With slick design and excellent battery life, the HP Chromebook 14 is a great value for those looking for a basic web browsing machine. It’s more affordable than the Google Pixelbook Go while offering the same screen size. The stylish of a micro-edge HD display and speakers tuned by the audio experts at B&O make for a front-row entertainment experience from the convenience of your Laptop. The ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 serves up some stiffer competition, with a 2-in-1 design, newer components, a metallic construction and more SSD storage – and, you pay more. Get details in HP Chromebook 14-inch HD laptop Intel Celeron N4000 4 GB RAM 32 GB review.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Durable build quality
- Solid Chrome OS performance
- Good Android gaming
- Very good touchpad and touch display
- Affordable.
- Nice keyboard feel.
- Two USB Type-A 2.0 and two USB Type-C 3.1 ports.
Cons
- Keyboard is mushy
- Battery life is poor
- The display lacks pop for productivity work
Specifications – HP Chromebook 14-inch HD laptop Intel Celeron N4000 4 GB RAM 32 GB
- Screen: 14-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display
- Storage: 16GB eMMC
- Ports: 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI, MicroSD slot, headphone jack
- CPU: 1.83GHz Intel Celeron N2940 processor (quad-core, 2MB cache, up to 2.25GHz)
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics
- RAM: 4GB DDR3
- Connectivity: Intel 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
- Camera: HP TrueVision HD webcam
- Weight: 3.74 pounds (1696g)
- Size: 13.54 x 9.45 x 0.7 inches (344mm x 240mm x 18mm) (W x D x H)
Who is this for?
It isn’t particularly a technical powerhouse by modern standards, partly due to Chrome OS’s minimal bloat and speedy performance, but that doesn’t matter. With a 1,366 X 768-resolution display and a 1.1GHz Intel Celeron processor inside, this Chromebook 14 is the mid-tier model that HP offers for budget buyers looking to get productive at home, office or even college students.
Compare HP Chromebook 14-inch HD laptop Intel Celeron N4000 vs ASUS Laptop L210 Ultra Thin Laptop
| HP Chromebook 14-inch HD Laptop, Intel Celeron N4000 | ASUS Laptop L210 Ultra Thin Laptop, 11.6” HD Display, Intel Celeron N4020 | SAMSUNG XE310XBA-K02US Chromebook 4 HD Intel Celeron Processor N4000 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Computer Memory Size | 4 GB | 4 GB | 4 GB |
| CPU Model Manufacturer | Intel | Intel | Intel |
| CPU Speed | 1.1 GHz | 2.8 GHz | — |
| Display Resolution Maximum | 1366 x 768 pixels | 1366 x 768 pixels | — |
| Screen Size | 14 inches | 11.6 inches | 11.6 inches |
| Item Dimensions | 12.82 x 8.6 x 0.7 inches | 11 x 7.5 x 0.67 inches | 11.33 x 7.96 x 0.66 inches |
| Item Weight | 3.20 lbs | 2.31 lbs | 2.43 lbs |
| Operating System | Chrome OS | Windows 10 S | Chrome OS |
| Processor Count | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| RAM Type | DDR4 SDRAM | DDR4 SDRAM | DDR4 SDRAM |
HP Chromebook 14-inch HD laptop Intel Celeron N4000 4 GB RAM 32 GB review
Design
At 3.4 pounds, the HP is a close match for the 3.31-pound Acer Chromebook 514. It measures 0.72 by 13.3 by 8.9 inches, versus the 514’s 0.7 by 12.7 by 9.1 inches. HP and Chrome logos decorate the textured lid, which opens a full 180 degrees. Fairly thick bezels surround the display, while the keys, keyboard deck, and body are all the same color. There’s a moderate amount of flex if you grasp the screen corners or pound the keyboard.
Screen
The 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 screen is bright, crisp, and evenly backlit, with appealing color saturation and contrast. Photos and text appear sharp and crisp on-screen, and its viewing angle is generally good. Colors, contrast, and brightness also matter, and while we can’t subject Chromebooks to our colorimeter for objective results, our subjective impressions were clear. The HP Chromebook 14’s display doesn’t punch outside of its price bracket.
Case
The case itself is entirely plastic, and it does flex and creak some as you adjust the screen or pick it up one-handed. On the bright side, the case doesn’t have any exposed screws, so you don’t need to worry about a loose screen dropping out randomly.
