First look at the HP Chromebook 11

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

The Chromebook is a bona fide product category. The inexpensive (relatively) browser-based and cloud-powered notebooks have all but replaced netbooks as the lower-end option for users. The evolution of the Chromebook and Chrome OS has been steady but consistent. Create an affordable notebook that requires an always-on connection to the Internet and let the cloud servers do the heavy lifting. 

The latest Chromebook 11 is made by HP and it is a marked improvement over the Samsung made Chromebook Series 3 we checked out a year ago. With a shiny, white polycarbonate casing (supported by a magnesium frame) the new Chromebook 11 look and feels like a polished product even if the CPU is similar to last year's model

Canada will be getting the Chromebook 11 on November 8 for $299 (plus tax) and we will be getting white with blue accents version from the Google Play Store, HP Online and Best Buy. Things that stand out about the Chromebook 11 is the weight (2.30 pounds), it uses microUSB port for charging and while it comes with a stingy 16GB of onboard storage, Google will give 100GB of cloud storage for two years.

That said, while there's a definite market for such a device and HP has done an outstanding job with this particular version. The Chromebook is still a device I wouldn't personally buy nor is it something I can recommend to anyone but the most avid Chrome OS user. It features last year's hardware on a newer body and still has the same limitations in terms of storage and processing power. Any tablet plus keyboard combination would be a better use of $299.