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At first look, you could nearly mistake HP’s new Chromebook 14 for its equally named 2014 predecessor. Every have a neat, white exterior and flashes of sky blue alongside the side. Open them up, nonetheless, and the variations shortly grow to be apparent. The place the ultimate model solely had a sky-blue finish throughout the lid, the model new Chromebook 14 is now blue all via, giving it an far more eye-catching, vibrant look.
It acquired’t be to all people’s tastes, nevertheless the Chromebook 14’s keyboard tray moreover has a pleasantly shiny finish to it, along with a very flippantly patterned design that resembles faculty graph paper. It’s pretty charming in its private means.
Complete, the Chromebook 14 feels correctly constructed, whatever the copious portions of plastic. It’s just a bit lighter than its predecessor at 1.69kg, compared with the earlier’s 1.9kg, and it’s moreover marginally thinner, measuring 17.8mm considerably than 20.6mm.
Keyboard and touchpad
In some other case, the two fashions are very comparable bodily. The keyboard has the similar springiness to it as sooner than, and it as quickly as as soon as extra proves surprisingly cosy to type on. The one delicate annoyance is that super-thin Enter key, which can typically be a bit tough to press precisely when typing at velocity.
The touchpad is an efficient measurement and is coloured a barely completely totally different shade of blue to the rest of the laptop computer laptop’s inside. It has a clear coating that lets finger swipes glide all through the ground, and it was able to recognise multitouch inputs with none factors. All in all, the assemble top quality of the HP Chromebook 14 stays just about pretty much as good as its predecessor, which was already very good for its value.
Specification, effectivity and battery life
If the HP Chromebook 14 is barely any completely totally different to its predecessor externally, it’s all change inside. It nonetheless has one amongst Intel’s Celeron chips, nevertheless that’s now a dual-core N2840 model that runs at 2.16GHz and may Turbo Improve to 2.58GHz. That’s pretty a bump up from the earlier 1.4GHz Celeron 2955U processor.
The amount of RAM stays unchanged at 4GB, though, and also you proceed to solely have 16GB of internal storage. Thankfully, there is a microSD slot to supply you further room, nevertheless (as with all Chromebooks) you’ll largely be reliant on using cloud-based storage for a lot of of your recordsdata. You do, nonetheless, get two years’ worth of 100GB Google Drive storage included.
As Chrome OS is such a lightweight working system, it doesn’t require a really high-powered specification to get most likely probably the most out of it. A JetStream ranking of 52.9 was good, nevertheless a considerably mediocre 10fps throughout the WebGL 3D Cubes benchmark was decrease than half that of the Acer Chromebook R11, which is disappointing considering the Chromebook 14 has a sooner processor and double the amount of RAM.
Its SunSpider benchmark ranking of 586ms isn’t the very best, each, nevertheless subjectively web trying felt responsive and pretty quick for most likely probably the most half. Solely after opening plenty of tabs did pages start to chug, nevertheless as quickly as they did finally load, even image-heavy pages scrolled up and down with none hiccups.
Arguably, battery life is further important than straight-out effectivity anyway, and at 9hrs 14mins (throughout the similar diploma as a result of the sooner HP Chromebook 14) it’s wonderful. That’s larger than adequate to get you through a full day’s use, notably since Chromebooks are usually used for lighter duties than their full laptop computer laptop counterparts.
That’s to not say Chromebooks can’t be used for one thing further taxing than web trying, nonetheless, and the HP has a great deal of connectivity to help it out on this regard. There are various USB ports for connecting exterior devices, with two USB 2 sockets and a single USB 3 port, whereas an HDMI output lets you be a part of it to an exterior present or TV.
The built-in audio system have been larger than frequent, too – okay to watch films on Netflix with out having to achieve in your headphones every time. When you want to take heed to music, though, you’re nonetheless larger off using the headphone jack.
Present
The usual of the show display screen was a few of the disappointing elements of the ultimate Chromebook 14, nevertheless sadly the model new model doesn’t fare considerably higher. It has the similar 14.1in, 1,366 x 768-resolution present as a result of the ultimate Chromebook 14, and it achieved nearly an similar scores in our calibration checks as correctly, suggesting HP may want resorted to using the similar panel.
The black diploma was as quickly as as soon as extra extreme at 0.82cd/m2, which implies shadows appear grey and washed out considerably than darkish and inky. It’s reasonably vivid for a laptop computer laptop, reaching 239cd/m2 at most settings, nevertheless combined with that prime black diploma, its distinction ratio is a mere 291:1, which leaves so much to be desired.
Admittedly, the model new Chromebook 14’s shade accuracy is marginally larger this time spherical, at 64.6% of the sRGB shade gamut, but it surely certainly’s nonetheless not notably rich or vibrant. All that’s par for the course for an entry-level Chromebook, though, and the present’s matte finish does help to battle overhead reflections.
Conclusion
The HP Chromebook 14 builds upon a great deal of points I appreciated regarding the earlier model. It’s nonetheless good value for what you’re getting relating to assemble top quality and customary effectivity – notably the battery life – and must you’re looking for a typical, all-round performer for Chrome OS, then it would serve you correctly.
In case you’re after one factor just a bit further moveable, nonetheless, or a software that serves double-duties as a 2-in-1, you then’ll almost certainly be larger off attempting elsewhere. At this value, I’d advocate you consider the Acer Chromebook R11.
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