New HP Chromebook 11

[ponyo]

http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/hp-chromebook-11/#hp-cb

Anyone else little disappointed with this refresh? Looks like the new Chromebook got IPS screen to go with the $30 price bump but that's about it. It's the same Samsung Exynos 5250 cpu as last year model. Last year model had SD card slot. This HP model is just 16 gb with no SD card slot. Last year model had full size HDMI port. This year model has microUSB Slimport video out. Last year model had USB 3.0 port. This year model is just USB 2.0. One year later, the new HP model doesn't seem much better than the old Samsung model and is downgrade in certain aspect.

 

[luv2liv]

i got the samsung chromebook as a gift for someone. it is pretty much useless. took forever to load an 8 meg resolution JPG from a p+s cam. it's ok for a kid's first PC though. if it was my own kid, for $200, i could easily get him an used laptop fully loaded with more power, hd, bigger screen.....

 

[shortylickens]

Meh/

I had a chrome book for a week. Didnt like it. Too slow, too limited, not enough apps (or decent apps).

Would rather have a real laptop for work and my Note 2 for everything else. The above computer didnt look any better than the one I got which was a year old at the time. I'd need much more incentive in hardware and software to jump back in.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Love that they finally made an affordable Chromebook with an IPS display. Good job.

Bit disappointed they are still using last year's ARM processor. Come on.

And holy crap, no SD slot now, jesus Google.


I would consider buying the right Chromebook. I like the idea of a simple browser focused machine that is quick to awake, runs on a fanless processor, and is thin, light, and portable. But so far nobody has made a Chromebook worth paying money for.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i was excited until i saw it was dual core (only) exynos. if it was haswell id be excited but for a laptop, arm just doesnt cut it. that thing is gonna be slower than your phone

 

[Ravynmagi]

I really like that it's ARM based because it can run without a fan and can operate on a much smaller battery and keep the weight really minimal. And ChromeOS doesn't need that much power.

But yeah, a better ARM would be nice. Dual core probably isn't going to really satisfy a lot of use these days. It would be slower than many of our phones now.

 

[Bateluer]

I saw this and was glad for the IPS screen, but everything else underwhelmed. I already owned, and sold, my Samsung XE303 chromebook, and HP's CB11 is identicaly except for the better screen. They couldn't have at least thrown in an Exynos 5420 or Snapdragon S4 Pro/600? The 5250 is dog slow compared to mobile SOCs today.

 

[ponyo]

I really like that it's ARM based because it can run without a fan and can operate on a much smaller battery and keep the weight really minimal. And ChromeOS doesn't need that much power.

But yeah, a better ARM would be nice. Dual core probably isn't going to really satisfy a lot of use these days. It would be slower than many of our phones now.

Lack of a fan is the best part of the Chromebook. I'm now spoiled by fanless devices like phones and tablets and can't stand fan noise. Loud fan noise is why I hate my Yoga 13 laptop.

My daughter loves her Samsung Chromebook. She uses it almost daily and is her most used device. I was hoping to buy her new updated Chromebook so I could take her old Samsung Chromebook but that's not happening now. The new one is no better than year old device.

 

[fr]

Needs to be half the price.

 

[dguy6789]

Definitely wanted to see at least a quad A15 for the refresh

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

I'm astounded at the idiots that will pay over $300 for Chromebooks that are nothing more than glorified web browsers.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Lack of a fan is the best part of the Chromebook. I'm now spoiled by fanless devices like phones and tablets and can't stand fan noise. Loud fan noise is why I hate my Yoga 13 laptop.

My daughter loves her Samsung Chromebook. She uses it almost daily and is her most used device. I was hoping to buy her new updated Chromebook so I could take her old Samsung Chromebook but that's not happening now. The new one is no better than year old device.

id rather be spoiled by performance than fanlessness. why cant they put a decent chip in a chromebook. if they can make $250 pentium windows laptops they ought to be able to make chromebooks

 

[SpacemanSpiffVT]

i wanted a cheap 11 inch notebook but you guys are right. cpu is way too slow

 

[Chiropteran]

Looks real nice except for the terrible CPU. Also kinda expected it to be touchscreen, but maybe that would push cost up too much. I might finally buy a chromebook if the next version is similar with a state of the art ARM cpu.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Looks real nice except for the terrible CPU. Also kinda expected it to be touchscreen, but maybe that would push cost up too much. I might finally buy a chromebook if the next version is similar with a state of the art ARM cpu.

even state of the art arm is too slow for a laptop. you might as well just use your phone. they need a cheap chromebook with a decent (non celeron) intel chip. if they came out theyd go mainstream

this hp thingie supposedly has a horrible trackpad which will immediately make it a no-go with lots of people including myself

 

[BladeVenom]

Sounds like, "one step forward, two steps back."

