 This is Dan from The Verge and this is the Acer Chromebook C720. Acer's new Chromebook C720 is an update to last year's ultra-cheap C7. The C720 is slimmer, faster, lighter, and longer lasting than before, and at $249, it's likely to be the cheapest new Chromebook announced by Google this year. Though the C720 has been more or less ignored by Google thus far, it is a considerable upgrade over the C7. Acer has tightened up manufacturing on the device, resulting in a much nicer laptop. The display hinge isn't wobbly, the laptop doesn't flex when you pick it up, the keyboard is actually pretty nice to type on, and the trackpad is remarkably usable for scrolling and other multi-fingered gestures. The C720 is also thinner and lighter than the C7, but it still has a pretty boring utilitarian design. Compared to the flashy gloss and fun colors of the Chromebook 11, the C720 is a snoozer to look at with its dark gray color scheme and pedestrian looks. But it's functionally much better, you won't leave fingerprints all over its lid every time you touch it, for example. The 11.6 inch display on the C720 is the same size and same 1366x768 pixel resolution as last year, but this time it has a matte finish, which all but eliminates reflections and glare. The screen is nowhere near as nice as the panel on the Chromebook 11, it's not as bright, doesn't have as amazing viewing angles, and doesn't have as deep blacks, but it's perfectly usable and acceptable for this level of laptop. You do lose some neat design features found on the HP. Speakers are on the bottom of the computer instead of built into the keyboard, they get loud but they really don't sound all that great, you can't charge it using a micro-USB charger, and there's no cool light up strip to be found on the C720's lid. In exchange you get a USB 3.0 port, a full HDMI out port along with a USB 2.0 port, a full size SD card reader, and a Kensington lock port. While the HP might be the fashionista of the Chromebook family, the C720 is the workhorse. The improvements to the C720's design and build quality are all welcome, but the biggest difference between it and the C7, and frankly, every other Chromebook, is found on the inside. The C7 is one of the first Chromebooks to hit the market with Intel's new processor, known as Haswell. This offers much better performance and usability, but more importantly provides dramatically improved battery life. The C720 is quoted at 8.5 hours of battery life by Acer and Google, nearly double that of the C7. In our tests, it really lives up to that claim. It lasted over 9 hours and 40 minutes in our run down test, and in real world use we've been able to get well over 7 hours of use from it. The biggest complaint we've had from Chromebooks in the past is battery life, and fortunately the C720 has no issues there. Along with the new processor, Acer has swapped out the C7's antiquated spinning disk hard drive for a much more fitting SSD. You lose a lot of storage space, the SSD is only 16GB compared to the old version's 320GB, but you gain a lot in performance, and with Chrome OS, you're supposed to be living in the cloud anyways. The new machine powers on much faster, can handle dozens of tabs without choking, doesn't drop frames and video playback, and is just snappier and more responsive than any Chromebook I've used save for the top of the line Pixel. I can't say it's as fast as my MacBook Air, but it's fast enough to where it doesn't get in the way of my work, and that's really the most important factor. At under $250, the C720 is pretty much the cheapest laptop that you can buy these days, and fortunately its performance and stamina belie its bargain basement price. Chrome OS still isn't for everyone, you really have to give yourself over to Google's services and be content with web based apps, but the C720 is still a very capable machine, which can't really be said for many other Chromebooks. Google may be calling the HP Chromebook 11 the Chromebook for everyone, but the C720 seems to be the Chromebook for me, and probably you too.