HP Chrome Book 14 Laptop.

Chromebooks and affordability those are two words that have gone together for a long time but in 2019 we started seeing a lot more devices in the higher and of the price spectrum but make no mistake manufacturers are still interested in making affordable Chromebooks in this device the HP Chromebook 14 powered by AMD processors is one of those devices matter of fact it can be had right now for two hundred and thirty dollars and though we a lot of times keep the price towards the end of the video price is going to have an impact on a lot of the things that I talk about with this device because although it's pretty well put together in a decent package overall especially for that price there is one part of it that makes it a really difficult thing to actually say you should go and buy so let's check it out but before we get into that this video is brought to you by wordpress.com and if you've been by chroma and voxcom you've seen WordPress technology in action it's what we've used since the beginning of chrome unboxed and we will continue using it because between all of the templates thousands of templates and thousands of plugins WordPress has the ability to deliver what you need whether it's a small blog or a large full scale business website if you'd like to learn more about how to get started and pick a plan that's right for you head over to Chrome on box.com forward slash WordPress today so first up let's talk about the build quality here not surprisingly again with the price here that's gonna dictate a lot of things and this is plastic from head to toe so there's no aluminum no real metal going on here but that doesn't mean it feels terrible or cheap even it's actually pretty firm and well put together it doesn't have a lot of flex the hinge feels really good and the all white chassis honestly probably hits me in a nostalgic spot because my first Chromebook review and the first Chromebook I used like full time was the HP Chromebook 14 that came out and years and years ago and it was all white and I really liked it and so maybe some of this is nostalgia playing on me but in general I'm just not really put off by the design here kind of feels young and fresh it's not something I would put in the hands of like an enterprise employee or something like that but in general it looks great on the table it just has a kind of striking aesthetic being all white and the outer parts of it don't seem to pick up any fingerprints and so far haven't picked that much dirt either and I would assume could be wiped off pretty quickly and then the keyboard deck has this kind of like brushed translucent white looking ivory finish I don't really know what to call it it's plastic but it kind of looks nice and just in general the the build quality of this thing is not something that turns me off at all and and though they've obviously cut corners and used lots and lots of plastic you don't get a lot of nasty edges and stuff like that either so you know all told I think HP did a really good job again especially at this budget so the build quality is pretty decent here and that continues on with the keyboard and trackpad not stand out it's not the most amazing things you've ever used but HP's kind of got a track record now of putting good keyboards in their devices every single HP device we come across seems to have a great keyboard and this is no exception that travels good click mechanism feels good I would like there to be a little bit more click like the travel is great but a little bit more click we've kind of helped this keyboard feel more like the x360 or something like that but in general I had no issue whatsoever banging out a few articles on this thing it feels really good to type on and equally said of the trackpad the the surface stays nice and smooth it's plastic but it's not trying to be this nice smooth plastic that's like imitating glass lie some other cheaper Chromebooks this one has some sort of like texture on it and at first I wasn't really sure about it but after hours of use and it not really building up any of the oils or at least maybe it resists them or something and it stayed nice and smooth over that time I kind of became a believer it's a decent trackpad and the only thing I really didn't love about it the click mechanism is just a little stiff and I would think over time it would probably work itself in and who knows with cheaper Chromebooks like this you're gonna get a variance in the click mechanism on these things so it may just be the one that we gets a little bit stiff but in general trackpad keyboard very nicely done another place hp's done really nicely on this device is the port selection so you actually get a USB type a on both sides and a USB type-c on both sides and that seaport can be used for charging or display out just like you would expect there's a Kensington lock headphone microphone slot and there's actually a micro SD card slot where the card sits completely flush in the casing as well so you don't really have to worry about if you want to keep one in there like this model is a 32 gig will talk about internals in a second but if you want to keep an SD card loaded in there at all times you wouldn't even know it's there the speakers on this one were kind of surprising as well they're just like every other HP device marked with a B&O branding on them and that just hasn't meant much it doesn't seem like you know branded speakers on HP devices have kind of been disappointing honestly for the last few years but these speakers are surprisingly loud they're a little bit too heavy in the mid-range but in general they're loud if you're listening to stuff like spoken audio like what you're hearing right now on this video or podcast or something like that they're gonna be really good because high mids help with spoken stuff but they actually sound pretty good with music too you're gonna lose a little bit on the high end but loud and we put them up against a couple other speakers the pixel book specifically which the pixel book doesn't have great speakers but we put it up against it and it just blew the pixel book out of the water from a volume and a fullness standpoint so again on a $230 Chromebook I was kind of impressed with the speakers so what about those internals the base model of this device that we're testing comes with 32 gigs of storage four gigs of RAM and in the AMD a4 processor and that's an important note because we're just now starting to see AMD processors