There are a number of Chrome OS laptops that come in WiFi-only models or versions with mobile broadband support. Some even offer some free mobile data for two years. And if that’s not good enough for you — no there’s an option to pick up a Chromebook that comes with 200MB of free data per month as long as you own the laptop.
As GigaOm reports, you can pick up the HP Chromebook 14 from Costco or Walmart and get 200MB of free data on T-Mobile’s 4G network forever… or at least until you give up the laptop.
While there’s only so much you can do with 200MB of data, that’s still a pretty good deal for a laptop that sells as little as $350.
The HP Chromebook 14 features a 14 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, 4GB of RAM, 16GB of solid state storage, and an Intel Celeron 2955U Haswell processor. It has 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB 2.0 port, an HDMI port, and headset jack, and in addition to the mobile data, customers get 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage space for 2 years.
The 200MB of 4G data per month is probably enough to check your email on the go occasionally, or maybe even get some work done… once or twice a month. If you spend most (but not all) of your time around WiFi hotspots, it’s a nice bonus feature. Or maybe it’s just a gateway drug and T-Mobile is hoping to get you hooked so that you’ll sign up for a paid plan with more data.
T-Mobile gives 200mb/month free to anyone owning an LTE-capable tablet that can use their network, so this probably isn’t exclusive to the HP Chromebook 14 in particular.
If you buy from HP, they’ll also give it to you.
Wish the HP 11 I just bought had this, but it didn’t, so I didn’t get the LTE model.
Great to see. Most people have wifi access most of the time and just need a little 4G love once in awhile.
Shady gimmick.
I guess your are the type to look a “gift horse in the mouth” ….come on it’s free it may not be much but it can get you out of a jam when no wifi is available!
Not so much a gift horse. More of a pig in a poke of you ask me.
200Mb isn’t that much…
No its not a lot… certainly not enough to use it as your access to the internet, but if you have access to a compressing proxy, and don’t use streaming, you can read plenty of email and web browsing with that much data.
Do you think the consumers they are targeting will be that savvy?
Yes,unlikely, they will use Lynx to avoid redundant traffic))
If you need to check a bit of email or sync some docs it’s good. I’d struggle to use that much on the road, though I would appreciate having it. I had that much on an iPad and never went over.