In addition to launching a new premium Chromebook, HP has announced that it’s refreshing its budget Chromebook lineup with a new HP Chromebook 11a featuring a dual-core Intel Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a $219 starting price (although Best Buy already has the notebook on sale for $50 off).
While the price is certainly right, there’s not really much setting the new Chromebook apart from one you could have picked up three years ago.
That’s because, like many budget Chromebooks from 2017 and 2018, the new HP Chromebook 11a is powered by an Intel Celeron N3350 Apollo Lake processor, a 6 watt chip based on Intel Atom architecture that was first released in 2016.
While a newer Intel “Gemini Lake” chip would certainly offer a performance boost, you can probably thank the old chip for this laptop’s low starting price.
Here are some of the laptop’s key specs:
- 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel anti-glare display (220 nits)
- Intel Celeron N3350 processor
- Intel UHD 500 graphics
- 4GB of LPDDR4-2400 RAM
- 32GB eMMC storage
- WIFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2
- 2 x USB-C (5 Gbps) ports (charging and DisplayPort 1.2 support)
- 2 x USB Type-A ports (5 Gbps)
- 3.5mm audio jack (headphone/microphone
- microSD card reader
- Stereo speakers
- 47 Wh battery
- 45W USB-C charger
The new HP Chromebook 11a measures 12.1″ x 8.2″ x 0.7″ and weighs 3 pounds.
Intel 🤮
I just checked on the AMD site and they’re still touting 28nm APUs as their Chromebook solutions. Hopefully, at some point — perhaps once their penetration into the laptop market has matured, they’ll turn some of that 7nm goodness toward the Chromebook market.
It’ll probably happen eventually, given their new $120 desktop CPUs are as powerful as Intel’s three year old i7 processors that sold for three times the price, but I suspect the laptop market is going to be their main focus for the next couple of years.
I was hoping to see a Ryzen 3200u chromebook.
Asus and Acer have Windows S machines priced at $320 -> $350. Both use m.2 SSD, upgradable ram, 1080p IPS.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/ASUS-VivoBook-15-6-FHD-Display-AMD-Ryzen-3-3200U-4GB-DDR4-128GB-SSD-Windows-10-Home-in-S-mode-Slate-Gray-F512DA-WH31/700011839
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Display-Graphics-Keyboard-A515-43-R19L/dp/B07RF1XD36
For 7nm, I believe Ryzen’s lowest model is a 4 core 4300u. If I were Google, I would ask for a 4200u dual-core version with higher turbo. That would spank anything Intel could offer at that price point.