Acer at CES: AMD Powered Acer Chromebook 315 Announced
by Brett Howse on January 6, 2019 3:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Acer
- AMD
- Chromebook
- CES 2019
At CES 2019, Acer has announced the Acer Chromebook 315, interestingly powered by AMD but not Ryzen. Instead, the Chromebook 315 features the AMD A6-9220C or A4-9120C processors with Radeon graphics in this cost-conscious Chromebook.
The Acer Chromebook 315 is a 15.6-inch laptop offering either a 1366x768 TN, or a 1920x1080 IPS display, but unlike the much more expensive Acer Swift 7 they announced, this is not the new thin-bezel design, but a more typical design that is indicative of its target price segment.
ChromeOS has proven itself to be frugal with performance, which is likely a good thing since the AMD A-Series APUs fitted in the Chromebook 315 are not the newest and fastest chips from AMD. The A6-9220C APU is a dual-core processor with a base 1.8 GHz and boost of 2.7 GHz, based on AMD Stoney Ridge and featuring Excavator cores built on 28 nm. It offers AMD Radeon R5 graphics. The base offering in this laptop is the AMD A4-9120C, at 1.6/2.4 GHz, and Radeon R4 graphics. The laptop is offered with 4 or 8 GB of DDR4 RAM, and 32 GB or 64 GB of eMMC storage.
| Acer Chromebook 315 | |||||
| Component | Chromebook 315 | ||||
| APU | AMD A6-9220C 1.8-2.7 GHz, 1MB L2 cache 6-W TDP Radeon R5 Graphics AMD A4-9120C 1.6-2.4 GHz, 1MB L2 cache 6-W TDP Radeon R4 Graphics |
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| RAM | 4-8 GB Dual-Channel DDR4 | ||||
| Storage | 32-64 GB eMMC | ||||
| Display | 15.6-inch 1366x768 Acer ComfyView 15.6-inch 1920x1080 Acer ComfyView IPS 15.6-inch 1920x1080 Acer CineCrystal high-brightness IPS Touch Optional |
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| Dimensions | 380.54 x 256.28 x 19.95 mm 14.98 x 10.09 x 0.79 inches |
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| Weight | 1.8 Kg / 3.97 lbs | ||||
| Connectivity | 802.11ac 2x2 MU-MIMO Bluetooth 4.2 |
||||
| Battery | 54 Wh Li-Ion, up to 10 hours 45 W USB-C Charger |
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| Ports | 2 x USB-C Gen 1 2 x USB-A 3.0 microSD Reader Headset jack |
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| Starting Price | $279.99 USD | ||||
Acer touts that the Chromebook 315 can offer up to 10 hours of battery life from its 54 Wh battery capacity, which is not too bad considering the 28 nm CPUs on-board. Acer offers USB-C charging with a 45 W PD adapter.
The Chromebook is a pretty stout unit, measuring 19.95 mm thick, and weighing in at 1.8 Kg, or just under 4 lbs.
Considering the range of low-end parts, it’s not surprising to see that the Acer Chromebook 315 starts at $279.99, with availability in February.
Source: Acer
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zepi - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link
On the one hand I think that United Nationas Human Rights Council should ban 768p TN monitors, but on the other hand I appreciate the fact that even quite poor families in Africa can hope to buy a laptop that actually can get them to internet from a wifi-hotspot in a internet cafeteria.zepi - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link
And not just Africa - we all have different priorities in life. Sometimes 280usd is more than we want to spend.Azix - Monday, January 7, 2019 - link
poor people in africa? 280 USD is too much for a massive portion of the US population.Mobile-Dom - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link
IIRC from the AMD slide these parts are 6w, but aside from that, 768p TN shouldn't be an option anymore, simple asPeachNCream - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link
Higher resolutions are rather wasteful since you have to scale text larger anyway or people have trouble reading stuff on the screen. I've got a 14 inch laptop at work with a 1080p screen and its scaled to 125% or 150% depending on what I'm working on which just means those extra pixels are forcing the GPU to work a little harder and demanding a bit ore backlight energy to achieve roughly the same usable amount of productive screen real estate.Death666Angel - Monday, January 7, 2019 - link
Maybe not talk like your own experience is universal for everyone else? I've had a 768p 14" display and it was annoyingly large and fit very little on the actual screen. Now I have a 13.3" 1440p and have set it to 125% and it is great. Much more useful and when watching movies and pictures much better as well. I don't think 768p needs to die, but the price is much too high for it.hanselltc - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link
I know these are cheaper than bricks, but my lord they look worse than bricks as well.zodiacfml - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link
This is the reason Acer became notorious instead of number 1 PC manufacturer.Why use those old 28nm parts?! Browsers can be CPU intensive especially with Google's web apps. This issue is way worse than 768p resolution on 15.6 displays.
fmcjw - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link
I'm more curious about AMD's decision to LAUNCH any more A series CPUs in 2019, rather than focusing on bringing Zen to (even) lower tiers. Similarly curious as to HP, Acer, and others' decision to build anything around this 5 year old architecture. It's like watching HTC or Nokia/Microsoft in their last days still releasing new e-waste featuring (drum-roll) ...Snapdragon 2xx.Death666Angel - Monday, January 7, 2019 - link
Probably old stock or chips they got nearly for free from their GloFo deals. I'll be looking forward to seeing some comparison with the Atoms inside nearly all other Chromebooks. This thing is still too expensive though for what it does.