Acer announces Tegra K1-powered Chromebook 13 with option for full HD display

Acer has unveiled the first Chromebook powered by an Nvidia Tegra K1 processor. The Acer Chromebook 13 is the company’s first Chrome OS machine with a 13.3-inch display, but the big story is of course the internals under the hood.   Interestingly, for the very first time, we have configuration options that go beyond just the basic RAM and storage upgrade. The Chromebook 13 will be available in three models, with the base model (CB5-311-T7NN) priced at $279 (Around Rs 17,000) and will have a 1366x768 pixel resolution display, along with 2GB RAM and 16GB of storage. Next up is the full HD model, which has the same amount of RAM and storage, while the top-of-the-line Chromebook 13 (CB5-311-T1UU) sports a 1920x1080 display, 4GB of RAM and has 32GB of storage. This one has been priced at $379 (about Rs 23,000), while the middle child (CB5-311-T9B0) is priced at $299 (approx Rs 18,000).   The processor in all three SKUs is **the much-praised Tegra K1 from NVIDIA** , which features 192 CUDA cores for enhanced graphics performance. Acer’s latest sports a fanless design, and is just 0.71 inches thick, which makes it one of the thinnest laptops in this category. It’s not all that heavy either with an overall weight of 3.31 pounds (around 1.5KG). As is common with Chromebooks don’t expect a whole armada of ports; this one gets two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, an SD-card slot and stereo speakers, along with Wi-Fi ac support.   Acer says the Tegra K1 SoC along with a third-generation battery-saver core will provide up to 13 hours of battery life on this system, though your mileage may vary with the full HD models.  It’s said to boot up in less than 10 seconds and resume nearly instantly from sleep mode. There’s an HD webcam above the display that provides 720p video recording.   Wondering whether Chromebooks are for you, **here's our primer to help you figure out.**