HP's gorgeous Chromebook 13 is thinner, lighter than MacBook Pro

The sad truth is most Chromebooks are cheap and underpowered — $200 to $300 laptops that are just barely good enough to browse the web, stream video and edit a couple of Google documents. 

But Chromebooks are growing up. Designed closely with Google, HP's new Chromebook 13 is a premium Chromebook that offers a lot, both in terms of design and performance.

Starting at $499, the Chromebook 13 is more than the typical Chromebook, but not nearly as hard on the wallet as Google's Pixel 2, which starts at $999.99.

And whereas most Chromebooks are usually thick 1-inch clunkers, the Chromebook 13 is not. At 0.5 inch, its brushed aluminum body is thinner than a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (0.71 inch) and only a hair thicker than the HP's ultra-thin Spectre 13.3 (0.4 inch). The Chromebook 13's thinness also translates to lightness — it's only 2.86 pounds. Read more...