​Acer Chromebook 13 adds Nvidia’s souped-up Tegra K1 processor

Chromebooks are popular because they’re usually really cheap, but the good news is they seem to be getting more powerful. New processors are finding their way into the latest Chromebooks, including a handful of Intel’s laptop-level CPUs. The Acer Chromebook 13 goes another route, adding Nvidia’s new Tegra K1 processor, a powerful system-on-a-chip that recently appeared in the Nvidia Shield Tablet.

That new processor doesn’t pump the price up too high: the Chromebook 13 starts at $279 in the US, a pretty reasonable neighborhood for a budget Chromebook. It’s available for pre-sale today. UK and Australia availability are yet to be announced, but the US price converts to around £165 or AU$300.

The 13-inch Acer Chromebook has an all-white look that’s rather like the HP Chromebook 11 from last year. Inside, the Tegra K1 processor should power Web-based graphics nicely: a few demos I saw looked better than the average.

The Tegra K1 combines a quad-core Cortex A15 CPU with 192-core Nvidia graphics. That extra graphics punch, according to Acer, will help accelerate certain Web apps and in-browser gaming, but this particular Acer Chromebook won’t be able to take advantage of Nvidia’s other Tegra K1-optimized Android games or the game-streaming services available on the Shield Tablet.

Multi-tab browsing, multitasking and 10-person HD Google Hangouts via the 720p webcam do, however, aim to make this Chromebook competitive with Intel Core i-series-level models.

There are two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MIMO antennas. The Chromebook 13 weighs 3.31 pounds (1.5kg), and has a comfy enough feel, with a wide trackpad. Battery life is estimated at 11-13 hours of video playback, depending on which screen resolution you choose.

For $279, you get a 1,366×768-pixel 13.3-inch LCD display, 2GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD. A $299 (£180, AU$320) model bumps the display up to 1,920×1,080, while a $379 (£225, AU$410) model doubles up storage and memory to a 32GB SSD and 4GB of RAM. Unfortunately, none of the models offer touchscreens.

It all sounds pretty good for a budget Chromebook: although there are more affordable options out there, the specs and features here seem like they’d be worth it. What the potentially impressive quad-core Tegra K1 192-core graphics can do for a Web-based device like a Chromebook sound promising, even if it won’t be exactly the same as on an Android tablet like the Shield.

It shows that the Tegra K1 could end up in a bunch of products by the end of the year, and if it means improved budget products with solid battery life, that’s excellent news.