If you're looking for a sub-$500 Chromebook, you won't find a better deal than the HP Chromebook 15.
See how HP performed on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands ranking. HP sells the HP Chromebook 15 with a one-year limited warranty. Meanwhile, the hottest the machine got was merely 89 degrees, on the underside to the left edge of the vent. The center of the keyboard and the touchpad hit only 83 and 78 degrees, respectively.
HP's 720p shooter takes shots as well as you'd expect - poorly.Īfter the Chromebook streamed a 15-minute, 1080p video, the machine's underside came to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, well below our 95-degree comfort threshold. HP's machine nearly landed on our Best Battery Life Laptops page. But the Chromebook 15 fell only slightly behind the Asus Chromebook Flip C434 (9:58). The HP outlasted the Yoga Chromebook C630 (6:53) and the Acer Chromebook Spin 15 (9:37). Thankfully, the HP Chromebook 15 has a touch-screen display, so you can interact with most apps much better.Įven for a Chromebook, the HP Chromebook 15's battery life is lengthy.Īfter continuously surfing the web over Wi-Fi at 150-nits of brightness, the HP Chromebook 15's battery lasted 9 hours and 51 minutes, which is much longer than the 9:01 category average. Keep in mind that not all of these apps will scale up with your screen, as they're specifically designed for phones.
Google did add Android support, so you get the full force of the Play store at your fingertips. So if you run your life with Google through and through, then this OS is perfect for you. The Acer Chromebook Spin 15, with its Intel HD 505 GPU, fell behind (45 fps).Ĭhrome OS is a stripped-down operating system that literally runs only on the Chrome browser. The HP Chromebook 15's Intel UHD 620 GPU was able to display 500 fish on the WebGL Aquarium benchmark at 60 frames per second, matching the Yoga Chromebook C630's identical GPU and sliding past the category average (40 fps). However, the Yoga Chromebook C630 came out ahead, at 172.4. We ran the JavaScript benchmark JetStream, and the HP Chromebook 15 scored 163.66, beating the category average (110.21) as well as the Asus Chromebook Flip C434's score (76.7). Packed with an Intel Core i3-8130U processor and 4GB of RAM, the HP Chromebook 15 sped its way through 20 Google Chrome tabs and three 1080p YouTube videos without any sign of slowdown. HP Chromebook 15 performance and graphics
Unfortunately, there is no software to aid the audio. However, the instruments didn't sound muddy. The percussion also failed to deliver enough bass. The vocals were crisp and had depth, but the guitar riffs felt hollow. I listened to the Arctic Monkeys' "R U Mine?" and the speakers could barely compete with the sound of my AC unit, which isn't even that loud. The HP Chromebook 15's top-firing Bang & Olufsen speakers were a little too quiet. However, consider picking up a productivity mouse for easier navigation. It also did well in capturing Chrome OS gestures like two-finger scrolling and three-finger tab-out. The 2.5 x 4.75-inch, elongated touchpad wasn't as smooth as I'd like, but it did have a decent pair of clickers. Meanwhile, the HP Chromebook 15's touch-screen panel had some resistance, so it was difficult to paint smoothly, but the screen did keep up with my finger at a solid pace. Or, you can put it on the floor, that also works quite well.I managed to nail 74 words per minute on the typing test, which is slightly above my usual, 70-wpm average.
Center positioning will help those low-end frequencies blend naturally with the waves coming from the right and the left speakers. If the subwoofer is in the list, place it in the center. So, we're guessing that you're certainly pairing a subwoofer too. And by the 'lack', we're particularly indicating towards bass. The main purpose of linking speakers to laptop is to fulfill the lack of rich audio that laptop's weak built-in system can't provide. In this way, the frequencies won't get mixed and you'll get that perfect surrounding blend.
Just don't gather them in one place, put them on the different sides of the laptop.
In case the drivers aren't labeled, you have complete liberty to position them according to your will. Place those drivers on the left and the right side of the laptop. 'L' stands for left and 'R' stands for right. If you observe closely, you'll see that those speakers are labeled with the letters 'L' and 'R'. You have to position those speakers wisely to get the perfect surround sound.