The new Chromebooks come in two variants, the 11-inch and 14-inch. HP announced the upgraded models of its Chromebook 11 and Chromebook 14 at the IFA 2014 in Berlin.
Both are equipped with the HP Imagepad touchpad that has multitouch gesture capabilities, webcam designed with HP TrueVision, and a 3-cell 36 WHr lithium-ion polymer battery that promises to give more than 8 hours of battery life.
Both models also come in attractive colors which are not commonly seen on mobile devices. The smaller version, Chromebook 11, comes in Snow White, Ocean Turquoise, and Twinkle Black. The bigger 14-inch model comes in Twinkle Black or Snow White with a range of complementary accent color choices such as Neon Green, Ocean Turquoise, Sorbet Orange, and Smoke Silver. The keyboard area on both models bears a brushed-metal look. The larger model has a white lid with a colored HP logo.
Even the screen resolution of 1366 x 768 is shared by the two Chromebook models. Initially, the new Chromebooks will not have the touchscreen technology. HP says that the feature will be available in the latter part of the year.
Chromebook 11 is packed with Intel Celeron N2830 (Bay Trail-m) processor (2.16/2.41 GHz), an upgrade from its predecessor that has ARM-based Exynos processor. It also features 16 GB of onboard eMMC storage and DDR3L-1333MHz RAM options of either 2 GB or 4 GB. Other features include SuperSpeed USB 3.0, USB 2.0, HDMI, and a combo jack for the headphone and mic. The Wi-Fi only version has Intel 2x2 802.11ac chip while the 4G LTE-equipped version has Intel WLAN chip with an added HP M.2 3042-S3 LTE/HSPA mobile broadband module.
Chromebook 11 is one of the few Chromebooks that have the NVIDIA Tegra K1 SoC. It also features 2 GB or 4GB of DDR3L-1600 MHz RAM and 16 GB of eMMC storage or a 32 GB M.2 SSD together with 100 GB Google Drive storage. It either has the HP cr3124 HSPA module or the HP M.2 3042-S3.
The most appealing feature of the pair of Chromebooks is the budget-friendly price. The 11-inch model will retail at $280 and will be available in the U.S. on October 5. The 14-inch version will start at $300 and will hit the U.S. store shelves on Oct. 22.
"Customers have told us they want devices that offer flexibility and performance while reflecting their personal sense of style," said VP Mike Nash, Product Management, Consumer Personal Systems, HP. "The products we are announcing today include innovative designs, vibrant color options, choice of operating system and computing power to enable the way that customers communicate, play and live."
