HP has officially entered the Chromebook game with its new Pavilion Chromebook. The company debuted the 14-inch Chrome-powered notebook to little fanfare this morning with specs that match leaked information that hit the Web last week.
The $329 Pavilion Chromebook packs a 1.1-GHz Intel Celeron 847 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 16GB solid-state drive. Unlike most Chromebooks, which generally sport screens sizes of between 11 to 12 inches, the Pavilion Chromebook comes with a 14-inch 1366 x 768 display. While those specs sound good, the HP Chromebook has one glaring issue that could keep consumers away, it's middling battery life.
HP estimates users will get just 4 hours and 15 minutes out of the Chromebook's 2,250 mAh battery. That's more than an 1:45 less than the average ultraportable notebook's performance on our LAPTOP Battery Test, which includes continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi with the display set to 40 percent brightness.
By comparison, the $429 11.6-inch Samsung Series 3 Chromebook, which includes a 1.7-GHz Samsung Exynos processor, 2GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD, managed an impressive 7:34 on the LAPTOP Battery Test.
With such a poor battery life estimate, the Pavilion Chromebook is already in a significant hole. Still, we'll save our final judgment for our full review.
