I just picked up an HP Chromebook 11. Here's some of my initial impressions!
First off, it is a very nice looking notebook. I got the white/blue just because it was what I saw on Amazon. I wouldn't have minded the all black one, but this matches my white GS4 nicely. The micro USB charging port is a huge, huge plus and is probably what really swayed me away from the other slightly cheaper and more powerful models.
I also have a moto xoom, which is quite heavy for a tablet. I swear this computer is lighter. They say 2.3 lbs officially, but it is so nice and light and has a relatively substantial/not weak feel to it. There is a little creak/flex to the screen, but I kind of expected that from such a cheap and light device. Being that this runs on what amount to smartphone internals, it doesn't have any vents or fans and stays pretty cool. For anyone that has used most any laptop in the last few years, you know that they can get real warm and make a lot of noise in the process. The only sound coming from this laptop is the sound of the keys when I type. Which brings up the keyboard: FANTASTIC! HP really hit the nail on the head with this keyboard. They keys have just the right combination of squishy and clicky to make them feel great. They have some travel (though not very much) and are spaced to make you feel like you're actually using a laptop that is much bigger. Obviously, no number pad, and Chrome OS-specific shortcut keys line the top of the keyboard where you'd normally find the function keys on a Windows machine. One mistake was that they put the power button directly above the backspace key. Clumsy typers will probably hit that; in fact I'm surprised I haven't yet. Fortunately, going to and waking up from sleep is incredibly fast.
The trackpad is just fine. Nothing real special. The material allows your fingers to slide alright. The 2 finger scroll is here and works very well. I think I've found a few other gestures (3 finger swipe side to side switches tabs). I think the right-click function is rather intuitive; you click with two fingers. Very easy to do and I haven't had a problem. The bottom half of the trackpad is the portion that has a physical click, but you can tap anywhere to click by default.
Setup was pretty quick. Agree to a few things, set some basic settings, sign in. It had me update Chrome (despite the fact that the build date was barely a week ago, there was already an update necessary). That took about 15 minutes to download and install, then I was on my way.
The software is pretty straightforward. I was a little mistaken in thinking that you could run some apps on this. However, everything that you download just opens in a window in Chrome. You can pin "apps" to the taskbar (similar to Windows) but in reality, they are just shortcuts to open the webpage in a new tab. Either way, not a problem. I haven't found a website that I wanted to use that I couldn't.
One problem I have run into is streaming music through Spotify. I am a Premium user and I love my Spotify. However, the in-browser player is really optimized for slightly larger screens and can be kind of slow on this platform. I also had some issues with streaming music skipping, but I am all over the Chromebook forums on Google to figure out a solution.
In practice, the machine runs amazingly smooth for the power it has. Don't get me wrong, this won't hardly keep up with a Core i3 powered machine, but it does just fine. My use is mostly facebook, trolling some forums, Gmail, and listening to music. It does all of these things just fine. It struggles with 1080p YouTube videos, though I don't know why you'd bother with 1080 when the screen is barely 720. It didn't do a great job with 720 on a few videos I watched, but others seemed alright. A feature I was sad to see left out was the ability to communicate with my Google TV. My GS4 has the option to beam pictures to the TV and control YouTube very easily and I take advantage of that quite often.
Ultimately, I'm very happy with this purchase. I got a useful, attractive, easy to carry laptop that really fits my needs. It isn't without its issues, but It seems like Google is really on top of them and I have faith that like a fine wine, it will only get better with time.
First off, it is a very nice looking notebook. I got the white/blue just because it was what I saw on Amazon. I wouldn't have minded the all black one, but this matches my white GS4 nicely. The micro USB charging port is a huge, huge plus and is probably what really swayed me away from the other slightly cheaper and more powerful models.
I also have a moto xoom, which is quite heavy for a tablet. I swear this computer is lighter. They say 2.3 lbs officially, but it is so nice and light and has a relatively substantial/not weak feel to it. There is a little creak/flex to the screen, but I kind of expected that from such a cheap and light device. Being that this runs on what amount to smartphone internals, it doesn't have any vents or fans and stays pretty cool. For anyone that has used most any laptop in the last few years, you know that they can get real warm and make a lot of noise in the process. The only sound coming from this laptop is the sound of the keys when I type. Which brings up the keyboard: FANTASTIC! HP really hit the nail on the head with this keyboard. They keys have just the right combination of squishy and clicky to make them feel great. They have some travel (though not very much) and are spaced to make you feel like you're actually using a laptop that is much bigger. Obviously, no number pad, and Chrome OS-specific shortcut keys line the top of the keyboard where you'd normally find the function keys on a Windows machine. One mistake was that they put the power button directly above the backspace key. Clumsy typers will probably hit that; in fact I'm surprised I haven't yet. Fortunately, going to and waking up from sleep is incredibly fast.
The trackpad is just fine. Nothing real special. The material allows your fingers to slide alright. The 2 finger scroll is here and works very well. I think I've found a few other gestures (3 finger swipe side to side switches tabs). I think the right-click function is rather intuitive; you click with two fingers. Very easy to do and I haven't had a problem. The bottom half of the trackpad is the portion that has a physical click, but you can tap anywhere to click by default.
Setup was pretty quick. Agree to a few things, set some basic settings, sign in. It had me update Chrome (despite the fact that the build date was barely a week ago, there was already an update necessary). That took about 15 minutes to download and install, then I was on my way.
The software is pretty straightforward. I was a little mistaken in thinking that you could run some apps on this. However, everything that you download just opens in a window in Chrome. You can pin "apps" to the taskbar (similar to Windows) but in reality, they are just shortcuts to open the webpage in a new tab. Either way, not a problem. I haven't found a website that I wanted to use that I couldn't.
One problem I have run into is streaming music through Spotify. I am a Premium user and I love my Spotify. However, the in-browser player is really optimized for slightly larger screens and can be kind of slow on this platform. I also had some issues with streaming music skipping, but I am all over the Chromebook forums on Google to figure out a solution.
In practice, the machine runs amazingly smooth for the power it has. Don't get me wrong, this won't hardly keep up with a Core i3 powered machine, but it does just fine. My use is mostly facebook, trolling some forums, Gmail, and listening to music. It does all of these things just fine. It struggles with 1080p YouTube videos, though I don't know why you'd bother with 1080 when the screen is barely 720. It didn't do a great job with 720 on a few videos I watched, but others seemed alright. A feature I was sad to see left out was the ability to communicate with my Google TV. My GS4 has the option to beam pictures to the TV and control YouTube very easily and I take advantage of that quite often.
Ultimately, I'm very happy with this purchase. I got a useful, attractive, easy to carry laptop that really fits my needs. It isn't without its issues, but It seems like Google is really on top of them and I have faith that like a fine wine, it will only get better with time.
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