Until now, Chromebook buyers have had to make a choice. You could get either a cheap laptop with cheap components or the premium-but-ridiculously-expensive Chromebook Pixel. When Google says that HP’s new $279 Chromebook 11 is ‘inspired’ by the Pixel, it’s not about components – the Chromebook 11 lacks the high-resolution touchscreen, the high-end Ivy Bridge CPU, and the solid aluminum construction – the Pixel’s banner features. Rather, it’s about making a laptop that makes enthusiasts happy without the Pixel’s sticker shock.
The first non-Pixel Chromebook that actually looks decent and makes me want to buy it – except, what’s with the crappy battery life? Only 6 hours on such a small ARM laptop?
These chromebooks, with the exception of the Pixel, Still resemble toys. They’re the mainstream consumer electric cars of the PC industry.
Ya, I’m not really keen on paying $280 for what is essentially a web browser. I honestly don’t get the draw. Personally? I’d just pay a little bit more and get a Nexus 10. You get a lot more bang for your buck, plus it’s a lot easier to browse the web on the couch, and on the crapper
Just dropping this here: http://lolsnaps.com/news/79619/0
Recently I aquired the Acer C7 – and I’m impressed!
Chromebooks are definitely more than just a browser:
– You can use the same Chrome apps as in Chrome on Windows or MacOS. Check out the Play store: There are games like Angry Birds but also useful utilities. I happen to like the SAP notes browser.
– After a while I enabled the developer mode and installed Ubuntu in a chroot environment. Given the hardware it feels surprisingly agile. I have installed a web server which makes it a neat developer machine for web development. Or install any other Ubuntu package you need.
Chrome apps alone make the C7 more versatile than the locked down Windows workstation I had in my recent job.
720p is soo last century.
Not much of an upgrade over the Samsung ARM CB.
Actually it is a mixed upgrade/downgrade. The Samsung Chromebook has USB 3.0 which the HP lacks.
Interesting that it uses MyDP/Slimport for both charging and external video.
But this isn’t 720p, this is a 1366×768 screen. Television standards != computer standards.
High resolution is basically pointless on an 11″ laptop because the screen is usually 60-80cm from your eyes.
I’ll just leave this here:
https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/ByVPmsSeSEG
I think that is in part due to the IPS panel, which consumes more power than TN panels. You can’t have everything, I guess.
With ‘such a small laptop’ you answered it yourself: small laptops have very little volume to house batteries.
A huge problem with modern phones, tablets and laptops is the obsession with being thin. Making a device 2-3mm thicker can allow double the battery capacity.
Forget adding 2-3 mm of thickness, how about we take a page from the tablets and, I don’t know, use the entire bottom of the laptop for battery storage. It’s absolutely ridiculous that most laptops have a (roughly) 10″x10″ footprint, and only a 2″x10″ battery!
This in combination with an IPS screen. Good contrast and good light level means high power consumption, normal LCDs consume a lot of power and a better LCD consumes more power.
It must be something more than that, surely? The Surface RT had a similar IPS screen and an ARM processor, but gave around 8-9 hours or so real world usage, IIRC.
The Surface RT has a different battery with slightly higher capacity, and it has a smaller screen. Also it uses less power than comparable devices to drive the backlight I have read.
I rather use computers, not browsers on steroids.
So it’s a netbook, except that it can’t run my software?
No, but it can run my parents’ software, which means less tech support from two states away, and less time cleaning crap off the computer when I’m home for Christmas.
And no more virus removing, OS error fixing, windows reinstalling … real holydays
I owned a chromebook for 6 months and i loved it. To help with work i wanted to immerse myself into the Google ecosystem.
I owned a Galaxy Note2, Galaxy note 10.1 (tablet) and a ChromeBook (Samsung ARM based version).
The chromebook was an excellent device, it was a cheap as chips and very functional. I saw the device as more of a tablet with a built in keyboard and trackpad. The keyboard was excellent as was the trackpad.
So what can you do with a chromebook, surprisingly quite a lot. I was very productive and used the device on my daily commute and at work. Which meant there were periods where the device was offline for about 1hr – 1 1/2hrs at a time. This wasn’t a problem as the device worked seamlessly offline, good docs would instantly switch to offline mode, i could still play video on the build in (tiny) 16GB SSD or via SD / USB stick offline.
Updates where great and automatic, it was basically like a tablet in terms of maintenance, i.e. set and forget.
I say all of this not in the hopes of being perceived as a rabid google fanboy but to hopefully deflect some of the main criticism of the chromebook which is can it do xyz.
Do you use Google Apps, does pretty much all you do exist in a browser? Do you want something cheap with a good battery, something you don’t have to worry about maintaining with updates and antivirus? If you answered yes then a chromebook might be for you, of course all of this can be serviced by a tablet, however if you want a good keyboard in a laptop configuration then the chromebook is a good choice.
Do you program, do you play games, do you like desktop computers, do you have apps you need to run like Photoshop? if so then the chromebook is not for you, in the same way a tablet like the iPad may not be for you.
Sometimes it’s worth considering the chromebook as a satelite device. You have your desktop or your powerful laptop, however when you want to surf in front of the TV or have something for the train, light and easy to use then a chromebook again is a good choice.
After a long ramble, i did actually end up selling my ChromeBook as it was an excellent device and helped me understand the google ecosystem for work, however for me personally, i replaced this with a MacBook Air, which is about the same in dimensions, more powerful (allowing me to run some heavy apps like aperture etc..) but worth considering that it is 4x the price of a chromebook.
I find those chrome devices be like toys. They look like toys, they don’t give me possibility to use all software i use. But maybe they are good for people who only use web browser. But then i would recommend them something faster in same prize.
Six hours is a deal breaker
Why doesn’t Google just make a CR-48 with a better processor. Flat black, no logos, nice keyboard, awesome battery life, My CR-48 is very nice IMO. It completely replaced my Dell mini9(Ubuntu), but lately it has become so slow that It’s almost unusable. If only I could upgrade the processor.
This looks nicer than the Acer or Samsung, I’m seriously thinking about picking one up for my kids.