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HP launches 14-inch Pavilion Chromebook

by Mark Tyson on 4 February 2013, 16:53

Tags: Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HPQ), Chrome OS

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Today Google and Hewlett Packard took the wraps off HP’s first Chromebook attempt and it’s available straight away if you live in the USA, via HP’s online store, priced at $329.99. The HP Pavilion Chromebook stands out from the “crowd” by being the largest screened Chromebook yet – with a 14" diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit (1366 x 768) display. Google's product page proclaims “Enjoy the big screen”! However UK pricing and availability aren’t indicated, the web site says “Available in select countries” and the country list has just one entry, the US of A.

There are currently four Chromebooks listed on Google’s Chromebook devices page, including this new HP model, and the range of components that constitute them is quite wide. However until this HP laptop arrived they all had in common a screen of around about 12-inches in diagonal.

I’ve made a quick comparison table to compare the HP Pavilion Chromebook to the other two recent models

HP Pavilion Chromebook $329
(equivalent to £210 before VAT etc)

Samsung Chromebook $249 (£229)

Acer C7 Chromebook $199 (£199)
  • 14" diagonal LED-backlit (1366 x 768)
  • 0.83 inches thin – 3.96lbs/ 1.8Kg
  • 4.5 hours of battery (removable)
  • Intel® Celeron® 847 (1.1 GHz )
  • 100 GB Google Drive Cloud Storage with 16GB SATA SSD
  • Intel 802.11a/b/g/n (2x2); Bluetooth and Ethernet
  • HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated microphone
  • 3x USB 2.0
  • 1 HDMI; 1 RJ45; 1 headphone-out/microphone-in combo
  • 11.6’’ (1366x768) display
  • 0.7 inches thin – 2.42 lbs / 1.1 kg
  • Over 6.5 hours of battery
  • Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor
  • 100 GB Google Drive Cloud Storage with 16GB Solid State Drive
  • Built-in dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
  • VGA Camera
  • 1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0
  • HDMI Port
  • Bluetooth 3.0™ Compatible
  • 11.6’’ (1366x768) display
  • 1 inch thin – 3 lbs / 1.4 kg
  • 3.5 hours of battery
  • Intel® Celeron™ 847 (1.1GHz)
  • 100 GB Google Drive Cloud Storage2 with 320GB Hard Disk Drive
  • Dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and Ethernet
  • HD Camera
  • 3x USB 2.0
  • 1x HDMI Port, 1x VGA port

 

You can see the HP Pavilion Chromebook offers a permutation of specs from its fellow budget minded Chromebook competitors. Whether it offers a successful combination will be decided by the market. Is its price premium worth paying for the larger screen? The Acer C7, powered by the same architecture is quite a lot cheaper. If you want the best portability from thinness, lightness and battery stamina it may be better going for the Samsung Chomebook, which is $70 less and offers the same SSD/Cloud storage combination.

Lenovo is expected to join the Chromebook competition shortly so there will be even more choice for those interested in Chromium on the move. However things are going to get a lot more interesting for consumers if the Chrome Android tease on the Google Campus in California pans out to be some sort of merger between Chrome OS and Android. If I was interested in a Chromebook I think I would wait until after May’s Google I/O event, perhaps by then everyone will want touch screen Chromebooks...  

HEXUS Forums :: 3 Comments

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Posted by Brewster0101 - Mon 04 Feb 2013 16:56
Lack of USB 3.0 is odd. Chrome OS still needs something to get traction.
Posted by scaryjim - Tue 05 Feb 2013 11:21
I've got Chromium OS running in a VM and I have to say for a day-to-day OS I quite like it. If it got traction I could see a lot of developers moving over to HTML5 as a dev platform, since you can also write MetroModern UI apps in HTML5. The real problem at the minute is the spotty app support. If they can get that sorted - and perhaps introduce some more models priced at the Acer end of the market (perhaps using cheaper ARM processors) then they could definitely make an impact.

As to USB 3, I think that's a limitation of the low end Celeron platform: Samsung's Exynos-based offering has USB 3…
Posted by bobharvey - Tue 05 Feb 2013 17:25
Still with the 1366 x 768 nonsense. Has someone imported a couple of billion of these from the Andromeda galaxy or something? there has to be some reason they insult our intelligence like this.

I'd really, really, like one of these if it only had a screen fit for the 21st century.