Acer rolls out four new Chromebooks including the 511 with LTE, 20 hour battery life and Snapdragon 7c Arm-based chip

While we saw a flurry of new notebooks introduced last week during CES 2021, Acer has kept a few new Chromebooks up its sleeve for introduction at the BETT education show. The new clamshell laptop models are headlined by the Chromebook 511, which is joined by the Chromebook 311. These are accompanied by the new convertible Chromebook Spin 512 and Spin 511 that can also take advantage of the touch-based features in Google's Chrome OS.

The Chromebook 511 is the most powerful of the new devices and is fitted with Qualcomm’s PC optimized Snapdragon 7c, which features eight Arm Cortex-A76 derived cores. It is also equipped with LTE connectivity and is good for up to 15 hours of battery life in a 36 Wh configuration or up to 20 hours with the optional 48 Wh battery. It has received a MIL-STD810H specification for ruggedization and is priced at a reasonable US$399. It is joined by the Chromebook 311 C722 which offers similar durability but is fitted with the less capable Mediatek MT8183 but is cheaper at US$299.

Acer has also updated its Chromebook Spin range with the new 512 and 511 models getting a refresh. Both are similarly specified but feature displays with different aspect ratios. The Chromebook Spin 512 has an 11.6-inch 3:2 IPS touch display covered in Corning antibacterial coated glass while it also has a bacteria resistant palm rest, keyboard and touchpad. The Chromebook Spin 511 offers a 11.6-inch touch display with a 16:9 aspect that also comes with similar antimicrobial treatments. Both are powered by Intel Celeron processors matched with up to 8 GB of RAM and up to 64 GB of storage. The Spin 512 comes in at US$429 while the Spin 511 is a little cheaper at US$429.