Acer’s eco-friendly Vero lineup of devices already has laptops, mini PCs and all-in-one desktops, but the Taiwanese manufacturer isn’t stopping there. They’ve just announced yet another new product in the Acer Vero family: the Acer Chromebook Vero 514.
As its name suggests, the Acer Chromebook Vero 514 is their eco-friendly green Chromebook offering, with 30% of its chassis being made out of post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic, while for the keycaps and speakers Acer ups the recycled plastic content to 50%. There’s also ocean-bound plastic being used in the internal fan housing as well as the touchpad. Acer also claims that the paint-free chassis meets MIL-STD 810H standards and can survive drops from as high as 122cm.
As for the display, the Acer Chromebook Vero 514 will feature a 14-inch, FHD IPS display capable of 300nits of brightness as well as 100% coverage of the sRGB colour gamut. There will also be touchscreen options available too. Under the hood, it packs some of the latest 12th Gen Intel Core processors, though Acer didn’t list which specific CPU will be used here, nor did they reveal the memory and storage configurations. At the very least though, you can expect it to come with Intel processors that feature Intel Iris Xe graphics.
Elsewhere, there’s an FHD webcam with flare reduction features as well as DTS audio with Smart Amplifier for better video conferencing. There’s also no battery capacity listed, but Acer is advertising a 10-hour battery life. For I/O, there’s two USB-C ports, a HDMI port, a USB-A port and a 3.5mm audio jack, while for connectivity there’s going to be WiFi 6E too.
Being part of the Acer Vero lineup also means that the packaging that the Chromebook Vero 514 will be made of recyclable material. The box itself is made of 90% recycled paper, with the notebook bag and keyboard sheet made from 100% recycled plastic. You’ll also find standard screws being used so that it’s easy to repair and upgrade your Chromebook Vero 514 down the line.
As for pricing and availability, the Acer Chromebook Vero 514 will first go on sale in the United States in October starting at USD499.99 (~RM2,242.71), while Europe will be getting it a month later at EUR599 (~RM2,675.25); there’s no details yet on if and when it’ll be available in Malaysia though.
Of course, if you really want to be ‘eco-friendly’ while getting a Chromebook, you could also consider installing Chrome OS Flex on your old Windows laptop. In case you missed it, Google had recently released a version of Chrome OS that the public can download and install on older devices. Chrome OS Flex is a lightweight alternative to Windows that can breathe new life into what would’ve been eWaste, and it’s arguably more eco-friendly to do that rather than buy a new laptop altogether.