Acer tightens up its kid-friendly Chromebook keyboards

Acer is taking an interesting approach to durability with the announcement of four Chromebooks. In particular, the keyboards of kid-friendly laptops are designed to be difficult to damage.

The Chromebook 512 (C852), Chromebook 511 (C734/C734T), Chromebook 314 (C934/C934T), and Chromebook Spin 311 (R722T/R723T) join Acer’s education-focused machines with “locked-key”keyboards. This makes it harder for users — especially curious young students — to rip keys out of laptops, the company says, while still offering keyboards that are easy to repair or replace.

An Acer rep also explained the keyboard to Ars, saying that the ridges under each key make it difficult for your fingers to get in and push the keyboard out.

“The rib holds it in place better than other designs,”a spokesperson said. “This design helps to minimize damage to the Chromebook and reduces the likelihood of service being required.”

Even students who know it’s unwise to try to take apart their keyboard can still get into an accident. Keyboards should be able to handle up to 11 fluid ounces of liquid through a built-in drainage system that “helps protect internal components,”says Acer.

In addition to rugged keyboards, all laptop cases are claimed to meet the US military’s toughness standards, specifically MIL-STD 810H and MIL-STD 810F for sand and dust. Acer said the new Chromebooks can withstand a 48-foot drop or a 132.3-pound weight thanks to “strengthened construction,”including a shock-absorbing bumper. Acer’s announcement also referred to “extended brackets and reinforced I/O ports”.

11 to 14 inches

Acer’s four new Chromebooks come in a variety of sizes, including a taller screen variant.

The most expensive is the Chromebook 314 (from $430 in March). It has a 14-inch IPS touch screen with 1080p resolution. The machine should be compact and weigh 3.2 pounds. Inside, it features an Intel Pentium Silver N6000 quad-core processor, 8GB of LPDDR4X memory, and 128GB of eMMC storage. Acer said the laptop will last up to 10 hours on a single charge.

The company also announced the Chromebook 511 (starting at $350 in February) and Chromebook 512 (starting at $350 in January). You can get the former with an Intel Celeron N5100 quad-core processor, and the latter with up to N6000 processors. Each of them claims up to 12 hours of battery life.

511 is an 11.6-inch laptop for younger students; it has a plastic coating that complies with UL/IEC 60950-1 safety standard and ASTM F963-16 toy safety standard.

Meanwhile, the Acer Chromebook 512 features a 12-inch 3:2 aspect ratio screen, rather than the wider 16:9 aspect ratio that other machines use. This means 18 percent more vertical space, so you can scroll less.

All three machines are equipped with 720p webcams that use temporal noise reduction, which should improve image quality by “simultaneously analyzing and using information from multiple frames”and combating glare. Acer said the feature is particularly useful in low light conditions.

Finally, the Spin 311 ($400 in March) is an 11.6-inch convertible. It’s the only new Chromebook with a screen reinforced with Gorilla Glass and Acer’s antimicrobial coating that fights bacteria with a silver ion agent.

The machine uses a MediaTek MT8183 with four large Arm Cortex-A73 cores and four small Cortex-A530 cores. Like the other three new Chromebooks, the Spin 311 supports Wi-Fi 6.