HP 11A G8 EE 11.6" Chromebook - AMD A4 1.6GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, Google Chrome

Product Information

Meanwhile, the left side contains a lone USB 2.0 Type-A port, and that's it. Something to note here: because of the position of the port, it was actually somewhat difficult to insert and remove a USB plug from the port. At times, it felt like I had to really force the connector into the slot. Chromebooks are not known for their gaming prowess (and as you can see so far, low-end models' CPU performance, in general, is barely good enough), but we’d be remiss if we didn’t run GFXBench 5.0, a cross-platform GPU benchmark that stress-tests both low-level and high-level game routines. All of the low-cost Chromebooks in our test set performed poorly, which is not surprising. They are budget machines, after all. If you’re interested in gaming on the go, you’re better off with a Windows-based gaming laptop.

Help students reach their potential with cloud-first learning on the durable HP Chromebook 11A G8 EE that keeps pace with active student lifestyles while the fast-booting Chrome OS makes IT management easy. The battery life on the HP Chromebook 11a is close to 13 hours, which means that you won’t have to charge it more than once a day. Compared to laptops in similar price range, it certainly gives an edge to the Chromebook 11a.

It Came From...the Bargain Bin

We had no issues with the touch screen and were thankful for its good performance (you’ll understand why a little later). We also didn’t notice any glare, no matter what angle we viewed from. Rounding out the viewing experience is a 720p webcam, nestled into the top screen bezel. So, it’s goodbye to the high-speed Intel Core i5 processor that was used in the high-end Chromebook Pixel, and hello to a dual-core Samsung Exynos 5 Dual ARM-based SoC instead. This move would be madness on a Windows-based laptop, but ChromeOS is designed for efficient CPUs. The speakers, located underneath the laptop, are decent for a machine of this price—just don't expect to be blown away by the sound quality at higher volumes. For the most part, they sound just fine. The biggest reason that piqued our interest in the Chromebook 11a is Chrome OS. For a long time now the world has been divided into Windows and Mac and to be fair Chrome OS has been around for a while but it’s only recently that it has been making some dents in the market. In India, however, Chrome OS still remains terribly niche. After using the Chromebook 11a for a while, we can safely say that it’s a travesty not many users are familiar with ChromeOS. Or for that matter why PC brands continue to offer Windows only machines.

Testing conducted by HP using Google Chrome OS power LoadTest. Battery life will vary and the maximum capacity of the battery will naturally decrease with time and usage. See http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/testing/power-testing for test details. Build quality is one thing, but there’s always the danger that corners are cut inside to save money and to keep the cost down. Fortunately, with the Chromebook 11 that isn’t the case, as the right choices have been made for the right reason.Chromebook 11a is really fast when it comes to booting up. Considering that it just has 4GB RAM, it was a pleasant surprise. What works most in its favour is Chrome OS. As we said for Android users, it’s a match made in heaven. Syncing and connecting an Android phone is really easy as is using Google’s apps and services. But it’s not as if since it’s a Chrome OS that other apps and services don’t work properly or you are restricted in any form.