

HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook Officially Announced, Priced at $329.99 - twapi
http://browserfame.com/1116/hp-pavilion-chromebook-price-announced

======
dkhenry
This is actually a bad sign for Chromebooks. Up untill now they have been
market differentiators due to either their low cost or focus on unique
features. This is just a HP laptop running chrome. I think Google needs to
force manufactures to hold a different standard to get ChromeOS officially
licensed on their hardware. Where is the High resolution display or
exceptional battery life, or super low cost. At the end of the day this laptop
and not the 199 ARM chromebook is what can tank ChromeOS. This is what people
pick up and have bad experiences with and then never touch again.

~~~
brudgers
So, Google should adopt ARM policies more like Microsoft's?

~~~
dkhenry
They already have stricter ones. No one can put Chrome on a device without
Google's direct intervention. So that means Google and company decided this
device was a good fit for chrome. MS doesn't even do that.

------
meaty
If anyone has ever owned an HP laptop of any description recently, they will
know not to go near this, not even with a 20 foot long stick.

Absolutely shoddy machines from end to end.

~~~
sspiff
I have had or maintained at some point:

* An almost 2 year old dm1z netbook

* A 13" Pavilion laptop from late 2010

* An EliteBook 8540p

* Two older Pavilion notebook, late 2006 and late 2007

And I am very happy with the quality of their machines. The EliteBook is a
tank that can compare with ThinkPads in reliability. The Pavilions are sturdy
and decent for consumer notebooks. The netbook is brilliant for a $400 device,
and has survived multiple drops without any serious marks.

One of the Pavilion's screen broke down in warranty, and HP's support and
repair service have been a painful and infuriating experience. I can say the
same about any warranty claim I have tried to make as a consumer rather than a
professional client (having dealt with Lenovo, Sony and HP).

I wouldn't go near this thing (shitty screen and battery life and subpar
compontents for this price level), but I wouldn't say bad things about HP's
products in general. Except for their printers, those are just evil.

~~~
madoublet
I have had no problem with the quality of HP machines. But, their support is
horrible. I purchased a computer in late 2010 and in 2012 when Windows 8 came
out, I could not upgrade it because they did not offer drivers for it. Their
official policy (<http://www8.hp.com/us/en/ad/windows-8/about-upgrading.html>)
is to only provide drivers for computers purchased after October 2011. A one
year support window for products is completely unacceptable in my eyes.

~~~
dman
Heres a tip if you want to buy hp - buy their enterprise class hardware
(probook / elitebook). The support on those is very good.

~~~
meaty
Bollocks - they are just as shit with respect to support.

~~~
dman
Not in my experience - I have had spare parts overnighted to me on two
occasions. Theres a 24/7 online chat which has had surprisingly good people
that have been able to fix issues.

~~~
meaty
What country are you in? I'm talking about UK support, so you might have
better luck in another country.

~~~
dman
I am in the US.

------
ovi256
I've compared it with the already on the market Acer C7 11" Chromebook, and
the biggest differences are: \- SSD instead of HDD, but 16GB instead of 320.
\- form factor: 14" vs 11", but same screen resolution! \- heavier, 1.8 kg vs
1.28 kg.

The 11" Acer is also cheaper, starting around $220.

So my conclusion is: really HP ? I'd like to hear from others if the SSD makes
up the difference.

~~~
nextparadigms
That was a bad call from Acer to use an HDD, regardless of how much storage it
really has. It's a Chromebook. Another bad call for both is that they used a
crippled Intel Celeron with terrible GPU graphics (remember you need the GPU
for video acceleration, as well as other stuff), and it made the machine more
expensive and with poorer battery life, instead of a brand new ARM CPU and
GPU, like Samsung did.

~~~
jsnell
That's a ludicrous statement. Let's remember that this machine is $50 cheaper
than the vaporware Samsung ARM ChromeBook. And they clearly did everything
possible to hit $200. It seems pretty hard to argue that they could have made
it cheaper by using another CPU.

There was no plausible ARM SOC that Acer could have used 3 months ago (Exynos
5 is clearly not available in any kind of quantities, no other A15s are
shipping even on paper, and anything else would be too slow).

Now, as for the HDD, they were clearly optimizing for a $200 pricepoint. If
doing a HDD instead of an SSD was what it takes to get there, clearly that's
what they had to do. Or are you suggesting that trying to make a $200
ChromeBook at all was a bad call? Because I have to strongly disagree there --
the main original complaints about ChromeBooks were that they were expensive
and had incredibly crappy CPUs. This device took care of both those things.
That seems totally worthwhile, even if there were other compromises in there.

(Now, this HP on the other hand looks like a completely unjustifiable device.)

~~~
jsight
>Let's remember that this machine is $50 cheaper than the vaporware Samsung
ARM ChromeBook.

In what way is the Samsung ARM ChromeBook "vaporware"? It seems to be
available: [http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-XE303C12-A01US-Chromebook-
Wi-F...](http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-XE303C12-A01US-Chromebook-Wi-
Fi-11-6-Inch/dp/B009LL9VDG)

~~~
dkhenry
More importantly it's owned by millions including me.

------
magoon
So it's just another 14" plastic boat. Uninspiring.

------
tuananh
* low cost? not really

* long battery life? nope

* high res? nope

I don't know what to expect from this machine. To me, it's just a big netbook
running Chrome OS

------
bane
250...

$250 is where these things will take off. Not $350, not $329, $250.

For the performance and quality of these things, as well as the supposed near-
disposability, this is the price that will start getting people to buy them in
large numbers.

------
lucian1900
What is up with that resolution?!

~~~
sspiff
Or that battery life. Who wants a Chromebook that lasts 4 hours on a charge
according to the manufacturer!

My two year old HP dm1z has comparable performance, twice the memory, the same
resolution in an 11" display, 9 hours of real world battery life, and runs a
full OS. Is this progress?

------
josteink
If this is their backup plan to sell units when Windows 8 laptops sells
dismally, I think they'll end up disappointed.

This is pretty horrible all over. And that resolution is a spit in the face.

------
jimsilverman
i feel like HP is missing the point of chromebooks.

