HP Chromebook 11

Monday 27th January, I received a knock on the door.  A friendly ParcelForce man stood large in the door frame holding a package addressed to me. Beaming like a school boy at Christmas, I signed his machine and thanked him. My new toy had arrived...

The HP Chromebook 11 has had a troubled start in life with it's overheating power supplies, but it's back it the Play Store and it's as sexy as ever.  A gorgeous 11.6" IPS display, housed in a sleek, shiny white case and adorned only by a few splashes of colour, and the Light Bar on the lid.

When the HP Chromebook 11 first materialised in October last year, I was dead set on buying one (just as soon as payday rolled around).  Unfortunately they were swiftly removed from the shelves and online retailers before this happened, and it was nearly 3 months before I would be able to fulfil this desire.

It was certainly worth the wait.

I'd like to state now that I have been a long suffering Windows user for many years.  I've dipped in and out of Linux distros over the years, too, but would usually gravitate back to Windows due to some driver related issue, or because I needed an application which only runs on Windows; however, as the years have moved on, and technology too, I found myself ever more using a powerful, energy and resource hungry Windows laptop just to browse the web. So with the seemingly meteoric rise of ChromeOS, I figured it was time for a change.

I spent some time going through my Hard Drive and USB drives removing the chaff I didn't need, and storing the files I did need in Google Drive, I Backed up my plethora of photos and home movies to Google Plus, and my catalogue of some 18,000 mp3's into Google Play Music.  This proved to be a valuable exercise, as it turned out that the main reason for using Windows was to view my photos, listen to my music and undertake a few word processing jobs, all of which are now simplified and centralised on Google's Servers.

So, back to Monday.  Once inside the box you find yourself face to face with a clean, crisp white laptop with a few splashes of blue, and emblazoned only with the HP logo, and the words "Made with Google".

Once you lift the lid, the Chromebook sparks into life, and within 10 seconds you're ready to browse.  The screen is very clear and bright and at only 11.6" in size it's very easy to use and doesn't feel cramped in any way.  Similarly, the full size UK keyboard is spaced well, easy to use and very comfortable for typing for long periods (like typing this blog, for example).

My only criticism, and it's a very minor one, is that it can be a tad sluggish if you have a few too many tabs open.  Like I said, though, it's only a minor point.

After a week of using my Chromebook, I can say that I've been very happy and it was a worthwhile purchase.  It now seems to replace the tablet as the device of choice due to it being lighter in weight at only 1kg, and quicker to boot up.

HP Chromebook 11 is now available to buy in the UK from the Google Play Store.