hit the market there's a handful of manufacturers that are making them and that's what kind of sets this Chromebook apart from other low-end model Chromebooks the performance of the AMD a4 we're getting about 13,000 on octane so that's pretty decent especially matched up with you know less pixels on the screen it's a 1366 by 768 screen so it actually got around pretty well  and didn't have too many issues now granted if I open up a ton of stuff if I had 15 tabs open and multiple apps yeah I would start to see a little bit of slowdown but if you come into this thing with you know your proper expectations and keep a few tabs open and only have a few things going one time you're gonna be able to browse the internet and do basic Chromebook type tasks pretty easily on this device and that's encouraging because AMD is coming down the road with more like flagship level processors and Chromebooks we we've seen that we know those things are coming but this is what we have right now this is kind of AMD's toe in the water in the Chromebook space and so it's encouraging to see that their lowest and processor which is this a4 processor we're seeing in this one gets all along pretty well and it's not one that we're having to look at and say don't buy this one with this processor and at least we know the worst thing that AMD is gonna offer up in this a4 is actually kind of usable in Chromebooks another note on performance even though this doesn't come as a surprise to many people I mean it's a new chipset so we've got to make sure and talk about it is battery life in general every Chromebook we review of late seems to get that kind of eight to ten hour battery life and this is no exception I was kind of hoping that AMD and their processors would provide some great boost in life but I'm just not seeing it but in general I'm getting eight to ten hours of mixed use across the board and that's just what we've come to expect from Chromebooks and so good on HP for at least delivering that so up to this point things are sounding pretty good especially 230 bucks I mean we're talking pretty decent performance and good battery life and sure it's plastic but it's not creaky and the build looks good and it kind of has a cool you know aesthetic to it in general and keyboard and trackpad kind of pass muster so what's not to like well unfortunately the screen the screen is what's not to like and I not only dislike the screen it's the worst screen I've probably ever used on any Chromebook and it's a little shameful that it's in any device at this point in time we're talking about 1366 by 768 tn panel you know so HD class that's not the biggest problem here the problem is the viewing angles and the colors and the brightness so multiple problems so the viewing angles are so bad that I can't find a way to look at this screen in any way if you just put a solid white block on it there's no way for me to find an angle where the whole screen actually looks white it's always gonna have some sort of blue or yellow shift whether you're looking at it from up top  or from beneath there's no way to see it all as a uniform color if there were maybe this would be a forgivable thing but I couldn't get the thing to lean back I mean right now in order to get the whole screen to look kind of similar I've got to lean it back to about here but then I'm losing some stuff at the top of the screen and I look forward a little bit more and I start losing stuff at the bottom of the screen now I'm talking about blown out colors just a lack of any kind of punch or color depth and just absolutely abysmal viewing angles I mean this screen is really really bad and it's so unfortunate because everything else about this device is so you know decently good for the price but this screen is just not forgivable in this case and HP offers a way to upgrade this device you can get it with all kinds of bells and whistles but the problem is on HP site when you do so the base price of it jumps up to 340 or $350 to start with and then you start adding things on time you're quickly to $400 before you know it and at that price I have to tell you to go buy something else and so it puts you in between this rock in this hard place because it's really difficult to recommend anyone by device with a screen this bad on it so after having said that all kinds of good stuff but then one really bad thing what's the answer here do you buy this for a lot of people I have to recommend that you don't for some people though I think there are a handful of cases where this could be a usable Chromebook and especially at a $230 asking price there are some general use cases it would work so some of those would include if you have younger kids around the house and you want a device that if they beat it up and you're not gonna worry about it too much you're not gonna have to invest too much and having something that can do ABC Mouse or you know Disney Junior or something like that yeah this will work for that I mean honestly kids aren't gonna look at it and be like oh these viewing angles are terrible I can't stand this screen like they're not gonna get that worried about it.

I have kids they don't worry about that stuff but if you're talking about a teenager somebody using it for school I don't know that I would put anybody in front of this device for six or eight hours at a time if you're gonna try to use it for work you almost have to upgrade the screen and then we run back into that problem that if you do that you got to go to HP's site to do it if you upgrade it you're gonna easily get into $400 territory really quick and I just can't recommend this device at $400 so where does that leave us that leaves us I think with a subset of people that that might find this as a good deal but it's really difficult for me to recommend so if any of those use cases sound good to you or you're one of the people that says you know what I don't care about screens I really don't or I'm gonna hook it in to an external monitor or something great it is a good deal for those people I just don't think that's the general consensus of people you know across the board of people who are looking to buy a Chromebook so for right now I have to say until HP delivers at least a better version of the screen on this device I just don't know that I can recommend it to too many of you but guys if this blog has helped you make a purchasing decision in any way give it a comment and share this Blog HP Chrome Book 14Laptop. 

 

ShopNow