announcing the second — and it’s a lot higher end.

HP goes up against the iPad Pro with its $599 Chromebook x2

• By Jacob Kastrenakes 
• on April 9, 2018 8:00 am

Image: HP

Two weeks ago, Acer announced the first tablet running Chrome OS, and today, HP is announcing the second — and it’s a lot higher end.

It’s called the Chromebook x2, and it’s very much designed to go after the iPad Pro. It has a 12.3-inch screen (the larger iPad Pro has a 12.9-inch screen), docks with a keyboard cover, and supports stylus input.

The big benefit here is that the full package is available for much, much cheaper: the Chromebook x2 costs $599 in its base configuration and comes bundled with the keyboard cover and stylus. The iPad starts at $649 for the (smaller) tablet on its own, and you’ll have to spend $1,067 if you want the 12.9-inch model with a keyboard and pen. So if you’re thinking about using a tablet (with a nontraditional operating system) as a portable computer, HP will get you there for way cheaper.

The Chromebook x2 has a Core m3 processor from Intel’s prior generation of Kaby Lake chips, 4GB of RAM (it can be configured with 8GB, too), 32GB of storage, a 2400 x 1600 resolution, stereo speakers, a 5-megapixel front camera, a 13-megapixel rear camera, two USB-C ports, a microSD card slot, a headphone jack, and an estimated 10.5 hours of battery life. It weighs a little bit more than an iPad Pro, and it’s a little bit thicker than an iPad Pro, but not by much.

In a briefing, HP also emphasized that the keyboard was designed to hold firmly enough to the tablet that it should feel like a clamshell laptop when the two are connected. I haven’t seen the Chromebook x2 in person, but HP’s images make it look relatively nice — like a combination of Google’s Pixelbook, with its metal and glossy white top, and Microsoft’s Surface Laptop, with its soft and colorful keyboard.