After going up for pre-order in April, HP’s first Chromebook with a detachable tablet section is now available from Best Buy for $600.
The HP Chromebook x2 was expected to hit the streets on June 10th, but it looks like Best Buy pulled the trigger a little early. Customers who pre-ordered are also starting to report that their Chromebooks are being delivered.
While the HP Chromebook x2 is a bit on the pricey side for a Chrome OS device, it’s got a pretty decent spec sheet, including:
- 12.3 inch, 2400 x 1600 pixel touchscreen display with a matte finish
- Intel Core M3-7Y30 Kaby Lake processor
- 4GB of RAM
- 32GB of eMMC storage
- 48 Whr battery
- 13MP rear and 5MP front camera
- 2 x USB 3.0 Type-C ports
- Headset jack
- microSD Card slot
- Detachable keyboard
- HP Active Pen
The tablet weighs about 1.6 pound on its own. Add the keyboard dock and you’ve got a 3.1 pound laptop.
What’s probably most interesting about the HP Chromebook x2 is that it’s the first Chrome OS tablet designed specifically for consumers.
Acer actually announced the first Chrome OS tablet earlier this year, but the Acer Chromebook Tab 10 is a smaller, cheaper, less powerful device designed for use in the education market, and it lacks a physical keyboard. I also don’t think it’s actually shipping yet.
While Chrome OS was originally designed as a laptop operating system, over the past few years Google has added a number of features that make it more touchscreen-friendly including a virtual keyboard, an updated UI with touch-sized icons, and support for Android applications.
In some ways, Chrome OS tablets offer some of the best features of a Chromebook and an Android tablet: you get access to touch-optimized apps developed for Android, but the power of the full desktop version of the Google Chrome web browser. Soon you may be able to run desktop Linux apps as well.
That said, the $600 starting price is probably going to limit the early adopter pool for this particular model. I suspect it’ll only appeal to folks already sold on the idea that Chrome OS is a powerful, versatile operating system… which is something that I know some folks are skeptical of.
Now that the first Chrome tablets are shipping, we should start to see real-world reviews soon, and perhaps that will give us an idea of how well these things will fare in the marketplace.
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Generally like the hardware with a couple of gotcha’s though. Love the 3:2 aspect w/matte! May be wrong but the keyboard looks like a real detachable (Transformer-type) and not the flimsy surface pro style. If so, huge plus here too. 4gb is the absolute minimum on RAM – 8gbs would have be killer. From an earlier article on this, I understand that we can expect 10.5 hours on the battery. Also a big plus. Local storage (slower eMMC too) really diminishes the laptop. 32gbs is simply not acceptable. It takes an otherwise fine machine and hijacks it. It’s simply a… Read more »
There is nothing bone-headed about their decision at all.
Linux apps are a tiny niche market. They’re not going increase the cost and price of the machine for that. And unless there is evidence that people are installing lots of Android apps on their Chromebooks (anyone?) then I suspect they’re discounting that prospect too.
Margins are not great on these machines, and they are positioned in a very price sensitive part of the market.
Ok… you are clearly generalizing to all Chromebooks and not specifically addressing HP’s x2 Chromebook – which I think is designed, in some respects, as something more than a $600 browser. Would you pay $600 for a Core M3-7Y30 that’s cloud-dependent and basically just runs a browser? Or would you pay $600 for a Flexible 2-in-1 that runs millions of offline Android apps and the promise of Desktop-quality programs? To me, the first option is laughable. The second is great but ONLY if I had suitable local storage. eMMC is already pretty low-end and cheap. I stick to my earlier… Read more »
Agree on the 32gb, I was in the market to replace an aged Lenovo Yoga and decided Chromebook was worth the time now that Android apps are available. This form factor sounds really but and had this pre-ordered but ultimately cancelled due to the low storage capacity. I ordered the older Asus C302CA instead (and it’s great)
If the battery life is good, this would be a great Ubuntu tablet. Thanks Google!