Ports
The left edge features an HDMI-out port, a security lock slot, a USB 3.0 port, a headphone jack, and a MicroSD card slot. Along the right, you’ll find the power connector and two USB 2.0 ports. Ideally, I would have loved if all three USB ports supported USB 3.0, but there’s plenty of connectivity for most users.
Processor & storage – HP Chromebook 14-inch HD laptop Intel Celeron N4000 4 GB RAM 32 GB
The dual-core A4-9120C processor has a clock speed of 1.6GHz and can boost up to 2.4GHz, and while it can easily hop between several open Chrome tabs at once, you’ll hit a ceiling and run into bouts of lag if you push beyond a dozen or so — especially during video playback. Don’t expect problems when working in documents or browsing the web or checking email, but if you’re doing all of that at once while playing Spotify or trying to watch Netflix, there will be slowdowns.
Since Chrome is designed with cloud storage, the thin local storage on the HP Chromebook 14 isn’t as big an issue as it would otherwise be. Still, it gets Google Play Store support, and like latest Chromebooks, you have access to the millions of Android apps, just like you would on an Android phone or tablet. The Chromebook 14 has 32GB of eMMC storage and 4GB of RAM, which are both par for the course at this price tier.
Webcam
The 720p webcam centered above the screen captures images that are soft, bordering on fuzzy and out of focus. My face looked smudged, and my hair was a blur, while the background was dim, and colors were muted. At least there wasn’t much digital noise.
Audio
The Bang & Olufsen-branded speakers above the keyboard offer tinny highs and only a bit of muffled bass, though some midtones come through clearly, and there is enough volume to fill a small room. You’ll find yourself straining to make out overlaying tracks.
Keyboard & trackpad
The trackpad is equally excellent. It’s big and spacious, with plenty of room to mouse around. The whole trackpad is a button, so you don’t have to fiddle around to find the left- and right-click buttons.
Battery
HP claims the Chromebook 14’s 3-cell, 37-watt-hour battery can last over 8 hours on a single charge. We didn’t quite get that long of run time, though. The Chromebook 14 managed 5 hours, 38 minutes on a single charge when playing an HD video file in VLC on loop (50% screen brightness, 50% volume with headphones plugged in).
Heat
Only the underside of the Chromebook 14 reached concerning temperatures after we watched a 15-minute, full-screen trailer on YouTube. Peaking at 108 degrees Fahrenheit, the bottom panel breached our 95-degree comfort threshold.
The rest of the laptop, including the touchpad (77 degrees) and the center of the keyboard (83 degrees), remained well below that mark.
HP Chromebook 14-inch HD laptop Intel Celeron N4000 4 GB RAM 32 GB performance review
Performance is a tricky thing to quantify in a Chromebook, as much of it is dependent on what you’ll want to do, and whether the Chrome OS is particularly well-suited for those tasks. For example, the current version of Chrome includes (very) basic photo-editing tools, limited to brightness and contrast adjustments, plus cropping and rotation. Photoshop it’s not, and since you can’t actually install a program such as Photoshop on a Chromebook, it’s often one of the main examples people call up to show off why a Chrome OS device won’t work for them (iTunes is another oft-cited example). There are a couple of online cloud-based tools that can help with Photoshop-style editing in a pinch, but it’s far from an ideal solution.
The results in the web benchmark, Speedometer 2.0, was a little more evenly matched. The Chromebook 14 scored 27.9 compared to the Acer Chromebook 514 at 24.2, making the AMD model slightly faster. The Samsung Chromebook Plus V2, however, scored a 43.2, demonstrating that there’s more to this benchmark than just the CPU.
In Geekbench 4, the HP Chromebook 14 scored 1,151 in the single-core test and 2,232 in the multi-core test. This compares to the Acer Chromebook 514 with its Pentium N4200 at 1,556 and 4,837, respectively. The AMD CPU was slower even than the Intel Celeron 3965Y in the Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 at 2,107 and 3,646.
In our web browsing test, though, the HP Chromebook 14 lasted for only a little more than seven hours, which is well behind the Acer Chromebook 514’s 11.5 hours and the HP Chromebook x2’s nine and a half hours. And in our video looping test that plays a Full HD Avengers trailer, the HP Chromebook 14 couldn’t make it to seven hours, again behind the Acer Chromebook 514’s 11.5 hours and the HP Chromebook x2’s almost 10 hours.
HP Chromebook 14-inch HD laptop Intel Celeron N4000 4 GB RAM 32 GB customer review
For the $219-$239, worth it!
Having only owned this for a couple days, I think for the price on sale of $219-$239 it’s absolutely worth it.