 

[Lil Frier]

What's the use of this? We've got a laptop running a SoC that pre-dates the Galaxy S4's chip. We've got ARM, meaning no x86 applications. We've got 16 GB of storage, meaning you'd better have an eternal connection to Google Drive (meaning data plan, if this thing even offers cellular), and you'd better not have a large local library of media, because this can't handle it. Oh, and it doesn't access the Google Play Store, since it's not Android.

What POSSIBLE reason would someone take this over, say, a Nexus 7 or a 10-inch ASUS Transformer?

 

[Lil Frier]

even state of the art arm is too slow for a laptop. you might as well just use your phone. they need a cheap chromebook with a decent (non celeron) intel chip. if they came out theyd go mainstream

this hp thingie supposedly has a horrible trackpad which will immediately make it a no-go with lots of people including myself

ASUS is managing $350 on the 32-GB T100 Bay Trail machine, and that's while including Office and Windows 8.1, both of which probably require some kind of licensing fee (well, Office MIGHT not).

Anyway, there's no reason HP/Google couldn't have taken an OS with no licensing fee, halved the storage, and given it a better display than the T100, giving you what would probably be a Chromebook running Bay Trail for $350 or less.

 

[Ravynmagi]

What's the use of this? We've got a laptop running a SoC that pre-dates the Galaxy S4's chip. We've got ARM, meaning no x86 applications. We've got 16 GB of storage, meaning you'd better have an eternal connection to Google Drive (meaning data plan, if this thing even offers cellular), and you'd better not have a large local library of media, because this can't handle it. Oh, and it doesn't access the Google Play Store, since it's not Android.

What POSSIBLE reason would someone take this over, say, a Nexus 7 or a 10-inch ASUS Transformer?

It's not for everyone. But the idea is most of what some people do can be done from the web. Surf the web, stream movies, music, working with documents, spreadsheets, playing Flash and HTML5 games, and such.

Chromebooks use ARM processors since most of the heavy processing is done on web servers for most apps.

Chromebooks have little storage since cloud storage is used instead.

So manufacturers can build very thin, fanless devices for under $300 ideally. If you were to buy a Haswell machine that was only 12.6mm thick and 2.3 pounds and an IPS display it would likely cost a lot more money.

Sadly I don't think any Chromebook has really nailed it yet. Because as someone else already mentioned, not people people would pay more than $300 for something that's basically just a web browser. And I wonder if putting in that IPS display is why HP had to skimp so hard on the processor.

 

[Chiropteran]

even state of the art arm is too slow for a laptop. you might as well just use your phone.

I can't agree. My phone is plenty fast at browsing with chrome, only issue is websites are mostly designed for a mouse and a decent sized screen, you lose something on a tiny phone display.

But my phone is Note 2, over a year old. If I am buying a new device, I expect it to have a newer and better CPU, not the same old ARM CPU as last year's Chromebook.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

I can't agree. My phone is plenty fast at browsing with chrome, only issue is websites are mostly designed for a mouse and a decent sized screen, you lose something on a tiny phone display.

But my phone is Note 2, over a year old. If I am buying a new device, I expect it to have a newer and better CPU, not the same old ARM CPU as last year's Chromebook.

yeah it can browse single pages fine, but you cant use an arm device to browse the way you would on a pc, with twenty tabs open, downloading multiple pages at a time etc... if this chromebook cant do that i dont see the point, you might as well just use your phone

 

[OBLAMA2009]

ASUS is managing $350 on the 32-GB T100 Bay Trail machine, and that's while including Office and Windows 8.1, both of which probably require some kind of licensing fee (well, Office MIGHT not).

Anyway, there's no reason HP/Google couldn't have taken an OS with no licensing fee, halved the storage, and given it a better display than the T100, giving you what would probably be a Chromebook running Bay Trail for $350 or less.

yeah theyre talking so long to cum out with a good chromebook, its going to make all the windows stuff pretty tempting. im not a big fan of asus though, they make a lot of junk

 

[VirtualLarry]

i wanted a cheap 11 inch notebook but you guys are right. cpu is way too slow

I just got an Acer V5-131-2629 at Newegg for ~$350.

IB Celeron 1.5Ghz (1007U), 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Win7 64-bit HP.

Price was a little bit on the high side for me, but I'm happy with it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

yeah it can browse single pages fine, but you cant use an arm device to browse the way you would on a pc, with twenty tabs open, downloading multiple pages at a time etc... if this chromebook cant do that i dont see the point, you might as well just use your phone

This is so true! I struggled using my CVS Netbook, to browse sites like AT, page by page at a time. With my real laptop, I could open 20 tabs right after each other. It was a lot faster and more efficient with my PC laptop.

 

[Ravynmagi]

yeah it can browse single pages fine, but you cant use an arm device to browse the way you would on a pc, with twenty tabs open, downloading multiple pages at a time etc... if this chromebook cant do that i dont see the point, you might as well just use your phone

I think the Chromebook is supposed to fill a niche between your phone/tablet and laptop.

You say, might as well use the phone, but that's a smaller screen and doesn't have a keyboard.