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Chromebooks have evolved quite a bit since their inception over a decade ago. However, the target demographic hasn’t changed all that much; students on a budget make up the bulk of Chromebook users. Two primary factors driving the appeal of Chromebooks are their prices and simplicity of ChromeOS - the operating system Chromebooks run on.
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Last year, Google introduced Chromebook Plus branding exclusively given to laptops with more powerful specs (I was at that launch and covered one of the first Chromebook Plus laptops ever made; check out my review here). The new HP Chromebook PLUS x360 is among those more powerful laptops but has a mid-range $599US price putting it against some competitive Windows laptops. Should students or casual laptop seekers bite? In this review I was able to secure a loaned of this HP Chromebook Plus through Google so I’ll try it out at home to see what it’s like to use. I’ll show you some of the special features that it has, both being an HP model, and what some of the newly created Google Chromebook Artificial Intelligence features it has are. I’ll wrap things up with the pros and the cons and let you know if I think this might be a good Chromebook for you.
Let’s start with what you’re getting. I’ll go over the basics of this laptop first, and then dive into some of the AI specific features.
HP Chromebook PLUS x360 Specs
The HP Chromebook PLUS x360 is a 2-in-1 laptop with a 360-degree hinge so you can fold the keyboard over and use it as a tablet as well. It will also sit slightly opened, making it an ideal movie viewing tablet for the business traveler.
It runs on an Intel Core i3-N305 processor with 8 cores and 8 threads capable of boosting to 3.8 GHz. Combined with 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, the HP Chromebook PLUS x360 should have no trouble opening dozens of tabs even after installing some Chrome extensions including ad blockers.
One weak spot of the spec sheet is the nominal 128 GB storage space because the operating system and other user data use about 30 GB leaving you with less than 100 GB for apps and offline Google Drive storage. While I don’t expect most Chromebook users to immediately fill up that space, many cheaper laptops offer quadruple the amount of space. To make matters worse, this Chromebook uses UFS storage which means some users might find it slower than NVMe storage commonly found on modern laptops.
Display
The HP Chromebook PLUS x360 features a 14-inch touch IPS display with a Full HD 1080p resolution.
For media consumption, this is ideal as you can enjoy most landscape videos and many movies without black bars. However, for word processing and browsing the Web, the 16:9 aspect ratio is a bit lacking by today’s standards. Laptops in the price range with a 16:10 aspect ratio add an extra 120 pixels vertically contributing to better screen real estate. You’ll quickly realize the annoyance of the display’s aspect ratio when you try to fold the keyboard deck back and try to use it in portrait orientation. There’s a reason why you don’t see many dedicated tablets with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
My other issue with the display is its brightness. Having a max brightness of just 250 nits isn’t a good look for a $599 laptop. Using the laptop indoors is just fine with some ambient lighting, but you’ll likely struggle using it outdoors during those sunny days. The 62.5%s RGB color gamut also means that this isn’t the budget laptop anyone should use for serious graphics design or photo editing.