HP Chromebook 11 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 15, 2013 2:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- HP
- Chrome OS
- Chromebook
WiFi & Performance
WiFi on the Chromebook 11 is similarly well executed. There’s a 2-stream dual-band 802.11n controller inside, capable of negotiating at up to 300Mbps link rates. Given how uncommon finding 5GHz WiFi support was in cheap PCs from not too long ago, it’s good to see HP/Google choose properly here.
About my only complaint hardware wise on the Chromebook 11 is its SoC. HP settled on the same Exynos 5250 SoC that Samsung used in last year’s 11.6-inch Chromebook. Unfortunately, the design hasn’t aged well. Truth be told, there are far better options today than a dual-core 32nm 1.7GHz Cortex A15 design. I would’ve loved to have seen Bay Trail in the Chromebook 11, or at least a Snapdragon 800. I’ll get to the power consumption discussion in a moment, but performance of the Chromebook 11 really needs work. For single tasking, the 5250 is ok. Hitting heavier websites or scrolling while having a graph search overlay in Facebook will cause serious drops in UI frame rate.
Playing back HD videos in YouTube is borderline too much for the machine. If you try to play videos in the background while you browse the web, expect serious lag on the input front. I ran Kraken both with and without a background YouTube video playing just to show the impact of multitasking on performance:
| Multitasking Performance on Chromebook 11 | |||||||||||
| Kraken | Kraken + YouTube Video Playback | % Increase in Kraken Completion Time | |||||||||
| HP Chromebook 11 | 5262.4 ms | 10997.3 ms | 109% | ||||||||
Kraken took over twice as long to complete with YouTube actively playing in the background. The Chromebook 11 either needs more cores or better cores (or both) if you're going to be doing any sort of real multitasking/heavy web browsing.
Basic word processing using Google Docs is fine on the Chromebook 11, but again you need to make sure that you don’t have anything too CPU intensive in the background. Multitasking with Pandora is ok thankfully.
Our traditional js benchmark suite shows the relatively decent performance of Chrome + ARM's Cortex A15 at lightly threaded workloads. Single tasking shouldn't be a problem for this platform, it's the heavier workloads that will be problematic.
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Hrel - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
I run into websites with some frequency that won't display correctly in Chrome. For those I use Firefox. So can you install another browser in Chrome OS? Cause if not then you can't even surf the web entirely.extide - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
What websites? I have been using Chrome exclusively for the past few years and don't have any rendering issues. I used to be die-hard firefox user, even ran the nightly betas and stuff, but I like Chrome more these days.mschira - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
Keepvid is the only website I know that does not like chrome.It's a Java thing.
So maybe there are more websites left that use Java.
M.
extide - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
Someone NEEDS to come out with a 15" Chromebook for under $400. My wife wants a new laptop and a chromebook would be perfect, but she wants a bigger than 11/12" screen!!djw39 - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
HP has a 14" chromebook with an Intel processor, twice the performance and twice the battery life of the 11" one reviewed here, for $300. I imagine the display is not as nice, but still it should serve your needs well.extide - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
I just barely saw that actually. VERY intriguing! However they do not list the display resolution anywhere, and I was really hoping for at least a 1600x900 14-15" laptop type device. Chrome OS is fine, I would like at least Bay Trail, or some sort of Haswell Celeron. It would be absolutely perfect for my (wife's) needs. To those who cant figure out where this device fits in, it is for people who dont have a tablet or done want a tablet, but just want to be able to surf facebook, pintrest, and the like. Basically my wife, and all of her family would be perfect for this.stacey94 - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
"Display:14" diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit (1366 x 768)"
The C720 is also 1366x768 :(.
Hrel - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
I was trying to think of a use scenario for this, couldn't come up with any. But, if I ever had kids this seems like a good first PC for them. Cheap enough they could abuse it without me worrying too much; able to do most of the things they'd want it to. Then could always keep a family desktop around for school papers; since everyone I know still requires it be in word format.Krysto - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
I think the design is quite great, and also glad to see an IPS display, did those improvements, which seem rather slight to me, really stop them from using a newer ARM SoC (don't be silly with your Bay Trail) or a bigger battery, while also costing $30 more compared to last year's ARM Chromebook? I don't get it.This year's version should've arrived with a better ARM SoC, twice the battery size (8,000 mAh), micro-USB 3.0 and 4 GB of RAM. And it should've all fitted in about the same price.
aryonoco - Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - link
I agree completelyThis thing needed to have a Tegra 4 in it, slightly bigger battery (I think double is not realistic, but 50%+ definitely) and 4GB of RAM.
If they had come up with that device for $299, I think it would have been a real beauty.
Add to that another SKU with 1080p screen and a 13" form factor for $349 and Google would have had a home run.
As it is, we are again in this weird situation where the Chromebook with the better display/chassis/design/keyboard has an awful SoC, and the one with a respectable CPU and battery life suffers from poor aesthetics and design. What a shame.