HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook review: Stuck halfway between Chromebook and laptop

Sitting down in front of the $329 HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, one could be forgiven for thinking this is just another in a long line of slim plastic laptops with budget prices. I previously reviewed the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z, an ultrabooklike 15-inch laptop with a similar black plastic body, and this looks like its slightly smaller cousin.

6.9

HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook

The Good

The <b>HP Pavilion Chromebook 14</b> feels more like a traditional laptop than other Chromebooks. Its big screen and Chrome's improved offline capabilities make a better case for the category.

The Bad

Other Chromebooks perform better and run longer. The limited Chrome OS is still not for everyone, or even for most. This model lacks the mobile broadband that makers of other Chromebooks have touted as a must-have feature.

The Bottom Line

The HP Pavilion Chromebook 14 advances the argument for Chrome as a low-cost mainstream computing environment, but the laptop's most noteworthy feature is a slightly bigger screen.

Besides having a larger screen than other currently available Chromebooks, making it feel more like a standard Windows laptop, The Pavilion 14 also has a familiar Intel Inside sticker on its wrist rest. In this case, it indicates an Intel Celeron processor, a low-power chip also found in some Acer and Samsung Chromebooks, but rarely if ever seen in a Windows laptop anymore.

As with the smaller 11- and 12-inch Chromebooks we've reviewed, this system operates almost entirely within the Chrome Web browser, which largely looks and feels the same as the Chrome Web browser you may be using right now on your Windows or Mac OS computer. But, that browser window is almost this computer's entire universe. I say almost, because Chrome OS now has a more pronounced (if still rudimentary) file system than the very first Chromebooks did.

This HP model only includes 16GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage, but Acer's C7 Chromebook includes a standard 320GB platter hard drive. In either case, photo, music, and video files can all be stored and sorted there, by downloading online or sideloading from a USB drive or SD card.

This HP model sits right in the middle of the range of other current Chromebooks, but often not to its benefit. There are less expensive models, as well as ones with mobile broadband antennas (originally pitched as a must-have feature for Chrome), more onboard storage, and longer battery life, and there's even Google's oddball $1,299 Retina Display-style touch-screen Pixel Chromebook. Aside from its larger 14-inch screen, the Pavilion 14 Chromebook is a competent effort, but doesn't stand out in any of these categories.