Acer Chromebook Spin 513 rolls out with Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c processor, $349 starting price | ZDNet

First announced last fall, the Acer Chromebook Spin 513 — notable for being the first Chromebook that features a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor — has finally arrived, with Walmart’s online store offering the base configuration at a $349 price for shipment later this week.

The 513 is the latest in Acer’s successful line of 2-in-1 Chromebooks, joining newcomers like the Spin 514, which is one of the first Chromebooks to use an AMD Ryzen 3000 C-Series mobile processor. But whereas that model takes advantage of the performance boost that the Ryzen chip architecture provides, the Spin 513 looks to exploit the lengthy battery life the Snapdragon 7c Compute Platform promises.

Acer claims roughly 14 hours of battery life for the Spin 513, and the first reviews of the convertible laptop show that claim to be fairly accurate — The Verge says it lasted a little over 10 hours with “continuous use” and 50-percent screen brightness, while Android Authority averaged 13.2 hours of battery life. The downside to the Snapdragon processor is in performance, however, as the reviewers note that the Spin 513 is fine for basic tasks

In addition to giving superior battery life, the Spin 513’s slightly higher price tag over other Chromebooks is a result of a few design niceties. The 13.3-inch touchscreen includes full 1080p HD resolution (1,920×1,080) with a 78-percent screen-to-body ratio and Corning Gorilla Glass coating for added durability. The Gorilla Glass extends to the touchpad as well. The base configuration includes 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, though Acer lists forthcoming configurations with a Qualcomm Kryo 486 processor, including one with 8GB of RAM.

The 513 isn’t the only Acer Chromebook expected that uses the Snapdragon 7c processor, as the education-oriented Chromebook Spin 511 and Spin 512 are expected to launch sometime soon.