A seemingly improved design, and a $25 gift card for your trouble
Following worry of faulty chargers that shipped with the HP Chromebook 11, Google has started sending out free replacements. Although under the crunch of the holiday season deliveries may be a bit delayed, Google managed to get the charger out to us in pretty short order.
The charger, to our surprise, is physically smaller than the original — we somewhat expected a larger casing to provide for better heat dissipation and circuitry. It is close in size to the charger brick that shipped with the original Nexus 7, actually, but is sleeker and flat on the sides. Labeled "Chrome" on either side, the charger is tiny and generally simple.
Hit the break for some side-by-side comparison shots of the old and new chargers, and see where the differences have been made.
Just like the original, this replacement charger has a USB cable that's built into the brick — don't want to mess around with non-approved cables on this high-output charger — that's about six feet long. The power prongs on the new version flip in and out for travel and use like many other modern laptop chargers, which is a nice touch.
We're looking at the same 3A at 5.25V output here, so you shouldn't see any noticeable differences in charging times between the two. The main differences you'll notice here are a higher quality and more attractive build, a smaller footprint and presumably lower chance of catching on fire while in use.
The replacement charger also includes a sincere note from "The Chromebook Team" apologizing for the inconvenience of having your charger recalled, along with a hefty $25 Google Play gift card. Hard to shake a stick at that.
We'll be boxing up our original charger to send back to Google as part of the recall, and be sure to chime in with any other noticeable changes with this new charger. We're sure more than a few people will be happy to get back to normal usage of their HP Chromebook 11.
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