The HP Chromebook 11

AlexDeGruven

So I did something I don't normally do, I bought something based purely on specs and aesthetics, with very little review information out there at the time.

It arrived yesterday and I LOVE it. For a $279 plastic-bodied (magnesium frame) laptop, which is essentially an update to the Cr48, it's really a quite nice bit of kit.

As mentioned, the body is smooth white plastic with blue (there are also yellow, green, and red, as well as an all-black version) accents around the keyboard. The battery and anti-skid pad on the bottom are also blue. There is also the requisite 4-color strip along the back, which is the only external indicator of what kind of thing this is. Aesthetically, it reminds me of a slimmed down and smoothed out version of the old Macbooks.

What really drew me toward this version is the Exynos5 (5250) CPU and extremely slim profile, and no vents because there is no fan. It's less than 3/4" thick (17.6mm) and weighs 2.3lb, which is exceedingly light. And it charges via microUSB. That's right. No proprietary charger or special plugs needed. It can charge just like a phone. In fact, this one is charging off of the wall plug that came with my Galaxy S4 as I type this.

There are, obviously a few caveats: USB charging requires more power than many of your standard wall warts can provide. I'm surprised, in this case, that the S4 charger is keeping up so far. The included charger will push up to 3A, which should be more than enough to work it hard and still charge. It's not an uber-high-resolution screen, but being only 11", the 1366x768 isn't as repellent as it would be on a 14" or larger screen. The IPS panel makes everything look fantastic, though. It still has the Macbook style chicklet keyboard, but I've grown accustomed to it since I got my Cr48 3 years ago.

I'm interested to see how it goes with longevity. The dual-core Atom in my Cr48 is starting to have trouble keeping up with today's workload, but the 11 operates silky smooth so far.

But then, for $279, I wouldn't feel bad about replacing this after 2 years (or even a bit less) anyway.

Edit: Benchmarks.

Since Sunspider is really the only one that matters for a browser-based UI:

Chromebook 11 - 701.4
Dell E6400 (C2D) - 321.9
Galaxy S3 - 1519.0
Galaxy S4 - 1198.7
Nexus 7 (2012) - 1284.6

So, slower than a mildly-spec'd older laptop, faster than phones and my tablet. Fits right into my use case as far as perf goes.

ardichoke

My CR48 really got dog slow for me quite quickly. I just can't quite place what niche Google is trying to fill with Chrome OS. That said, I'd really love to get my hands on a Chromebook Pixel... of course I'd immediately take Chrome OS off it and install a full Linux distro.

AlexDeGruven

ChromeOS found itself filling the gap between full-featured laptop and tablet. There were some things that I would like to have done on my tablet that just didn't work well enough, and ChromeOS fit right in there for me.

The Pixel is nice, but not $1300 nice for me.

CB

Oh man. I wish my Samsung chromebook would charge by USB. The only thing that keeps it from being perfectly portable is the power cable.

midga

How does this thing work for Chrome's in-browser gaming and such?

AlexDeGruven

CB said:

Oh man. I wish my Samsung chromebook would charge by USB. The only thing that keeps it from being perfectly portable is the power cable.

Seriously, that was the biggest selling point for me. Plus 3A charger should let my phones charge full blast when I'm not charging the chromebook.

midga said:

How does this thing work for Chrome's in-browser gaming and such?

I'll check that out tonight. I have to recover it because I thought it would be fun to update to the beta channel. Turns out that wifi is broken in the beta channel right now.

midga

Awesome. If it'll handle them alright, it could be a good travel companion

AlexDeGruven

Back up and running. Any game you're particularly interested in?

midga

Not specifically; I haven't really gotten into Chrome gaming much yet. I just know it's a thing, and that some of them can be fairly graphically intensive. I could tool through and see what there is if you like, but mostly I'm just curious whether it can handle any decent graphics load.

midga

If you could possibly try Do A Dive In Music (you can see FPS on the lower tab of that), Realm of the Mad God just for a good 2D, and some 3D something like a racing game or FPS or something. Something that'll take a lot of polygon updates fairly frequently.

Thanks

AlexDeGruven

The two games I actually have tied into my google account worked just fine. Angry Birds Chrome and Entanglement. Entanglement runs quite a bit smoother than it does on my Atom-based Cr48.

Edit: Tried another one called 'Core'. Nice and smooth. Downloading a racing game now, which I think would be a real test.

midga

Sweet. I'm mostly interested to see if it outperforms this laptop. Like, for instance, in most things that take any graphical work at all, audio will tear a lot (that Dive Into Music thing, for instance, lags and tears audio every time I mose over a tab). Also, even most 2D games (not necessarily Chrome games, but I've tried a lot of little Steam games) will lag at least a bit.

AlexDeGruven

Cracking Sands is the racing game. Ran pretty smooth. It's not super-realism graphics, but you can at least try it and see how it runs for you. Ran perfectly fine on the 11.