Acer and Samsung Chromebooks now $50-$80 cheaper

Google has quietly slashed the prices off of its lineup of Chromebooks, otherwise known as netbooks running Chrome OS, to be effective beginning this week.

Acer and Samsung are the two manufacturers of Chromebooks, having respectively produced the Cromia AC700 and Series 5 netbooks for Google. The Cromia will now retail for as low as $299, or $50 less than its original price. The Samsung Chromebook, however, will still be more expensive than the Acer at $349, but that price is after the $80 price drop off of its original $430 MSRP. A WiFi-only black model will be made available as well, with similar specs to the original Samsung.

“We’ve also been working closely with out partners to continually improve the overall Chromebook experience while making them even more affordable,” said senior product manager Venkat Rapaka in the blog post. “So, we’re excited to share that beginning this week Acer and Samsung Chromebook will be available starting at $299.”

Additionally, the Chrome OS software itself will receive some minor tweaks, mostly on the interface side with reportedly sleeker looks and new links from the home page.

The lower prices may be indicative of upgraded models to come. Rumors of Core-iX Chromebooks surfaced mid- July, which would provide users with a noticeable boost in performance over current Atom CPUs.

The Google Chromebooks went on sale mid- June of this year with Intel Atom N570 CPUs, 2GB RAM and SSDs. More recently, Google modified the Chromebook prices to better fit business and school budgets and schedules.

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