Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

UPDATE May 2, 2015: Keyboard has stopped working. I have dropped the review from a 5 star to a 2 star. I will be returning this chromebook, scroll below for more details. I shall begin by stating what a Chromebook is and what it isn't. What it is: A chromebook is a laptop with a online web based operating system. Meaning it is highly dependent upon an internet connection. This however should not be a turn off for multiple reasons: 1. You can work offline. So yes, you can indeed do things such as write documents, make spreadsheets, edit photos and even listen to music(the music being located on your harddrive). Your documents and everything else will be synced to the cloud the next time you're connected to the Internet. 2. This shouldn't be too much of a factor since we live in a day and age where we are surrounded by wifi in every corner. Even in the rare case that you do not have internet, you can do as much as you would on a regular laptop with no internet. There is no real difference. So don't let that be too much of a factor in your decision making. What it isn't: The chromebook is just one beautifully designed browser so to speak and because of this, there are some limitations as to what a chromebook can do. Think of a chromebook as a container and all it can run is a web browser. If its on the web, you can run it on the chromebook, if it isn't then you can't. Here is an example. If you have the youtube app and select it, it will just open up the chrome browser and load the youtube page. Apps essentially are just shortcuts to their web pages. So again, if you select the google docs icon at the bottom of the screen, it will open up the browser and load the web page for google docs. Since it really is all cloud based, you can not really install "software" like you would on a normal PC. You can download apps from the Google Chrome Store. Notice how I said Chrome Store and not Play Store. These are apps made for the chrome browser and not apps made for mobile phones; so don't expect a phone app to be compatible on the chrome browser. Another limitation is the hardware. Because this is a cloud based operating system, you can not install complex software such as photoshop. Adobe however has announced that they are working on a beta to work on chromebooks. That being said, photoshop, in order to work, will have to be on the cloud. In conclusion: If the software doesn't run in a browser, then you can't have it on a chromebook. Review Criteria: So now onto the actual product review. I am reviewing this product based on its capabilities as a chromebook. I will not be reviewing it compared to regular laptops. If i did compare it to a regular laptop, the laptop would win because of its ability to process and install software. Keep in mind however this can vary depending what you intend on using the laptop for. Operating System: This computer is intended on easy use. Things such as writing documents, surfing the web, watching videos, and having online web sessions. Everything is integrated with your Gmail account. This is great because if someone else wanted to use your laptop, they would log in with their own gmail account and it would preload all their preferences, bookmarks and documents. The operating system is sleek and you can tell that google spent a lot of time on researching the best way to make the operating system simple and efficient. You can't use software such as microsoft word since it is not featured within the Google Chrome Store, however you can edit word files using google docs and google drive. Note that if you did not save these files physically within your laptop, it may take a few seconds to load the document if it is long since it requires an online connection. I do recommend saving documents physically onto the laptop because the files are only a few kb's and you have 16GB worth of space on your SSD, so theoretically you can store thousands of documents on your laptop which is more then enough. I also suggest this so that you may work on existing documents while offline. You can do many thing such as change your profile picture and wallpaper of the desktop. Its like any operating system except everything is done within the Google Chrome Browser. You can click the full screen key to make it seem like a full window and get rid of that browser feeling. A highlight of it being on the cloud is the "built-in" antivirus. Since you really don't have a real hard drive it would be very rare to acquire a virus on this laptop. Just one of the perks of being a cloud based OS. Hardware: One of my favorite features is it doesn't have a fan! No more annoying little sounds in the background and over heating. I read a lot of complaints about the screen quality and I have to say the screen is good. Its not crystal clear, but it does the job and displays things at full resolution. As for the complaints about it being too dim, it has keys to adjust the brightness level which actually is more then enough. Don't forget, that this laptop is less then $300 so don't expect an insane crystal clear resolution.The speakers are of nice quality as any laptop would be, and since it has a Solid State Drive (SSD) it is much faster at processing then a regular HDD. It takes about a second to turn off and on. The laptop is made of a quality build and certainly does not look cheap. I have only had the laptop for only a day and have already received compliments. It is very light weight for a 14" inch screen compared to other ones within the market. The built in web cam isn't bad, but it isn't the greatest either. It tends to have a lot of static however and appears pixelated. Not amazing, but it gets it job done for video convos. I would give the camera a 3/5. The trackpad is very responsive, nice looking and appears to be made of strong material.The keyboard on the other hand looks nice, however feels somewhat cheap when you run your hands over it. When I press a key it doesn't feel "solid" enough. They feel thin. The keyboard would receive a 3.5/5. This model comes with 3 USB ports. (One of them being USB 3.0 and the other two are just 2.0). It also comes with an HDMI port and a MICRO SD port. It does not however come with a regular SD port, so you won't be able to plug in your regular SD chip to view all your pictures from a camera. Instead, you would have to most likely plug it in through the USB port. Another interesting thing is that the laptop has no battery. So essentially if the laptop battery over time gets poor, you won't be able to replace it, without opening it up. That shouldn't be too much of an issue since most likely by that time you will buy a newer model. So in conclusion, cosmetic wise the laptop receives a 5/5. It looks beautiful, but for the physical hardware I would rate it a 4.2/5 because of things such as the webcam, keyboard and lack of a regular SD port. One important thing that I did not mention is the size of the charger. It is very short, small and appears to be cheaply built. That would be my only complaint to HP: to make better and longer chargers. Compared to other Chromebooks this is one of the best and that is why it receives a 5. I would give it a 4.6 but amazon only allows whole numbers. At less then $300 dollars, this is an amazing laptop for everyday use such as going to cafe's and taking notes in class. If you need a computer to do complex tasks such as editing videos and programming, then this is not the computer for you. If its the other way around, I would highly recommend it because it really does do all that you need and it is very light. December 8, 2014 UPDATE: I have had this for over a week now, and I still love my Chromebook. I do stand firm with this being the best 14 inch Chromebook currently in the market. As for the battery life I was surprised that it can last more than 8 hours. Last night I watched movies for over 5 hours, and surprisingly the Chromebook still had 5 remaining hours of charge left. As for those reviews about the screen quality, yes it is a drawback in a sense, but like I said before, the quality is better than the other 14 inch Chromebooks available. It is also due to the screen that it consumes less battery, and you have to acknowledge that you paid less then $300 for. So until development of better quality screens for lower costs are developed, the HP Chromebook 14, compared to other chromebooks within the market,is the best. I still hold firm to my 4.6 rating of this product. May 2, 2015 UPDATE: Do not purchase this unless you only are going to use it for just 6 months. After 5-6 months it looks like I will have to be returning this because this is unacceptable. I've been meaning to post earlier about the quality of the base but never got to it until yesterday where half my keyboard failed. The computer is so thin that you can tell there is lots of empty space within the base of the computer where the keyboard is located. Because of that, the computer base can easily bend inward or outward because it is not DURABLE enough. Because it is so thin and durable, half the keyboard has stopped working. Those include the "Y, H, N, U, J, K, M" keys. They are just not making any contact when you press those keys unless you punch them down. I am actually using my other laptop to this this because the chromebook is unusable without those keys. I had a very enjoyable experience but because of its poor physical design and short duration use, I will have to give this a 2 star rating. If you are reading this HP, please focus on creating a more durable base that is not so elastic. I took great caution and care with this laptop, yet it still failed. Very unfortunate.