HP has announced a new model in its competitive Chromebook 14 line. Bearing the same moniker as the existing machine, the new notebook offers a higher resolution display over its sibling, as well as touchscreen functionality and increased memory and storage.
Priced at US$300, the existing Chromebook 14 represents a solid value for money proposition while providing one of the larger screens you’ll find on a machine running Google’s Chrome OS. The new version (which will be sold alongside the existing model) doesn’t make any changes from a design point of view, but ups the ante behind the scenes, offering a more expansive 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of onboard flash storage.
The increased memory should help to keep things running smoothly, and more storage is always welcome (though it’s augmented by the standard 100 GB Google Drive cloud space), but it’s the system’s display where you’re likely to notice the biggest difference. Not only has the resolution been upped to 1,920 x 1,080 (giving it 157 pixels per inch), but it’s also a touchscreen.
Elsewhere there's a Nvidia Tegra K1 processor powering things and HP is claiming the same 8 hour battery life as the existing model.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen a touch panel on a Chromebook, Google’s own Pixel and the Acer C720P both offer touch input, but combine that extra functionality with the improvements elsewhere, and the new model starts looking like one of the more compelling Chromebooks available.
As you would expect, the increased specs lead to a fairly significant price hike, with the new model coming in at $440 – almost 50 percent more than the non-touch version. It’s available for order now.
Product page: Chromebook 14 Touch
