This is a horrible time to buy this... Assuming Samsung's new Series 3 ARM Chromebook (Rumored Exynos 5420... "Eight core" CPU+Mali T628) keeps the same price this year ($250), then HP's model is left in the dust. No one should be buying a new Nexus 4, 10, or Chromebook until mid november if they want to have a cutting edge device.
Thanks for confirming. I'm a little boggled why HP would roll out an identical product an entire year after the fact, unless HP is just that messed up internally.
There are whole companies that exist entirely on their enterprise sales. So selling their own branded laptop to their clients makes sense even if it is a year behind Samsung.
Honestly, working for a business that buys enterprise devices, 1 year behind is stunningly good. Buying business Android devices with a bar code scanner there's something like a 7 year product life cycle so you get some stunningly old hardware, for example.
In some ways I wish Mark Hurd remained HPs CEO. I think they could have really competed with webOS in the long run (be a good 3rd/4th place, making sure the Apple and Google are actually innovating and not becoming a duopoly). Then again, we would never have had the fire sale, and I would never have had the pleasure of working on the Android port to the Touchpad.
I wish they kept Apotheker a bit longer... He had the real potential to be a bigger laughing stock of the technology circle than Ballmer.
This whole industry has always suffered from lack of viable competition. There never seems to be enough market to support third players, where we're lucky enough to even have 2 market leaders. sigh...
To be fair, the 5250 is perfectly adequate in last year's Chromebook, and since this model has the same sized screen, it should be totally sufficient. It has pretty good battery life, and charges quite quickly.
Unless the 5420 has better battery life characteristics, I'm not sure if it's actually a better processor for the Chromebook.
I bought an 11" ThinkPad X131 but quickly returned it because the viewing angles were woeful. The hallmark of a garbage spec panel is noticeable vertical shift even when looking at it dead on.
Full specs
Screen
* 11.6" display with 16:9 aspect ratio (IPS Panel)
* 1366 x 768
* 60% Color Gamut
* 300 nit screen
* Wide viewing angle (176 degree)
Inputs
* Chrome keyboard
* Fine-tuned, clickable touchpad
* VGA Webcam
Ports
* 2 x USB 2.0
* Micro-SIM slot (3G and 4G/LTE model only)
* Micro USB for 15.75W charging and SlimPort video out
Industrial design
* Magnesium chassis for strength
* Available in black or white with a choice of 4 accent colors
* Silent, fanless design
* No visible screws, vents, or speakers
Size
* 297 x 192 x 17.6 mm
Weight
* 2.3lb / 1.04kg
CPU
* Exynos 5250 GAIA Application Processor
Memory
* 2GB (4x 4Gbit) DDR3 RAM
* 16GB Solid State Drive1
Audio
* Combined headphone / microphone jack
* Digitally-tuned speakers with sound ported up through the keyboard
Battery
* Up to 6 hours of active use (30 Wh battery)2
Network
* Dual-band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
* Bluetooth® 4.0
* Verizon LTE connectivity (optional and coming soon)
Goodies
* 100 GB Google Drive cloud storage, free for two years3
* 60-day free trial with Google Play Music All Access, and $9.99/month pricing after that4
* 12 free sessions of GoGo® Inflight Internet5
http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/hp-chromebook-1...