The HP Pavilion x360 is an 11.6 inch Windows laptop that becomes a tablet when you push the screen back 360 degrees. It’s basically HP’s answer to the Lenovo Yoga line of convertible notebooks… but cheaper.
HP offers models with Intel Bay Trail processors and starting prices as low as $350.
I reviewed a model last year and was impressed with the value proposition… but underwhelmed by the battery life and display. Performance wasn’t anything to write home about either.
Now HP is refreshing the x360 lineup with a new model sporting a more powerful processor.
The new HP Pavilion x360 features an Intel Core M 5Y10c dual-core processor. That’s a low-power chip with a TDP of just 4.5 watts. In other words it uses less power than the 7.5 watt Pentium chip in the laptop I reviewed in 2014.
But the Core M is based on 5th gen Intel Core “Broadwell” technology which means it should offer better all-around performance than the Bay Trail processors HP had used up until now. The new models also feature more powerful graphics thanks to the Intel HD Graphics 5300.
Other specs for the new model are much the same as those for the Bay Trail versions. The new HP Pavilion x360 features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel touchscreen display, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive.
HP hasn’t officially launched the new Core M-powered Pavilion x360 in the United States yet, but it’s already showing up in Malaysia, India, and other regions.
via Tablet PC Italy
I gotta say, with Windows notebooks like these and others already out in this price range or less, I think Chromebooks are on the way out. And I was gifted the original Cr-48 and really enjoyed using it for 4 years, until I picked up an ASUS X205 in November.
The only way for Google to fight back now is to somehow get an OEM to make a Chromebook that is just $150 or less.
You underestimate the Win8 vs ChromeOS aspect. Schools all around the country are buying chromebooks like crazy because they’re so usable and maintainable — despite the dependence on the network.
Win10, if done right, might be MS’s ticket though.
Windows Update: The one thing MS needs to fix before it can kill Chromebooks.
Having a corrupted Windows Update after one in every 200 updates is not fun (Yes, it still happens in Windows 8, 8.1, and it even happened to one of my Windows 10 machines). Having the computer force a restart on anyone who doesn’t know about group policy settings is not fun. Having Windows Module Installer work unannounced using 100% of the harddisk and/or processor is not fun.