Bay Trail Celeron N2840 1080P IPS in low cost ($330) chromebook

[Vesku]

Toshiba announced their chromebook 2 with a 13 inch 1080P screen for $330. Shame it's not using a Haswell celeron but a dual core BayTrail one but still nice to see a decent display on a budget offering. An USB 3 port, Bluetooth 4.0, and 802.11ac wifi are nice touches.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014...will-give-you-a-13-1080p-ips-display-for-330/

On to the CPU related part of this, is the Celeron N2840 good enough for something like this?
Bay Trail dual core 2.16GHz base 2.58GHz boost Just 4 Gen7 EU graphic units with a max clock of 792MHz. Judging by the ~$250 Haswell Celeron Chromebooks I think they could offer a Haswell version for ~$360-380 if they wanted to. I feel they must assume budget notebook users don't care about their CPU, edit: APU, too much.

http://ark.intel.com/products/82103/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N2840-1M-Cache-up-to-2_58-GHz

 

[monstercameron]

Dual core atoms should be banned on anything larger than 10".

 

[pw257008]

Dual core atoms should be banned on anything larger than 10".

at least anything costing $300+.

 

[Arachnotronic]

My smartphone has more CPU grunt than this thing does.

 

[bullzz]

@Intel17 - true but ur smartphone may cost twice this!

but i agree. dual core baytrails should be for $150 or less tablets

 

[cbn]

dual core baytrails should be for $150 or less tablets

There currently is no dual core Bay Trail-T:

http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/55844/Bay-Trail#@All

Now at one time a Z3680 and Z3680D dual core Bay-Trail was announced, but I have to wonder if they decided to scrap that idea. Now if a person wants dual core for tablet they would probably have to go with Merrifield.

 

[Vesku]

Marketing demands lead to such interesting situations. No market for dual core Bay Trail in tablets because of the core count marketing war in that segment. So Intel takes their dual core design and brands it for cheap notebooks and desktops where it seems companies have mainly stopped caring beyond having the Series (Celeron/Pentium/i-series) + number (higher number is better) for their spec sheets.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Where's the Windows 13" Netbooks with 1080P screens for $400!?

 

[Yuriman]

I might have had buyer's remorse if it were a Haswell Celeron, or possibly even a Bay-Trail quad. As is, not regretting my $180 Haswell Celeron Chromebook. HP's build quality is excellent and its screen is "good" for a TN.

 

[Vesku]

Where's the Windows 13" Netbooks with 1080P screens for $400!?

Toshiba would be undercutting its own premium Windows notebooks. AFAIK Toshiba doesn't have much if anything in the high end Chromebook arena it would be stealing sales from.

It's eminently more frustrating to me that they could have just swapped out the panel in their current Haswell Celeron 2955U model Chromebook 13.3" updated the wireless to 'ac', it already has 2 USB 3 and Bluetooth 4.0, and charged ~$380-400 for it and it would be pretty much my ideal travel notebook. I'd settle for a quad core Bay Trail version for $350 though if anyone at Toshiba is reading.

 

[AkumaX]

It took me a long time to accept Bay Trail, but only Bay Trail Quad Cores , such as the Celeron J2900, Pentium N3540, but I will never accept dual core Bay Trail in any Windows-type setting!! We need more Haswell!!

 

[Vesku]

Pentium N3540 looks much more tolerable in a notebook than this Celeron N2840. Quad core at similar clocks 100MHz higher max clocks on the iGPU same 7.5W TDP. I'm guessing Intel is practically giving away the N2840 since dual cores have received no traction in the tablet market.

 

[Sweepr]

ASUS's $199 quad-core Bay Trail notebook running Windows will make all $249 dual-core Bay Trail Chromebooks look expensive. I like the idea of cheaper 1080p notebooks though.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It took me a long time to accept Bay Trail, but only Bay Trail Quad Cores , such as the Celeron J2900, Pentium N3540, but I will never accept dual core Bay Trail in any Windows-type setting!! We need more Haswell!!

I had the opportunity to compare an N2830-based laptop with Intel IGP with a Core2 Celeron dual-core laptop with a T3100 (1.9Ghz) and an Nvidia IGP and an SSD, and the Bay Trail seemed snappier, even with a 5400RPM HDD. (Maybe the SSD was acting up?)

 

[pw257008]

ASUS's $199 quad-core Bay Trail notebook running Windows will make all $249 dual-core Bay Trail Chromebooks look expensive. I like the idea of cheaper 1080p notebooks though.

Yep. Plus the quad-core Mullins HP Stream: http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/18/hp-stream-14-leak/

 

[Techhog]

I had the opportunity to compare an N2830-based laptop with Intel IGP with a Core2 Celeron dual-core laptop with a T3100 (1.9Ghz) and an Nvidia IGP and an SSD, and the Bay Trail seemed snappier, even with a 5400RPM HDD. (Maybe the SSD was acting up?)

Did the C2D have Windows 8.1?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Did the C2D have Windows 8.1?

No, Win7 64-bit.

 

[Techhog]

No, Win7 64-bit.

That and the Bay Trail being a new install are the causes