It appears HP is taking the Chromebook market far more seriously than any other player in the country. Just a few months after launching the Chromebook x360 and Chromebook 14, the American PC maker has introduced two more Chromebook offerings for Indian PC buyers. The first is a whole new model called the Chromebook x360 12 and the second is a cheaper variant of the existing Chromebook x360. While the former costs Rs 29,990, the latter costs Rs 34,990. Both machines are powered by an Intel Celeron N4000 CPU.
The Chromebook x360 12, as you can imagine, is a slightly smaller version of the 14-inch Chromebook x360 (also called the Chromebook x360 14) that was launched earlier this year. The new entrant sports a 12-inch LCD touchscreen unit with an HD+ resolution and a 3:2 aspect ratio. It’s powered by an Intel Celeron N4000 “Gemini Lake” Dual-core CPU. The same chip will now be available on the Chromebook x360 as well. HP has not mentioned the RAM variants that both models will be available in. Storage on the Chromebook x360 12 will be a standard 64GB that's expandable up to 256GB using a microSD card. It will come in Ceramic White and Natural Silver colour options.
According to HP, the new Chromebook x360 models—both 12-inch and 14-inch versions, that is—are compatible with the optional USI stylus, which costs Rs 3,999. USI stands for Universal Stylus Initiative and is an industry-standard specification for cross-system styli. Like all Chromebooks, both newly launched machines will run Chrome OS with native support for Android apps and Google Assistant. They will be sold in India with a free one-year subscription to Google One, which should give the user 100GB of extra space on Google Drive among other benefits. They willl also be bundled with a Reliance Jio offer that gives the user 2GB of data per day for a year.
HP launched the Chromebook x360 and Chromebook 14 in India in August this year at a starting price of Rs 44,990 and Rs 22,990, respectively. While the Chromebook x360 was offered with an Intel 8th Gen Core i3 and Core i5 CPU with up to 8GB of RAM, the Chromebook 14 was introduced with an Intel Celeron CPU with 4GB of RAM. Now that the Chromebook x360 is offered with a Celeron option as well, its starting price goes down to Rs 34,990. The Chromebook x360 12, on the other hand, starts at an even lower Rs 29,990. You can read our review of the Chromebook x360 here and the Chromebook 14 here.