Clash of the Chromebooks: Acer C720P vs Acer 710

This is the kick-off video to the Chromebooks Clash series on the TechHarvest YouTube channel. The author who owns 5 Chromebooks, that will appear in this series, compares the Acer C710-2856 to the Acer C720P in this 1st edition.

Both Acer Chromebooks are similar in design, dimensions and weight and have the same screen size, 11.6 inch with a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. Some notable differences regarding equipment are:

• You can upgrade the RAM in the C710 to 4GB, whereas this does not seem to be possible in the C720P, so you're stuck with 2GB.
• The C720P has an improved processor with a higher clock rate, which is based on the Haswell processor microarchitecture.
• The C710 has a 320 GB hard drive and the C720P a 32 GB solid-state drive, a trade-off between storage capacity and speed.
• The C710 has an Ethernet port and the C720P has built-in Bluetooth support.
• The battery life improved significantly in the C720P with 7.5 vs. 4 hours.
• The C710 has a converted keyboard and the C720P a Chromebook keyboard, which has no Caps lock but a power key.
• The C720P has a touchscreen display.

A few outcomes of the mostly improved hardware in the C720P are that it boots faster and scores better in several Browser benchmarks that TechHarvest performs during the comparison. He points out that the older model doesn't feel like old hardware and that you may find an offer on eBay that is considerably cheaper than buying a new C720P.

Personally, I'd rather go with the newer model I guess, although it costs quite a bit more. The Web is evolving very quickly and a lot of the newer technologies are actually quite demanding when it comes to hardware. Which one do you find more attractive?