Pros:
– Display! Even at the regular $289 everyday price, you will NOT find a 1080p, IPS panel looking this good on a device until you hit around maybe $499 before any sale prices kick in. HP rates this at 250 nits, and indoors for those working for home, you will comfortably have it around 70% of that. It does come out of the box at around 1536 x 864, but you can change resolution to be Native 1080p, or max it out at 2194 x 1234. Thin bezels on the left and right side too. Great for watching movies!
– Keyboard – Comfortable key spacing and travel to me for typing quite well on it. I will say it’s overall positive, but the keycaps do feel a little cheap. Again, typing is very comfortable on it so I think it’s something that is good overall.
– Performance – Snappy web browsing performance, and even though the site here lists the Intel Celeron N4000 and an HP rep confirms this… my box said it has the newer Intel Celeron N4020, but even with that, it will stop auto updates at June 2026, not 2028 like other N4020 machines.
– Battery – Mostly web surfing, watching an episode or two of One Piece, and some clips on YouTube, getting over 8.5 hours and that’s with brightness over 80% just because I tend to like it a little brighter. Solid battery life.
– Camera – Webcam looks good in the camera app, maybe a little too bright like over exposing, but not a bad look. 720p. I have seen Chromebooks and WIndows devices cost 2-3 times more with much worse webcams, or none at all. For Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, etc, I think it’s a passable look.
Cons:
– Build. Plastic all over, and it’s a kind of cheap feeling one. I don’t mean that in a deal breaker way, and funny enough it makes the laptop feel lighter than it looks, but my wrists and forearms on the keyboard deck as I type feel… off? I’m coming from an Acer Spin 713 or other aluminum keyboard decks, and this feels not as well built. On a positive, there is very little to no keyboard flex, so the keyboard deck definitely feels reinforced. Again, not a deal breaker, but upon touching it I can feel this is where they get good performance and a great display for under $300.
Note that this laptop is still a Chromebook, so it does NOT run Microsoft Windows. The OS, I mean. Microsoft Office apps it CAN run, but it’s the Google Play Store apps or the Office Online version. For personal use, I think most people may be fine switching considering that Google Docs is free and for basic, personal use is fine and cloud connects to our ANdroid phones natively, or can sync to iPhones by downloading those apps form the App Store. For students needing Office, if you’re primarily writing APA/MLA format essays, absolute basics in Excel or smaller Powerpoints, those Office apps should be fine to use with your student login or your own 365 license, but it ONLY works with 365. Office Home licenses CANNOT work on ChromeOS.
If you’re primarily using it for home use (banking, YouTube, social media, online browsing), I see no reason to buy a Windows device in the same price range. Chromebooks are much snappier for these tasks at this price point, and updates are seamless and non-intrusive.
If you’re needing programs made for Windows, or are an “expert user” of Microsoft Office apps, or need Publisher or Access, stick to Windows, but absolutely get an SSD for better speed, and ideally 8GB RAM and a Core i3/AMD Ryzen 3 for a good experience.
Elementary/Middle school kids learning remotely, this device is perfect for. You can use Canvas, Zoom, Office if needed through the Play Store, and for parents you can use Family Link to lock it down or set time limits with a supervised Gmail account that is compatible with Chromebooks. If my niece didn’t prefer smaller devices with a touch screen, I would gift this to her and have no issues. For now, my sister has an older 2015 model Chromebook that will get updates until 2021, but at this price and this holiday season, I will probably gift this to her as an upgrade and not have to stress it for at least 5-6 years.
By ErzaScralet, Reviewer at Best Buy
Alternative – HP Chromebook 14-inch HD laptop Intel Celeron N4000 4 GB RAM 32 GB
The first challenger is the Acer Chromebook 514, which is slightly more expensive at $350 for an Intel Celeron N3350, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of eMMC storage. It has a slightly better display and better battery life with an all-aluminum chassis that’s more robust and attractive.
You could also step up a bit in price and size and consider the Acer Chromebook Spin 15. That’s $450 for a Pentium N4200, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage, and it’s also a 2-in-1 and makes a great Netflix binging machine.
If your budget can handle even more of an investment and you can step up to a 15-inch laptop, then the Lenovo Yoga Chromebook C630 is a good option. It comes in at $540 with an 8th-gen quad-core Intel Core i5-8250U CPU, which runs Chrome OS very quickly indeed, and it’s well-built and attractive with a display that’s no worse than the Chromebook 14’s (but not much better, either).
