GPC 2021 | Acer aims to cover the full gamut of Chromebook life with its new x14 and x15 range

Acer has brought quite a few new products to the ongoing GPC 2021 event, and may have done enough to ensure its latest Chromebooks stand out among them. The new PCs are presented in modern-looking, slim and metallic cases with slim bezels for their FHD screens, rated for durability and portability by the OEM. The 14-inch Spin 314 also sets itself apart with a trackpad made of OceanGlass.

This material is made of plastic extracted from ocean waste into a material slated to mimic glass in its texture and function. It will be interesting to see how this new kind of touchpad holds up in terms of sensitivity and accuracy. 

The rest of the new Chromebooks feature Corning Gorilla Glass touchpads instead. Furthermore, the Spin 514 and 515 have up to 11th-gen Intel Core i7 processors (although Acer never actually mentioned which ones exactly), whereas the Spin 514 start with the new MediaTek Kompanio 828 processor.

This octa-core CPU is slated to confer up to 15 hours of battery life and comes with matte display options. The convertible version of this 14-inch Acer Chromebook also has Enterprise variants, as does the 515. Accordingly, they are touted as powerful productivity tools, especially the latter 15.6-inch model.

The largest of these new Acer Chromebooks have SKUs with up to 512GB PCIe NVMe SSDs and up to 16GB of RAM,  and also feature a USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-C port per side. Acer also touts them as ideal web-conferencing machines with specs such as DTS Audio enhancements - however, the OEM failed to disclose a resolution for their privacy shutter-equipped webcams.

Interested consumers in the EMEA will be able to find out from October 2021 on, when the Acer Chromebook 515 starts in the region from €499. Its Enterprise counterpart will be released in North America in January 2022, starting at US$649.99, although it will be in the EMEA from October as well, from EUR 799.

The Chromebook 514 will be available in the EMEA in November 2021, starting at €399, or in North America in December at $399.99 and up. Its ~$699.99 Spin counterpart will not be in North America until January 2022, although it wll be available in the EMEA from October, starting at €799, whereas the Enterprise version will make it to either region in December or October respectively, starting at €899.99 or €1,049.