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HP has announced its first Chromebook, and it’s notable for the fact that its screen is much larger than models from the likes of Samsung, Acer, and Lenovo. Sadly, there’s not an awful lot else to set it apart.
Unlike most Chromebooks, that pack a screen somewhere between 11 and 12 inches, HP’s Pavilion 14 Chromebook offers a 14-inch 1366 x 768 panel. As a result, this is a pretty large laptop, with a bigger keyboard and trackpad — so it might be ideal for older users.
On the inside, the story isn’t quite so grand: a 1.1GHz Intel Celeron processor, 2GB of RAM, and integrated graphics mean it’ll be no better or worse than most of its competitors in terms of performance. One area that the big screen is damaging the laptop’s prospects, though, is battery life: HP quotes 4 hours and 15 minutes, which in reality will be less.
For a computer designed for web browsing and light work, that’s not an awful lot of time allowed away from a power supply — and it’s certainly not as impressive as its smaller-screened cousins, which manage in the region of 6 hours. Add to that the fact that the Pavillion 14 will cost around the £210 mark, and HP’s Chromebook debut doesn’t look too promising.
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Ug!
I was keeping an eye out for the new set of Chromebooks and tempted to get one to hack Ubuntu, thinking they were to introduce touchscreens. (Guessing Google might still) I could appreciate the Samsung C’Book, with 6hrs battery, but these specs are pretty poor, nearly as bad as the Acer’s!
Glad I went with a second-hand i3 Samsung off eBay for the same price. Same size/res, but 4gig ram and even the nVidia fgx doesn’t kill the battery under 3.5hrs use.
touchscreen would be an interesting venture for Chromebooks. I think you’re missing the mark a little by talking about second hand laptops with all their specs – the point in a Chromebook is that it’s for people who aren’t interested in the amount of floating point calculations the processor can shit out in a second, but rather “will this thing load facebook? is it reliable?” in which case the Chromebook scores pretty big points due to never needing updating and is built from the ground up for internet use. you also get a warranty which isn’t available on most second hand laptops, and the added safety in knowing this is a brand new product and hasn’t been churning through porn and tower defence games for a few years prior.
Nope. I don’t think I missed the mark at all.
My comments were pedantic and personal reasons. At no point did I recommend anyone else should do like-wise. As I said, I was looking at Chromebooks to hack on Ubuntu, but decided the specs weren’t as good as what I could get, granted, warranty-less, 2nd hand laptop for similar costs.
I would however, argue that many people who’ve bought Chromebooks seem mostly deluded or ill informed, believing they could run like full laptops. eBay is awash with them, many with similar reasons for selling like “Can’t run Word”, “Can’t play games”, “Need to be able to do work”
the average user needs very little beyond what’s offered on Docs, and if they do then there’s third party contributions – there’s even a web version of LibreOffice, I believe, which is as good as you’re gonna get for the grand sum of £free. games? https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bastion/oohphhdkahjlioohbalmicpokoefkgid or maybe https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/from-dust/anelkojiepicmcldgnmkplocifmegpfj just to name a couple, let alone everything that runs flash. Truth is, they do run like laptops, but they don’t run on Windows. You’d be right in saying they’re illinformed, but rather about what they can do as opposed to what they can’t.
I don’t get what you thought you’d get from a brand new £200 laptop. The Samsung model has the same processor as the Nexus 10 – far from a slouch – with a physical keyboard and a desktop OS for £100 less…
My brother has one of the original Samsung chrome books, he gets 7 hours of youtube watching over 3g on it. The new ones get even longer. The new ARM ones can go well over 12 hours of charge regardless of what you use it for.
Right now, there’s nothing to make me want a Chromebook over a second hand laptop, or even a new, very bad one.
Absolutely nothing!
More GoppleDangers!
Love that one! Only that it should have spelt “GoppELDangers”. Your Welcome
*You’re.
Aaaargggh, edit button!