Hi!
Welcome to Lachlan Likes A Thing, a show where I take a thing and see whether or not
I like it. Now the thing we're looking at in this video is the new
2014 version of the HP Chromebook 11.
And this model actually replaces the previous generation of the HP Chromebook
11 which was a collaboration between HP and Google.
Now if you've been following my channel as a regular subscriber you'd know that
I actually managed to buy one
one of these HP Chromebook 11's a few weeks back in May
before it was officially announced and I've been using it for a few weeks
waiting for official US pricing to
come out so that I could make this review video. Now official
US pricing has been announced. It is coming in at 249 dollars recommended retail.
I bought it from an Australian electronics retailer for about 330 dollars.
But to be completely honest it I wasn't waiting around for that
I would have are returned this model immediately after I bought it just because
I would've exchanged it for the previous generation
HP Chromebook 11 or any of the currently competing
Chromebooks on the market. And let's really get into the reasons why.
Let's start with the design I think HP had made quite an attractive design
here by basically miniaturising the HP Chromebook
14. And you can get this Chromebook in this kind of powder white finish
that you see here. But it also comes in a turquoise.
And one of the nice things compared to the previous generation
HP Chromebook 11 is that it's not glossy plastic anymore
it is a matte finish on all the surfaces and it
is, has a dimpled back on the bottom which lets you
kind of get a bit of texture when you hold it. So that's quite nice in the hand.
However the new design on is actually heavier than the previous HP Chromebook 11.
The previous one weighed 1.04 kilograms and the new one
weights 1.22 kilograms. And it's basically heavier I suspect because the
old HP Chromebook 11 had an internal magnesium alloy frame to reinforce it
whereas this machine I believe is probably made out
of cheaper parts and therefore the weight has been increased overall.
Overall in terms of build the 2014 HP Chromebook 11 is a
decently built machine but it doesn't feel quite as finely machined as the
HP Chromebook 11 and there are some areas, particularly the
screen hinge where when you rotate them you'll hear some plastic creaking.
Let's move on to the display and this is really one of the
biggest disappointments coming from the previous HP Chromebook 11
The previous HP Chromebook 11 had a really nice glossy IPS display
and it had excellent viewing angles and just really nice color contrast.
The new HP Chromebook 11 has a really poor display and even for
a TN panel this is a very poor display.
So you can see it viewing angles are absolutely terrible
In terms of viewing angles tilting the screen means that you get your
colors immediately washed
out and they aren't very punchy to begin with. Horizontal viewing angles are
incredibly poor.
Just about the only nice thing about this display is that it has an anti-reflective
matte coating on it which means it'll it's a little bit easier to use in sunlight but
I wouldn't trade that for
the dismal display quality in most cases.
I don't have the original HP Chromebook 11 to compare
but he's my Surface Pro 2 with an IPS display
and you can see immediately that the viewing angles are a huge improvement.
The HP Chromebook 11 just has a really poor display even by TN panel standards.
The keyboard on the HP Chromebook 11 is probably one of the nicer aspects of
this machine.
The keys are nicely spaced out and they have a decent tactile feel to them. They may
be just a little bit mushy
but overall this seems like one of the better Chromebook keyboards out there.
And if you're looking for a machine predominantly for typing this might one of
the more attractive aspects.
The keyboard is not backlit but I've actually not seen
any Chromebooks that have backlit keyboards. In in terms of the trackpad
this is also one of the areas that HP got it right. The trackpad
is quite large. It's nice and smooth. There's not really any hesitation in
terms of the cursor.
So one the better aspects on this computer.
The speakers on the HP Chromebook 11 are
actually on the underside of the machine.
On these two grilles here. And they're downfiring speakers that
in practice I found get quite loud but also tend to distort.
And because they're on the bottom of the machine if you're using this machine on
a bed or anything like that it's very easy for these grilles to become covered
and the sound to be muffled.
Let's talk about inputs and outputs. The HP Chromebook 11 2014
is pretty much the same as the original model. It just has a headphone
input and output. Two USB 2.0 ports
and a USB are charging port.
There is no USB 3.0 port on his laptop. There is no card reader on this laptop.
This is a really big oversight compared to the currently competing Acer C720
or the Dell Chromebook 11 which
both have card readers and USB 3.0 ports.
Moving on to performance the 2014 HP Chromebook 11
actually has the same Samsung Exynos processor and the same 2GB of RAM
as found in the original HP Chromebook 11
and that model was always being criticized for poor performance
I found that that hasn't improved at all with the new version on this laptop
In terms of overall performance you're always feeling a degree of lag
whether you're scrolling through media rich web pages
or just even typing and waiting for search suggestions to come up
you'll find that there is constant lag throughout the interface and this is even after I
disabled Adobe Flash. Compared to any of the currently available
Chromebooks which use the new Intel Haswell processors
or even the new Samsung Chromebook 2 which has an updated
Samsung Exynos processor the HP Chromebook 11 2014
has a processor that is extremely dated by today's standards
and it's lag that I'm used to seeing from maybe
a tablet computer but not from a full sized laptop.
In terms of battery life the HP Chromebook 11 2014
is like the previous model rated for about 6 hours of battery life
in practice I got anywhere between 4-6 hours depending on how intensely
I was using the machine. And again this is quite poor compared to the Intel Celeron
Haswell Chromebooks which get about 8 hours of battery life now.
What I found is that the USB charging port which is one of the interesting
elements of this computer is carried over from the original model
This means that you can use the compact charger that's included to charge by
micro USB but you can also use any other USB charger.
However I found that this is actually less useful than it sounds because basically
the included china is a 3 Amp charger and if you use
anything lower than that this machine will not charge you if you try to use it
while it's plugged in. If you turn off the machine and plug it in
you can probably charge it overnight with an iPhone charger
but it's really hit and miss when you try to use different kinds of
third-party chargers.
So I haven't talked much this video about Chrome OS itself
but I have to say even though this machine is quite a poor
experience overall, I actually quite enjoy using Chrome OS
and i think is a good basic OS for people who want to do basic web browsing
kind of tasks.
its actually a little step up from using a tablet computer
because out you get full desktop versions of web sites and you do get a full
size keyboard and trackpad.
So it's a lot more precise and you get to be a little more active in how you use the
computer compared to a tablet.
However I have to say this is not the computer that
I would really want to be experiencing Chromebook OS
on. Anyway I will be making a separate video just about my experiences with
ChromeOS so subscribe to my channel if you wanna see that.
The 2014 version of the HP Chromebook 11
is one of these rare machines in the tech world which is
basically worse in every conceivable way
compared to the model that it replaces and I have basically no idea what HP made
this computer
except for imagining that the new version on the HP Chromebook 11
is probably cheaper to manufacture than the original version which had the nice
IPS display and the internal magnesium alloy frame.
This computer barely competes with the model that it replaces and it certainly
doesn't compete with any of the currently available Chromebooks
like the very nice Acer 720, the Dell Chromebook 11
the Toshiba Chromebook 13 and the Samsung Chromebook 2.
All those computers perform faster than the HP Chromebook
11 and they have more fully featured inputs and outputs.
I actually can't imagine why you would buy this computer compared to any of the
other Chromebooks on the market
unless the price of this computer gets very very very much lower than the
249 dollar recommended retail price. Anyway click the Like button if you
found this video helpful
and I'm looking forward to your comments on this machine. You can talk me on Facebook
at facebook.com/lachlanlikesathing
Or on Twitter @lachlikesathing. In the meantime
if you're after a HP Chromebook 11 I would try to chase down the original models before
they completely run out of stock.