user And then with a little more push or Pressure on that it will continue to Rotate into a lay flat Or tent mode so if you’re not that Anybody is recently on an airplane with That small little tray then you can make This fit and watch your movie Uh or flip it all the way around of Course to 360 And be able to use it like a tablet Something we’ve learned through all of Our process With chrome’s where we’ve been greatly Wildly successful in the education space Is that well especially kids they don’t Take care of devices very well
So we had to make those more durable and We’ve taken some of that know-how and Brought it to the consumer side as well I mentioned that really nice 14 inch Full hd ips panel With it’s durable with gorilla glass 3 So it offers a nice smooth touch Interface but it’s also going to be Resilient against Scratches and any kind of damage in Addition Yeah that’s definitely good for that’s Definitely good to me to cut you off It’s definitely good for this type of Product it’s going to be in the hand a Lot it’s going to be flipping around The hinge i know some laptops have kind Of too floppy of a hinge so When you move when you move it around And move that screen you kind of lose The form factor you chose and So yeah that’s that’s yeah you know i Think we see that a lot or i have Seen that a lot in the office Environment when you’re in one meeting Room and you’re moving to another and Somebody picks it up and the screen just Flops back so Having that that sturdy nature to the Hinge helps keep it in place and not Just Wobble around the chassis itself is Aluminum So on the what we call a cover and b
D cover the top and bottom of the system When it’s closed up that’s aluminum it’s Sandblasted it’s anodized so it’s not a Paint or a finish that’s going to be Scratched and then Continuing the story about durability Now we’ve gone ahead and for quite a While now been getting our products Designed for so that they pass and they Do uh us military standard for Durability So this is a mil-spec standard 810h it Protects against things like temperature And humidity from a wide range Uh there the hinge life is tested uh Weight and pressure so if someone’s Putting this into a travel bag And getting on a plane or in a car Throws it and it’s laying flat Pressure on that that top cover it takes Some Some more pressure and abuse than a Typical system would So that i mean that’s just some there’s So much more uh to talk about Like i mentioned the amd this is our First amd chromebook we’re really Excited about that This is a ryzen 3 3000 Series of cpu here and our configuration That we’re announcing today Includes four gigabytes of ram 64 Gigabytes of emmc Storage and it has a price of 479
Coming to market in mid february so yeah That’s definitely an appealing price Point um this is this is definitely Has a bit of the more premium uh Features that are included on some Chromebooks But doesn’t get as high priced as some Of the chromebooks that get closer to a Thousand dollars with Some of those more premium features so a Good middle ground between the The really low budget um chromebook Options and Some of those better features and sort Of a mid-range pricing that’s true and Part of the reason for that Is uh who we’re designing this product For this is really designed for people That are now finding themselves at home And getting a lot of work done or Needing a second device in the home but They want it to be More than just a band-aid to get them by It’s actually a good quality device That’s going to work for them And that’s part of the story in this Product as well is that there is an Enterprise version of this product And to help people identify it we’ve Done a couple of clever things the first Is To change the name uh and insert the Word So now it’s inserted in there chromebook
Enterprise spin 514. Uh the other thing we we did was on the Chassis itself we made One change and that was to include an Hdmi port And we know that people are going to be Connecting especially now in a work from Home environment To a display at home they’re not moving From office or a room in an Office environment so we want them to Connect to a larger display and be able To get their work done Overall both products support up to Eight gigabytes of ram Up to 128 gigabytes of emmc and then Surprisingly there’s uh because you Don’t see this much there’s room for an M.2 256 gigabyte ssd so quite capable There is as well a micro sd card slot Let me make sure i’m looking okay here We go Yep micro sd card slot yeah i know why Am i showing you everybody knows what a Micro sd card slot looks like you’ve got To lay your eyes on it before you can Really believe it Um yeah that’s that’s that and the hdmi Are definitely features that um are Important to To business users um i know there’s a Couple other software things baked into That business uh the business version
Which are definitely intriguing Especially for chromebook um i know There’s a couple things that make it Easier for it departments to roll out And uh also to maintain and monitor um The fleet after it’s after it’s rolled Out so Auto enrollment is one of those things You want to talk about that yeah so The enterprise version of the product Comes with the upgraded enterprise Version of os already installed Ready to go and this is great for those Environments where somebody needs a new System They’re working from home or maybe You’re on boarding a new employee i mean The it department needs to be able to Enroll that device that user And save time just sent straight to the User they have the device information It allows for zero touch enrollment so The very first time the user opens it up Takes it out of the box and is wowed by The beautiful design of this great Chromebook as soon as it connects to Wi-fi all of their permissions and Accessibilities are are ready to go Baked in Cool that’s i mean i see people will Love that um and So will people on the on the user end Because anything you have to do less Manually is
Is okay in a lot of people’s books um Yeah so you said um just to wrap up Uh 47 uh 479.99 for this one Um 10 hours of battery life you rated About A couple nice extras like the mil-spec Durability Options to upgrade the specs of ram so Yeah we’re really looking forward to Checking this one out um a a rare all Amd build which is always exciting amd Is doing some great stuff these days So we’re always looking forward to that Um delivering good performance and value Um thank you so much eric and uh check Back to pcma.com for more coverage of Acer products and all us announced at Ces 2021 Thanks for watching
